Happy Thanksgiving Nov 29

 This was such a happy week. I enjoyed most of all reading all of the #GiveThanks posts you, and others,  made on Facebook and Instagram. I felt bad I didn't post more. I have more to learn about how to find and post pictures, memes, and other media. But it's a start. We spoke in Sacrament meeting today by zoom. At the start of the meeting I had sound but our video camera wasn't on. I had no help but I figured out how to get the camera on by the time we had to speak. I think it is teaching an old dog new tricks to learn how to use modern tech. It makes me think of my Grandma Ruth who never learned to drive. When she was widowed at age 59, she felt so bad she couldn't drive and disliked being dependent on others for rides.  But she felt she was too old to learn. She tried once to learn to drive in the church parking lot. It was a stick shift and was pretty hard to learn shifting let alone steering, braking and using the gas. She gave up trying to drive after that. I may not be good at tech but I'm going to learn to drive that computer, so to speak. And a computer mistake is not as bad as a driving mistake but much more frustrating. 

Thanksgiving was fun cooking pies with Elder Robinson. I haven't made pie in 20 years. I found some good recipes on Pinterest. Elder Robinson prepped the apples. The kitchen smelled so good. We made the pies the night before and the smell the next morning after baking was delicious! 

We limited our Thanksgiving dinner groups in the mission to 4-6 people and only missionaries can get together. We had dinner with Pres. and Sis. King. It was nice to visit and remember things from UT. 

I don't know howPres. King handles everything. The Samoan missionaries left last Sunday to go to Los Angeles to get ready for the only repatriation flight to Samoa since Covid began. On Tuesday night after everyone was there, the flight was canceled. Samoa had its first case of Covid from a Samoan sailor who had returned home. So they canceled all travel. None of the missionaries wants to come back to Alaska. But California is not a better option as far as Covid. One of the sister missionaries from another mission is Covid positive so they are all quarantined for 2 weeks and can't come back. The one interesting highlight is that Sis Aita from our mission is able to share a room with her own sister who was serving a mission in Hawaii. They haven't seen each other in almost 2 years. For now they are in limbo. It may be a several step process to get home instead of an instant solution. It reminds me of the scripture in Isaiah 55:8, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. "Apparently God has a different solution to this.

So the day after Thanksgiving was very slow at the mission office. It was snowing outside and we didn't want to be out on the roads so we went home early and set up our Christmas tree. We bought a tree and decorations at Walmart for a total of $60 and had it set up in about an hour. I love that you can see it from outside our window. It really feels like Christmas. I have enjoyed the togetherness of working with Elder Robinson in making Thanksgiving dinner and getting ready for Christmas. We are a good team!

I thought you might like to see what the mission office looks like. It is a part of the one of the ward buildings that has some office space for us at the back. Here we are at our desks. Elder Robinson has 2 desks because sometimes the missionaries need to use one of his desks for the computer. So then he moves into my office. Anchorage now has some very strict Covid restrictions so we will probably do more work from home and only go into the office a few hours a day instead of 8 hrs/day. The restrictions are Dec 1 through Jan 1. The missionaries are getting very good at doing a lot of their work on social media and teaching on Zoom. They are limited to groups of 4-6 and work very well together. They are so good to make the best of a difficult situation. They are very adaptable. 

There isn't much more to share this week. I did take this picture of crab and octopus at the grocery store. Not even going to look that up on Pinterest. 

Thank you for your letters, texts, emails, comments, Facebook posts, everything! I feel so grateful to be able to communicate so freely and stay in touch. It doesn't feel so far away when I hear from home. We love you all so much. You are always in our prayers.

Love,

Elder and Sister Robinson