All,
I am sorry if any of my thoughts seem scrambled; I blame the computer. It took almost a full hour to read my emails, because the thing wouldn't scroll down. It was Odd, to say the least.
Here in the Brayton ward, things are going awesome. Between interviews with President (I love that man), and getting gluten the next day, (all who are GF, Red Robin's Restaurant is not as GF as they say they are...) and my companion getting all his stuff stolen out of the car (over 1000$ worth; GPS, sunglasses, camera, backpack, scriptures... ouch.), we still had time to have a lesson with our new investigator, B! She's half chinese and extremely interested in the Church. We found her working at the gas station, and she's awesome.
I think I'm going to need to buy a GPS up here. I'm having directional difficulties again. And yes, it needs to be up here, because these are the only one's that come with Alaska maps already loaded.
I gave a talk at church about trials and how to overcome them. I though it was pretty good, especially since I just opened the scriptures at random that morning and chose something to talk about. I opened up to Mosiah, where it talks about how the lord gives trials to make us stronger. I used the trials in my life as examples; being GF, baptized at 15, and so on. I used them to show that not only can we overcome, but we also get stronger through it. In the end, it was a great talk.
Got to go now, but I love you all. It's been raining a lot up here; Maybe utah should just move to Alaska.
Love from the North,
Elder Darcey
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
First Email from New Area--ANCHORAGE
All,
Up here in Anchorage is CRAZY! There's too many people and there's nobody I know, and people aren't definitely in our area, and too many people!
But really, I love it up here. Everything is cheaper, and the people are just as loving, and food is WAY easier to get at, and my new companion is Awesome. His name is Elder Patrius: he's a convert of 2 years, he's from Las Vegas, He has tattoos up both forearms, he's been out here for almost 4 months and he's AWESOME. He definitely has a testimony, and though he doesn't know a whole bunch, he's learning fast. it's just cool.
Hey, It's kinda weird to think it, but I'm only a convert of about four years. Huh.
Getting GF is pretty easy up here. I got a package from the CLEGGS!!! THANKS SO MUCH! I especially thought the already popped popcorn was a good idea, and it wasn't too bad tasting, either.
16 GB USB drive for only 12 dollar! A 8 GB down south was 80! Anchorage rocks!
Also, Sister Peel! Thank you so much for your encouraging letters and cards! I love them so much and think they are awesome.
Anchorage is really different up here in July (July is its own season up here, along with June, Breakup and winter...) without snow. The sun's out most of the time (seriously. Most of the time. Like, from 2 AM to 11PM, with 12 and 1 in the morning being dusk/dawn) and the city is just large. But I love it. I managed to get my suitcases under 50 lbs! (49 for one, and 49.5 for the other) Moving was rough, but it's good now.
I love you all. I still pray for rain, and for all of you. Your prayers and letters are appreciated and loved up here.
Love from the Even-farther-north-than-
Elder Darcey
Pictures are the NORTHERN LIGHTS Which I barely saw, but were amazing!!!!
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
All,I get to email again for a brief moment this week, so I'll take advantage of it.
I'm in Ketchikan one final time, which is both a blessing and a sad thing. I'll miss PoW for sure; it was incredible, and the Branch there is one of the strongest I've ever seen in my life.
Not much to say; Everything somehow got packed away, and is somehow under 50 lbs... I hope...
Love to you all,
Elder Darcey
Monday, July 16, 2012
Leaving PoW Island
We had a black bear and cubs fishing across the river from us. about 40, maybe 50 feet away. Just fishing...
Brock, here's your baby bears, until I can get north and see polar bears.
This member is Brother Staton, who is the coolest man alive. He was my favorite person down in PoW. He's Cajun.
The Tew Family, whom I also loved. They're actually related to the Binghams; guess how!
Saturday, July 14, 2012
All,
It's with mixed feelings that I write you a few days earlier than normal. Earlier, because I'm leaving PoW, and being transferred up to Brayton Ward, in Anchorage.
Elder Terry remains down here to continue the awesome work we've started. We just invited another girl to be baptized, and she Accepted! I'm not going to be here for the baptism, but it will be awesome. She's soon moving to Anchorage soon, too; maybe I'll see her up there.
On the minus side, I've been here 6 months. I'll miss this place. I'll miss the amazing people I've met here, and the incredible things I've been able to do (went fishing last monday. Pictures later).
On the plus side... The Brayton chapel is 100 feet away from the Temple. ;)
and Walmart. Can't forget Walmart.
I don't have a lot of time, really, but I'll probably take this transfer sitting down (Literally: I'll be traveling from 6:00 AM to 9:35 PM. Flight 67, out of Ketchikan at 4:57, Dad, if you're interested), and I'm excited to go somewhere new.
It will involve getting another ward Gluten Aware and being the one driving around (not excited for that. You all know how bad I do in city traffic...)
But anyway. Love to you all. Maybe I'll get to write more in Ketchikan.
Love from the Moving-even-farther-north-
Elder Darcey
It's with mixed feelings that I write you a few days earlier than normal. Earlier, because I'm leaving PoW, and being transferred up to Brayton Ward, in Anchorage.
Elder Terry remains down here to continue the awesome work we've started. We just invited another girl to be baptized, and she Accepted! I'm not going to be here for the baptism, but it will be awesome. She's soon moving to Anchorage soon, too; maybe I'll see her up there.
On the minus side, I've been here 6 months. I'll miss this place. I'll miss the amazing people I've met here, and the incredible things I've been able to do (went fishing last monday. Pictures later).
On the plus side... The Brayton chapel is 100 feet away from the Temple. ;)
and Walmart. Can't forget Walmart.
I don't have a lot of time, really, but I'll probably take this transfer sitting down (Literally: I'll be traveling from 6:00 AM to 9:35 PM. Flight 67, out of Ketchikan at 4:57, Dad, if you're interested), and I'm excited to go somewhere new.
It will involve getting another ward Gluten Aware and being the one driving around (not excited for that. You all know how bad I do in city traffic...)
But anyway. Love to you all. Maybe I'll get to write more in Ketchikan.
Love from the Moving-even-farther-north-
Elder Darcey
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Warning: Contains scenes of violence toward small woodland creatures.
Read at your own risk...
All,
This week has been great. In fact, The entire time I've been here on the island has been great. I have simply been loving life and everything in it.
Did you know that There are 3.5 million patriarchal blessings preserved in the Church History Library? If placed end to end, they would reach from Salt Lake City to Kansas City, Kansas.
I don't know about you, but that is information that I think is vitally important to our salvation. You can imagine the final question Saint Peter gives you: "How far would the Patriarchal blessings reach if placed end to end?" I jokes. But memorize the trivia anyway, just in case.
Work here has been great. Apparently, Mom says that I haven't been sharing enough details about the area/mission, so I'm going to have you close your eyes and picture this:
Open your eyes, actually. You can't read with your eyes closed...
There is an Island. It's covered in trees, and always raining, or at least misting. We're in the middle of a rain forest here.
Ravens and bald eagles are basically the dominant birds. Spend any time outside, and you'll see a couple deer, which are the size of large dogs, if not smaller.
People on the island are friendly, but set in their ways. most of our finding is tracting; not many people walk around, except on very sunny days. Our members are incredible, nice, and very strong together. We have about 80 members coming every week, except for the last months, where everyonewas out of town and we only had about 25 people coming, more than half of that being under the age of 10.
The island is too big, and too spread out, for us to really do any walking. We have to drive most places. We volunteer a lot around the island; at the Slum DI (power company), the Senior center, and anywhere else we're needed. Members call on us a lot to help them or their friends do work.
There are a lot of members who don't come to church on the island. Many of them are natives who have been caught up in the normal native lifestyle, which is very laidback. A lot of people are just simply out of the habit of coming to church. Many people come to the island because they are running from something and some are here because they've been offended elsewhere. Not a whole lot of people are receptive to formal looking men coming and knocking on their door. Apparently we resemble FBI or something.
Aidan, get off my computer unless you're burning my Classical CD I asked for for my birthday. You promised!
Anyway, There are only a few main churches that almost everyone goes to, if they go at all. There are also a lot of agnostics, who believe in God, but don't care to think about God at this time, thanks very much. There's the Church of God, which is a Pentecostal, a Catholic Church, a Baptist Church up in Thorn Bay which doesn't really care for Mormons, Us, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Salvation Army (what do they believe, anyway?) and some kind of non-denominational church up in Naukati. People don't really like the attitude of the JWs, and mistake us for them a lot, to our detriment. The baptists are really hardcore, and not a lot of the islanders care much for how harsh and strict they are.
I'm out of time, but I'll briefly mention that Elder Terry was sick almost all week, which culminated in us being inside most of the week, and all Saturday. Therefore, we don't really have a lot of mission things to relate to you...
To brief you, We got an opportunity to slaughter and butcher rabbits with one of our members, who breeds and eats them (Rabbits are DELICIOUS). The following picture is the end result. You'll notice it was on one of the most beautifully sunny days ever. Perfect for killing small, cute, furry, (NOT HARMLESS;My Arms were torn up from their kicking) woodland creatures. I have video; don't worry, I'll show you when I get back. The part where we hammer them on the head became my favorite; second is the part where we behead them completely.
Happy Fourth of July, by the way. And for founding fathers information critical to our beliefs, go read D&C 101:80, 1Nephi 13, and Alma 46.
Love from me, formerly having never killed a living animal, No,-I-don't-feel-bad-about-killing-those-rabbits-North,
Elder Darcey
All,
This week has been great. In fact, The entire time I've been here on the island has been great. I have simply been loving life and everything in it.
Did you know that There are 3.5 million patriarchal blessings preserved in the Church History Library? If placed end to end, they would reach from Salt Lake City to Kansas City, Kansas.
I don't know about you, but that is information that I think is vitally important to our salvation. You can imagine the final question Saint Peter gives you: "How far would the Patriarchal blessings reach if placed end to end?" I jokes. But memorize the trivia anyway, just in case.
Work here has been great. Apparently, Mom says that I haven't been sharing enough details about the area/mission, so I'm going to have you close your eyes and picture this:
Open your eyes, actually. You can't read with your eyes closed...
There is an Island. It's covered in trees, and always raining, or at least misting. We're in the middle of a rain forest here.
Ravens and bald eagles are basically the dominant birds. Spend any time outside, and you'll see a couple deer, which are the size of large dogs, if not smaller.
People on the island are friendly, but set in their ways. most of our finding is tracting; not many people walk around, except on very sunny days. Our members are incredible, nice, and very strong together. We have about 80 members coming every week, except for the last months, where everyonewas out of town and we only had about 25 people coming, more than half of that being under the age of 10.
The island is too big, and too spread out, for us to really do any walking. We have to drive most places. We volunteer a lot around the island; at the Slum DI (power company), the Senior center, and anywhere else we're needed. Members call on us a lot to help them or their friends do work.
There are a lot of members who don't come to church on the island. Many of them are natives who have been caught up in the normal native lifestyle, which is very laidback. A lot of people are just simply out of the habit of coming to church. Many people come to the island because they are running from something and some are here because they've been offended elsewhere. Not a whole lot of people are receptive to formal looking men coming and knocking on their door. Apparently we resemble FBI or something.
Aidan, get off my computer unless you're burning my Classical CD I asked for for my birthday. You promised!
Anyway, There are only a few main churches that almost everyone goes to, if they go at all. There are also a lot of agnostics, who believe in God, but don't care to think about God at this time, thanks very much. There's the Church of God, which is a Pentecostal, a Catholic Church, a Baptist Church up in Thorn Bay which doesn't really care for Mormons, Us, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Salvation Army (what do they believe, anyway?) and some kind of non-denominational church up in Naukati. People don't really like the attitude of the JWs, and mistake us for them a lot, to our detriment. The baptists are really hardcore, and not a lot of the islanders care much for how harsh and strict they are.
I'm out of time, but I'll briefly mention that Elder Terry was sick almost all week, which culminated in us being inside most of the week, and all Saturday. Therefore, we don't really have a lot of mission things to relate to you...
To brief you, We got an opportunity to slaughter and butcher rabbits with one of our members, who breeds and eats them (Rabbits are DELICIOUS). The following picture is the end result. You'll notice it was on one of the most beautifully sunny days ever. Perfect for killing small, cute, furry, (NOT HARMLESS;My Arms were torn up from their kicking) woodland creatures. I have video; don't worry, I'll show you when I get back. The part where we hammer them on the head became my favorite; second is the part where we behead them completely.
Happy Fourth of July, by the way. And for founding fathers information critical to our beliefs, go read D&C 101:80, 1Nephi 13, and Alma 46.
Love from me, formerly having never killed a living animal, No,-I-don't-feel-bad-about-killing-those-rabbits-North,
Elder Darcey
Monday, July 2, 2012
All,
I promised you I would send you a longer email this week; here it is:
This week in Craig has been great. There have been challenges certainly, but things have truly been wonderful.
First, congradulations to my father for calling my bluff. It wasn't actually 108 degrees, as my last e-mail suggested. How I rigged the thermometer was simple: We went inside and left the truck in the sun. for a few seconds after turning the truck on, it showed a hotter temperature.
BUT SERIOUSLY, IT WAS OVER 80 THE WHOLE DAY. I realize that this really isn't a problem for you down south, or East, or even farther south (comprende, Hermana?), but it's a problem up here (by the way, know that I am praying for rain for all you in the "real" heat wave).
By the way, dad, you put way, waaayyyy a lot of effort into calling that bluff. Checking the photo's timestamps/metadata? going over the weather for the specific day? You almost put as much work into this as I would, and that's vaguely frightening.
Anyway, that's all water under the bridge. (up here, we actually have water under our bridges, not just dried riverbed) (I take that back. There's more fish than water under our bridges at the moment).
The missionary work is going great. This week was the most difficult time we've had in weeks for getting members to come with us to our lessons. it all culminated on Saturday, when LITERALLY the ENTIRE membership on the island was unavailable at 1:00 PM for a lesson. We know, because we called EVERY. SINGLE. MEMBER. We couldn't understand it; it wasn't even a good day for fishing or anything; it was rainy and cloudy (Up here, we actually get clouds and rain.). regardless, We've been having great lessons regardless of members showing up. Things are happening up here, and it makes me happy to be allowed to have a part in it.
I got food poisoning last week. No, it wasn't Gluten, because my companion got it too. I slept for 4 hours and lost 2 pounds, then gained 5 pounds at dinner. Story of my life, right there.
I don't really have any spiritual thought this week, except my plea to everyone to watch the videos found on http://www.lds.org/bible-
There's a missionary fireside on the 6th of July, open to everyone to watch. Family, Friends, All, I recommend watching it.
6:30-8:00 pm, ALASKA TIME
URL: http://stream.lds.org/503649-
Back up, if can't receive on computer, try PolyCom 1 by phone: 866.423.1957, code 6036103#
It's ok to copy/paste this info into email for parents...
If their time zone is too late, thay can watch/listen to practice webcast/polycom of the Rehearsal Thurs morning.
The church is true. God and Jesus Love us all. That's what matters.
Love to to you all from the It's-not-that-hot-but-it's-
Elder Darcey
I promised you I would send you a longer email this week; here it is:
This week in Craig has been great. There have been challenges certainly, but things have truly been wonderful.
First, congradulations to my father for calling my bluff. It wasn't actually 108 degrees, as my last e-mail suggested. How I rigged the thermometer was simple: We went inside and left the truck in the sun. for a few seconds after turning the truck on, it showed a hotter temperature.
BUT SERIOUSLY, IT WAS OVER 80 THE WHOLE DAY. I realize that this really isn't a problem for you down south, or East, or even farther south (comprende, Hermana?), but it's a problem up here (by the way, know that I am praying for rain for all you in the "real" heat wave).
By the way, dad, you put way, waaayyyy a lot of effort into calling that bluff. Checking the photo's timestamps/metadata? going over the weather for the specific day? You almost put as much work into this as I would, and that's vaguely frightening.
Anyway, that's all water under the bridge. (up here, we actually have water under our bridges, not just dried riverbed) (I take that back. There's more fish than water under our bridges at the moment).
The missionary work is going great. This week was the most difficult time we've had in weeks for getting members to come with us to our lessons. it all culminated on Saturday, when LITERALLY the ENTIRE membership on the island was unavailable at 1:00 PM for a lesson. We know, because we called EVERY. SINGLE. MEMBER. We couldn't understand it; it wasn't even a good day for fishing or anything; it was rainy and cloudy (Up here, we actually get clouds and rain.). regardless, We've been having great lessons regardless of members showing up. Things are happening up here, and it makes me happy to be allowed to have a part in it.
I got food poisoning last week. No, it wasn't Gluten, because my companion got it too. I slept for 4 hours and lost 2 pounds, then gained 5 pounds at dinner. Story of my life, right there.
I don't really have any spiritual thought this week, except my plea to everyone to watch the videos found on http://www.lds.org/bible-
There's a missionary fireside on the 6th of July, open to everyone to watch. Family, Friends, All, I recommend watching it.
6:30-8:00 pm, ALASKA TIME
URL: http://stream.lds.org/503649-
Back up, if can't receive on computer, try PolyCom 1 by phone: 866.423.1957, code 6036103#
It's ok to copy/paste this info into email for parents...
If their time zone is too late, thay can watch/listen to practice webcast/polycom of the Rehearsal Thurs morning.
The church is true. God and Jesus Love us all. That's what matters.
Love to to you all from the It's-not-that-hot-but-it's-
Elder Darcey
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