First Snow

Hello all,

Sky above corner temple lot.

Farrell writing this week. We received our first snow -- just a 1/2" and then it melted away. Today (Sunday) feels like a late November day in Utah. Most of the leaves are off the trees. While the rest of the lower 48 were relishing in their view of the northern lights again which turned out to be spectacular, we stepped outside several times, looked around, didn't see anything (clouds) and finally went to bed. Of course, if we had put a little more effort into it to drive a few miles north, we would have been in the middle of the show.

First snow backyard.

We've had some especially sweet visits this week at the visitors' center. Two individuals came with the young missionaries. They are investigating the church. One was a lady in her early 80's. What an original Alaska story she had. She married in Oregon (late 60s) and her husband said he didn't want to live in the city. They bought an old bus, drove it to Fairbanks, parked it, hopped on a plane to fly 60 miles north of the Artic Circle, took a boat up a rugged river, picked a spot to build a cabin and started to work. This was in September. Oh, and they had a five yr. old daughter. He used a chainsaw to built it into the side of a hill. It was insulated and chinked with moss. They survived three winters there. She made it sound like it was just as normal and pleasant as a modern home. Unfortunately, he was killed in a plane crash in the early 80's. That is not an unusual story here. Weather is usually the deciding factor. We explained to her our beliefs in marriage for eternity. I asked her if she ever remarried and her response was, "Why would I, never found anyone as good as my husband." She has read the Book of Mormon twice. The other visitor was a 72 year old man. Such a sharp and spiritual man. He understood everything we told him. Much of it he had believed all his life. Anyway, good times and good people.

Visitors at Anchorage Alaska Temple.

We enjoyed a visit from the Achievement Day girls and their leaders. We had a prayer, spoke, showed them a short movie, and told them about the progress of the new temple. Afterward they went over to the the operating Anchorage Alaska Temple to visit with President and Sister Newman, who are also the grandparents to three of the young girls. They were able to go into the waiting room for a few minutes and visit with the them. They were so precious.

Existing Anchorage Alaska Temple view.

                                                                             One man at church today, who hadn't seen the temple site for three weeks (operating temple was closed for it's annual maintenance for two weeks), just could not get over the progress. If we miss a couple of days, things really change. The often work on Saturday while we aren't here. The perimeter wall ICF's keep reaching for the sky. We have concrete pours a couple times per week. The iron workers (assemblers for the structural steel) showed up this week and began welding. They use a propane weed burner (at least that's what I call it) to heat up the concrete embedded steel plate before they weld a "knife edge" on it. That is another steel plate with holes drilled in it to mate with a horizontal steel beam. The sparks from the welding are a brilliant bright pick. A crane will start swinging columns and beams into place shortly. Everyone wants to know if they are going to have it enclosed by winter. The answer is no, but hopefully enough in place that they can enclose sections with plastic. They did get the main gas line tapped into from Brayton Drive and installed so if they can find a big enough heater, they can warm up quite a space surrounded with plastic. Apparently, a 2" gas line at 60psi is a lot of BTUs.

We did get our time lapse camera installed several feet higher on the trailer so we can see the progress. We do seven day time lapse sequences and have been doing them since February. Fun to watch a week compressed to a minute and a half. Also now using our 360 degree camera. We can set it in the middle of an area and with one snap get a 360 degree spherical view of the whole area. You can pan up down and all around.

Corner temple lot off Brayton Drive.

The sad news of the week was I finally got up the courage to use the "company" drone to do some picture taking. I had read up on everything and knew the details but had never flown one. I flew it for about an hour having a great time. Just about when I thought I had it all figured out I let it get just out of sight. I got an error that said the camera gimbal was stuck. That was not good. Then I noticed from the control screen it wasn't flying any more i.e. elevation went to 0. That was definitely not good. I looked where I thought it had gone down to no avail -- the backyard of our residence. I had taken off from the temple parking lot. I was searching through the bushes behind the existing temple -- that probably looked interesting on the security system. I finally realized that the drone had a find function via GPS. So … got in the car and tracked it down to the side of our house. Yes, it had crashed but the damage was not catastrophic -- no broken glass or plastic. The built in collision avoidance didn't avoid the little tree limbs in the area. It has no avoidance function above -- just to the sides and down. Of course I was extremely embarrassed. The general contractor uses this drone several times a week and it has become an essential piece of equipment. What to do...? I went and bought another one, the same evening, from the local Best Buy. I had wanted to have my own anyway :-). So with a little swapping around, the contractor is still in business. The damaged unit is in for repair (2 weeks). If that is successful, I'll swap them again. Who would have thought that would be part of a mission experience.

Having dinner tonight with the Taylors. He is the Alaska State Attorney General. They have the most interesting stories. He was invited to talk to the local Baptist group recently about parental rights. He used New Testament scriptures for most of his points. One parishioner came up to him afterwards to complement him on using more scriptures than the pastor. It was not his original intent to do that but was impressed to take that route. As members of the church, we are counseled to avoid contention. That doesn't mean avoid differences of opinion. I have talked to him about how he does that as a lawyer -- no small feat. Basically comes down to have civil discourse and act with integrity -- not his words but mine. I don't know that I could pull that off in all circumstances.

The best experience of the week was the one Hudson (grandson) and Laurel (his mother/our daughter) made possible for us. He was baptized Saturday morning by his dad and we were able to watch and hear from Alaska. We love him and are so proud of him. As usual we saw the hand of the Lord in this in a simple way. Our internet has had problems and has been mostly down for a few days. I was checking it out in anticipation of the baptism Saturday morning -- not working. Time came for the baptism, the internet came back on, we participated for the full time and then disconnected. I went back to connect again and it was down. We learned tonight that the problem was a utility company putting in an underground fiber optic conduit. They had nicked the internet cable. Internet has been down all day but seems to be working again now.

We love you all and know that God loves you. He knows and loves you personally -- not just in aggregate with all the other people in the  world. We don't have the details of how He does that but it is a fact. #ThinkCelestial

Love always, Elder & Sister Badger