Robinson Alaska Mission

We felt bad to miss the Fall Festival in Palmer last week because of a massive traffic jam.  The Festival sells out every year and we only had tickets for the first Saturday on the 18th. It was sold out for this past weekend but the ward mission leader, who owns the farm and runs the festival, was kind enough to leave our names at Will Call so we could get in.  The Fall Festival was our first activity when we arrived to start our mission a year ago on September 18, 2020. President and Sister King took us to the festival to introduce us to life in Alaska. We enjoyed it just as much yesterday as we did a year ago, even though it was a bit colder.      We enjoyed picking carrots, seeing the missionaries helping with parking and games,  and seeing the kids and families having fun. We didn't get the big carrots like last year but smaller ones tasted just as good. It was so muddy. We just put on our big rubber boots and sloshed through the fields.    ...

      We really enjoyed seeing and landing on the mountain glaciers last week with Jane and Larry. This week we went for a boat tour of the tidewater glaciers and it was amazing to see too. The weather was very cold and rainy most of the time. We were on a catamaran in Prince William Sound but the boat ride was extremely smooth. It was a 6.5 hour tour partly in the sound and partly in the fjord. A sound is is bigger than a fjord and connects to the ocean but it was not rough at all even though the wind from the boat ride was 35+ mph. It felt like being on the crabbing boats on Deadliest Catch (cold rain blowing in your face).  The stops by the glacier were worth it. The glacier ice was a pretty blue. The black is from rocks and earth debris deposited as the glacier moves. It is called moraine. It was also interesting to see the icebergs and floating ice around the glaciers. The waterfalls were beautiful too. I think seeing the glaciers from air and water has been one...

      It has been so fun to have company again. Jane and Larry arrived late Wednesday night and will be here another 3 days. It has been cloudy and rainy but we have had a good time anyway. The highlight was the flightseeing tour in Talkeetna. We hoped to fly around Mt Denali but it was too cloudy to see the summit. We really enjoyed landing on the glacier. The mountain peaks are massive, very awe-inspiring. The flight was very smooth, better than most commercial flights we have been on. The plane is over 50 years old but they update parts and maintain it well. It was so enjoyable. Worth doing!!      Some of the other things we enjoyed were going to Moose's Tooth for pizza (popular AND good), a tour of Anchorage on the Red Trolley, and seeing the performing arts center, The ticket taker on the trolley was LDS and let us take his picture. He is a newlywed and just moved to Alaska with his wife who is from Alaska. We also met another LDS man on the tour who w...