Lots of Visitors

Dear Friends & Family,

Since summer is almost here in Alaska it has been making us think back over the last year or so.

Farrell taking a short rest on bike ride

We received our mission call 14 months ago, went into the MTC almost 9 months ago, and have been here in Anchorage for exactly 8 months. That puts us nearly 25% of the way through our mission. We spent last Spring and Summer in multiple training sessions and months getting our home in Mapleton ready for our absence and the move-in of the Barons. The packing part was the most taxing. The 10 day drive up on the ALCAN highway was the best and most relaxing.

Tony Knowles Coastal Trail

Our time here has been full of a whole range of experiences. The highlight is all the wonderful people we have met. We love entertaining and being invited to dinner. We love their company and enjoy sumptuous meals. They are usually potluck. We love the way the Alaskans do this. We show up at someone's house and have no idea if we are the only extras or if 20-30 other people were also invited. These people usually come from all walks of life. Some are members of our church while others are not. Multiple ethnic backgrounds are the norm. We find Family History is common ground. Many have kids coming and going between here and BYU-Idaho or Provo. Medical professionals are abundant -- most from Utah. They moved here because they can do better financially. They come for a few years and stay for a lifetime.

Perennials blooming

Early on we were involved in many service opportunities. Many of which we had to come up with on our own--no one gave us any specific instructions in that realm. Thanks to Kitty they worked out. We have had some involvement with the younger missionaries but not a lot. We have had a lot of involvement with the other Sr. missionaries and have made life-long friends. Everything changed in February when the temple construction project started officially, first with demolition of a Stake Center and then site work.

We are now deep into the construction of the new temple and enjoying it all. Associating with the workers is great. Documenting all of it is challenging. Kitty takes 100s of pictures weekly, deletes some, resizes some, and labels them with date, exact location, perspective directions, etc. We send some into SLC in our weekly report and the rest we turn in at the end of the construction 

Angel Moroni

The visitor count continues to rise. We just happened to be in our little visitors' center Saturday evening. We were getting an early start on our report since we had extended family arriving Sunday. Visitors kept coming and coming. That seems to be the norm -- we get ready to leave and the visitors come:) We have been fine tuning our informal conversations with them and are hopefully getting much better. Most visitors are members of our church. They come from all over the US. Many are on vacation, heading on a cruise, visiting family, or starting a new job.

The deep trenching for the temple utilities is deep -- 10-12' down. The basement (baptismal font) area has been dug for footings including step footings coming up to the main level. Those step footings are just a structural element but remind us of ancient South American or Mayan pyramids. They are not, but have a resemblance. We just saw a picture of Mayan ruins at Costco advertising travel and had to laugh. They look very similar! It was a big deal to have concrete forms going in this week. Everything is put in place with lasers and GPS. We don't think we have seen one tape measure or string. 

One young moose in middle of picture left of tree

We chalked up another bike ride on the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail on Memorial Day. It is an easy, well groomed trail running along where the Turnagain Arm, Knik Inlet and Cook Inlet all come together. Turnagain Arm is a waterway into the northwestern part of the Gulf of Alaska. It is one of two narrow branches at the north end of Cook Inlet, the other being Knik Arm. Turnagain is subject to climate extremes and large tide ranges. Wikipedia

It's so lush and beautiful. It crosses Earthquake Park where an entire bluff slid into the ocean during the 9.2 magnitude 1964 earthquake. We saw three moose -- a cow and two last year's calves along the trail so made a decision to retreat. Four legged moose at 35 mph are faster than ebikes at 20 mph. However, they seemed very content munching away on fresh vegetation and usually just ignore us.

Dipnets Anchorage Costco

If you are an Alaska resident, you can pick up one of the 5' dipnets sold at the local Costco and go salmon fishing. They have a 16' detachable handle. Who knew Costco sold these?

We have house guests for a few days. Kitty's first cousin once removed, Terry Egan, and her daughter, Melissa arrived this afternoon. They are here on business and for fun. We are enjoying their company. Both are from Minneapolis which is a direct 5.5 hour flight. We have a busy day planned with them tomorrow. More next week. #Think Celestial

Love to All,

Elder & Sister Badger