I Love Winter
The new missionaries arrived on Wednesday and had an immediate taste of Alaska winter. This week the temperature will be highs of around 5 degrees and lows around -9. I don't remember it being this cold last winter. I love my warm clothes! The missionaries are advised to wait until they get here to buy winter clothes because they are so bulky to try to pack and bring with them. Sister King has a lot of warm clothes on hand that missionaries have left here when they returned home. Hopefully they will find some good things to wear until they get everything they need for winter. I always love seeing how the senior companions are so welcoming and caring with the junior missionaries. It is a smaller group this time.
Elder Robinson has had several missionaries in Fairbanks call about getting extra blankets and space heaters for their apartments. It will be -11 for the high and -18 for the low this week in Fairbanks. Elder Farris has been here almost as long as we have. He was transferred to North Pole just south of Fairbanks. His original assignment was Ecuador but since it is less than 6 months left in his mission he will finish here. Ecuador vs. Fairbanks is quite a difference. He loves Alaska in spite of the cold winter. He is from the Dallas area.
Sunday was a beautiful sunny day with blue sky. The hoar frost, which you usually see in January, was all over the trees. It was interesting when we came out to the parking lot after church to see a whole row of cars that were empty but had the engines running. Several people turned on the remote start just before the closing prayer so their cars would be warm when they came out to go home. We don't have engine plugs here like they do in Fairbanks so they try not to have the car sit for too long in the cold and then use the remote start to warm it up before driving. Missionaries use that feature a lot since about half of the apartments don't have a garage and the cars sit in the cold.
With transfers on Wednesday and Thursday a lot of missionaries drove in to Anchorage to bring in missionaries going home and to pick up new missionaries to return to serve in their area. It is very scary to think of the young missionaries driving in these winter conditions. Everyone traveled safely though. The missionaries that drove in from Homer, which is 4 hours south, just followed a slow snow plow. It took about 6 hours to get here. They spent the night with other missionaries and went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. They really enjoyed that part. As we were driving around on Saturday we saw 3 accidents and near misses in one hour. A car slid head-on into a mail truck; a car slid off the road; and a car ran through a red light narrowly missing cars in 3 lanes of traffic and clipping one. Although compared to accidents in Utah snowstorms, it wasn't bad. I like the weather forecasters here. They give tips for driving in the snow and being safe during winter. One news person had fallen indoors on a wet floor and injured her arm. She was in a cast talking about snow safety and avoiding falls. They have a good sense of humor. The new missionaries asked if they could have snow ball fights. The answer was "no" but they could build a snowman holding a Book of Mormon. The snow was too dry for either activities.
We had our Primary program on Sunday. There were only 15 children. It was really a good program. All of the songs were older Primary songs like Reverently, Quietly; Scripture Power; Book of Mormon Stories, Teach me to Walk in the Light and I am a Child of God. The ward organist/pianist is a very good professional jazz pianist. I loved hearing her smooth jazz stylings blend with the children's voices. The music was beautiful and the message very simple but sincere. It is stressful for the Primary Presidency but everyone loves it. Cute kids!
Spiritual Thought: This week was hard with getting Covid testing for missionaries traveling to their original mission assignments. I had to get 12 Covid tests for missionaries going to Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Bolivia and Canada. Some had to be PCR tests while others just needed a negative result. There are a lot of different Covid tests now that are faster and cheaper but do not meet the PCR test requirement. I worked hard and prayed for a miracle to get everything done correctly so they could travel worry-free. It didn't happen. I did get the correct testing done but the results were not printed correctly, so when the missionaries went to the airports for their international flights (Atlanta, Houston and Dallas) they were not going to be allowed to travel. The full PCR test results were on their phones but they couldn't access the app. One missionary contacted his family and was able to find out how to get the result on his phone. He shared that information with the others. Thankfully I think they were able to get into Argentina (because they didn't send them back here). The other incident with testing involved travel to White Horse Canada. The two missionaries going to White Horse had to fly to Juneau and take a 7-hr ferry to Skagway where two White Horse missionaries would meet them to take them back in to Canada. The missionaries from White Horse needed a Covid test along with the missionaries from Anchorage to enter Canada. The tests in Skagway are rapid tests that are given from 9-noon. At 2 p.m. they got the result that one of the White Horse missionaries was Covid positive. That meant they could not go to Canada and would have to isolate in Skagway for 10 days. Skagway is so small and only has one hotel. The hotel had one single room available. There was no way they could stay in Skagway, the ferry back to Juneau had left and they couldn't get into Canada. I had them go back to the clinic to get retested even though testing was closed. Back at the clinic they found out the test result had been incorrectly entered as positive when it was really negative. They were able to get a corrected certificate and travel back to White Horse. WHEW! It was so stressful to have glitches along the way when I had prayed for a miracle to have a problem-free process. After thinking about it a lot though I know now that the miracle we are looking for is not always the miracle we get. It would make me feel good to miraculously do everything perfectly but the real miracle is that in spite of mistakes, the missionaries were able to get where they needed to be. It is a miracle that mistakes or imperfections don't stop the Lord from accomplishing his purposes. I am grateful to see God's miracles in my imperfect life! It is good to be reminded that miracles happen even if it is different from what we plan.
Happy birthday this week to June and Annie. They are almost like twins with birthdays so close together. Sweet girls! Have a great week!
Love,
Elder and Sister Robinson
I like these strange sights around Anchorage. The moon was really big and bright tonight and there will be a partial lunar eclipse tomorrow night. No Aurora but still interesting things when there is a clear night sky.
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