Exciting Announcement

Hello All,

Farrell writing this in between General Conference sessions this morning. The talks and music have been so uplifting and inspiring. The emphasis was to feel the Savior's greater love. The talks can be watched or listened to again at:                https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/feature/general-conference?lang=eng

We have billowing dark clouds today with the sun shining underneath. It smelled so much like rain yesterday that I thought we were going to get drenched -- just a very light sprinkle as we were out on the site. That was an answer to prayer.

Existing Anchorage Alaska Temple

The current Anchorage Alaska temple has been closed for a couple of weeks for the annual cleaning. Fire systems service people have come and gone & then yesterday the carpet cleaners. They put a temporary bright orange curtain at the front entrance and then ran their truck hoses through the doorway. In the meantime I was taking the opportunity to fill up our Visitors' Center water tank. That means running a hose across the parking lot from the temple 250'. Last time I did it in October it took hours. This time apparently the hose was better and I found the tank running over in just a couple of hours. Anyway it is done. They were going to fill it with a water truck but as usual I get impatient (after a five day wait) and offered to assist. It has been a bit hard for me to sit back on a construction project and watch everyone else work. We thoroughly enjoy the workers, their friendliness, and good nature. Kitty is motivated to spend more time learning Spanish as some of the crews don't speak English.

4 April 2025 Courtesy of Jonathan Hughes

It has been a very busy week in the construction world. We had a major milestone with the first concrete pour that covers about a 1/3 of the main floor. The crew was amazing. They laid down 120 cubic yards in a couple hours and then finished the floor with two large double power trowels that had seats  for the operators. Other crews watched in amazement. It turned out very smooth. Next day they saw cut the expansion lines. The concrete was poured over lots and lots of hydronic tubing stapled down to 2" foam board placed on top of a bright yellow plastic vapor barrier. That was Friday morning. 

We were praying for the rain to hold off during the pour because most of the current ceiling is only corrugated steel with lots of perforations for pipes, ducts etc. We had only a few raindrops and no drips through the roof. They have now started to finish the roof surface. It is multilayered and somewhat complicated. On top of the decking, first to go down is DensDeck, which is some kind of fiberglass reinforced water resistant and fireproof sheetrock strong enough to walk on. It is screwed into the steel deck with big washers and lots of screws.

4 April 2025 Courtesy of Jonathan Hughes

Then a self adhesive heavy membrane goes on. Next is a flat piece of 6" thick insulating Styrofoam which is glued down with a bright blue expanding foam. That gets another layer of foam that has been pre-tapered to direct water to the many roof drains. Total insulation varies up to a foot and a half thick. It gets covered with a different kind of board which is also glued on. The top is the actual roofing surface, a very thick & heavy PVC type material. It extends up and over the parapet walls which have been caped with a wood beam angled to shed water back to the roof. That means no water drips off the roof down the face of the granite. That wood beam finally gets a beautiful metal flashing cap. Picture updates can be found on this site: https://churchofjesuschristtemples.org/anchorage-alaska-temple/photographs/

Apologize for getting off on this tangent but I think it is pretty amazing. Many other activities are in progress. We are up to around 50-60 workers and 10 doz. cookies a week. That is a lot of cookies on Wednesdays. We are about to move on to the 3rd Stake to supply them. The current Anchorage Stake wondered if they could volunteer for another couple of weeks. They have been donating since the beginning of the year. We have learned that families love making cookies for the workers--almost as much as the workers like getting them. It's something they can do on their schedule and it's not too burdensome.

We are in the process of revamping our Visitors' Center presentations. A one terabyte SSD card plugged into the back of the TV has been the norm. We have run up against limitations on the TV operating system so now transitioning to my tablet which easily lets me display websites, pictures, video etc. It takes a bit for me to organize it to make it immediately accessible. We have two young people groups coming this week so that is the present motivation. Another friend, who is not a member of the church we have gotten to know, also plans on showing up. She is very intelligent (talks knowledgeably on most subjects), a writer, in her late 60's, Jewish, knows most of the details of her ancestry & recently lost a son to Fentanyl, etc. How we desire to bring blessings into her life through the Savior.

We were deeply touched by the exciting announcement in General Conference of a new temple in Spanish Fork UT! Our assigned temple in Utah was the Payson Temple, a 25 minute drive. It's a beautiful temple, but two temples were actually closer, both of the ones in Provo. We assume, since it's Utah, that this new one will be a large temple. There is a lot of land in Spanish Fork and it will be a joy keeping tabs on it's progress. I worked in Spanish Fork at the mouth of the canyon for 27 1/2 years before commuting to SLC for 12 years. What a blessing to that and surrounding communities. This is the ninth temple in Utah County. Latter-day Saints settled Spanish Fork in 1851, home to about 50,000 residents today where 90% of the population are members of the Church. This will be the 31st temple in Utah either in operation, under renovation, under construction or announced. These are in preparation to get us all ready for the second coming of our Savior.

Spanish Fork Utah Temple Announced.

My devotional message this week to the workers was about the Resurrection of Jesus. That belief is commonly shared among Christians but not necessarily that it is universal for mankind as a gift from Christ. It also means our physical natures will be made perfect. At this Easter time of year, I rejoice at that outcome for life. We know that we have not lost those who have died. It feels so right to know that we will have their association again. 

We love you and wish you all the best. #Think Celestial

Elder & Sister Badger