Pushing On

Hello Friends and Family,

Farrell writing this week :-).

This has been pretty much a "normal" week. I decided to add a couple of pictures so you could see what we are up to. This picture is taken from https://churchofjesuschristtemples.org/anchorage-alaska-temple/ It's not an official church website and these are not our pictures. This picture below is a drone shot of almost the entire site where the Anchorage Alaska Temple is currently under construction. It was taken on August 11.

The existing Temple in upper center surrounded by beautiful greenery and flowers. Everywhere around here is green. The patron and worker Temple parking lot is the L-shaped strip around the upper edge.

Our Visitors' Center is the trailer in the parking lot to the upper right with the gold ring around the top. From the middle window we can look out on the site at the construction activity. A significant development this week was removal of some of the dirt that recently blocked our view. 

The silver objects below the visitors' center are three 60" pipes laid in parallel with each other going East to West and about 60' long. They are an infiltration system for storm water. Surface water flows into them and drains slowly into a bed of gravel underneath the pipes like a French Drain. They are now completely covered with gravel and dirt.

The blue green at the bottom and left are insulated concrete forms (ICFs). They are going in as the perimeter wall of the temple. Tall scaffolding surrounds the wall. A stockpile of additional ICFs are on the left. These blocks fold open leaving a space in between two walls of dense 2" Styrofoam. The walls are held together with rigid plastic webbing. Multiple pieces of rebar (reinforcing steel) are placed in the blocks running horizontally and vertically. The steel is about 3/4" diameter. The space is then pumped full of concrete. The foam is left in place. The walls will go up about 24' tall.

The concrete walls to the right are the "basement" font area. They are about 12' tall giving some perspective of size. To the left of that area are "step footings" and footing forms for the tower of the Temple. We had a concrete pour on Friday which filled all the wall forms and most of the footing forms.

In the picture you can see standing water upper center and other places. As Kitty mentioned last week, we had lots of rain. Estimates range from 3.5" to 7".

The little tan building to the left we call the "Conex" building where we serve cookies for the workers on Wednesdays. They went through eight dozen (about 30 people). All provided by the Eagle River Stake. We had fun noticing which ones went first. Top of the list was one with white chocolate chunks and raspberries. Second was pumpkin chocolate chip (lots of chips). They loved them. We also help answer any questions with various literature -- Family History booklets, Book of Mormons, etc. There are also hard hat stickers and glow in the dark silicone wristbands which we designed.

We go out into the construction zone two to three times a day to say hi, briefly visit with the workers, and take pictures. Kitty is the camera operator and I'm usually asking a question or two about the materials or what is happening. Safety is a big deal. It is a congested site with heavy equipment -- forklifts, front end loaders, dozers, track hoes, skid steers, and moving constantly trucks. With my background I am very aware of safety and so can usually see areas we should stay away from. Other hazards are trenches, overhead scaffolding, piles of materials, uneven ground, etc. etc. They are hoping to get a layer of asphalt in before winter which will change everything. The heavy equipment will move off and snow removal will be possible.

It is all kinds of fun to closely see a Temple under construction. This is a rendering of the new Temple (close to what it will look like when it's done). The current Temple entrance points North; the new entrance will point South. The picture below hangs outside the entrance to our Visitors' Center.

We have a new Temple President, President Hobbs, who was a counselor in the previous presidency. President Metcalf was released due to health reasons. Both of these men we know well, love them, and certainly enjoy the association. Several changes were made in the temple schedule making it easier on patrons timewise. These were independent of the changes made church wide. For example, in a sealing session where families are sealed together by proxy for deceased ancestors, we used to have up to 16 people in one room acting as the proxies. In 90 minutes you might get to participate a couple of times. Now there are 6 people in a 40 minute session. You perform the same number of ordinances in half the time with no waiting.

These pictures above are of our Visitors' Center. We have such sweet experiences here. Sometimes there are lots of visitors and sometimes few. Most share their feelings about the Temple. They come from all over the lower 48 and locally. We love their visits and have some very spiritual tender experiences with them. The children love the visit. I have been collecting some show and tell samples of construction materials from the site like a piece of the ICF block, rebar, membrane that waterproofs the concrete, and a piece of the 10" PVC water line that encircles the building. I'm looking for a few more samples as they become available. You can see more pictures by doing a Google Maps and searching for Anchorage Alaska Temple Visitors Center.

Bike ride on Chester & Campbell Creek trails.

It hasn't been all work. We went for a long bike ride yesterday with another fun senior missionary couple (the Cox's). It was great and a beautiful day (thank goodness for ebikes). We enjoyed seeing ducks on Taku Lake. The Cox's were in the MTC with us, and they go home to Malad ID in less than a month. We will surely miss them. 

Taku Lake, Anchorage 

Another senior couple, the Newman's, just got transferred to Salcha, which is 396 miles North of us, near North Pole AK. We probably won't see them again until our mission Christmas Party. They have also become treasured friends. The Anderson's (he handled all the mission finances) left and were replaced by the Jenkens who we just met and are looking forward to getting to know. The Gailey's are in Soldotna and are relatively new. We did meet them in Valdez on a mission sponsored trip and then had lunch with them here last month. I think they are coming up in a couple of weeks to go to the Temple. We have convinced them to stay with us and then get all other senior couples willing to go to the Alaska State Fair in Palmer in a couple of weeks.

We can feel the weather changing. There are a few leaves turning yellow and falling on the front lawn. The big deal is the fireweed which blooms from the bottom up. When it tops out they say fall is two weeks away. It is in various stages all across the area. We biked to Goose Lake which has a beach and is used for swimming and there wasn't anyone in the water. School started Aug. 15 which for kids means fall is here.

Have a wonderful week. Stay safe out there. We love and miss you. Keep in touch! #ThinkCelestial

Love, Elder & Sister Badger