We Love Fairbanks

I will start each letter with the weather report. This they say is the bragging right of people in Fairbanks. The coldest this week has been -43 and the warmest has been -18. Tonight it is supposed to get down to -45. We have been the coldest spot in Alaska all week. Can you believe we are colder than Barrow? The trees are beautiful, all covered with hoarfrost, magnificent! Every street is a winter wonder land!!

We loved Fairbanks right from the first. It is not like living out in the Bush and yet isn't as big as Anchorage so we are happy. There are all the big stores here like, Home Depot (want to come up here Lane?) We have Safeway, Wall-Mart, even a Sam's Club, Office Max, and of course all the Taco Times and a Mac Donald on every corner. There aren't as many restaurants as Layton has however. The Elders treated us to lunch on our anniversary after our Zone meeting on Wednesday at one of the Panda places (the Gallagher's would feel right at home here.) It is just like I remembered, with a shopping center, lots of trees, a housing area and more trees. Lots of places for 5 McDermott's to run, play, and get lost in. The OJ's would love the fact that there is a giant Barns and Noble, a University, and lots of lakes. However there is no sailing yet but I haven't seen anyone on their ice skates either.

I think we really like North Pole the best of all, however. Of course, all the Christmas things make it so much fun. But the people here are just so much fun. We went to church here on Sunday and the bishop gave a talk where he included the people in the audience and waved his hands all over. We had an investigator from a saved church who loved it. They have an activity every month. Wednesday they are doing Scripture Skits and people were talking about it all day Sunday.

My spiritual story for the week is a family we met Saturday night in North Pole, the Pinkston's. It is a part member family with her very active in the LDS church and him in a saved church. They have been having problems in their marriage and about to separate. We met her at a baptism last Saturday and she asked if we could come talk with her husband on Sunday night. We met Saturday night with another couple (she is working on her PhD and flying all over Alaska teaching people in the Bush so we had a lot in common. Anyway they mentioned that there was a fire and someone lost their house. In church the bishop announced that the Pinkston's lost their home Friday afternoon in a fire. We couldn't believe it and sure didn't think we would be meeting with them Sunday night. But no, she said "come over"! We were not prepared for what we heard. They feel like the fire was an answer to prayer. There were so many signs which included the burned drapes even.

He was trying to decide to build 6 more units but she felt their marriage wouldn't endure that and the fire made that decision for them. Now he didn't have the money to do that. She has known all her life that there would be a fire and had all their personal things in fireboxes. No original photographs on the wall and two weeks before she had done all their financial paper work and written all her friends. All that type of stuff was burned in the fire.

The list goes on and on but the real clincher was that when they were driving away a fireman picked up a burned and frozen bundle of something and after taking it home and chipping it away it turned out to be her Book of Mormon. She showed it to us. Al the pages were melted together around the edges but she could pry it open but no pages were burned. She had been reading in Jacob 6. The scriptures marked were verses 3, 6-11. Her marker was lying open on the page and the flames had scorched up around these words. I would never had believed it if I hadn't seen it. With everything all together her husband took this as a sign. Interestingly he had asked her about being sealed in the temple just last week and told her he felt that he wasn't doing just what God wanted him to do in his church. It just didn't feel good any more. We spent 3 hours answering his questions as fast as we could. He even said he wanted to serve a mission with his wife and asked us how we did that. It was wonderful!

We are well and happy and can't wait each day to see what we will see and learn and feel. We love the gospel and each other more and more. This is surprising because we are having problems doing discussions, as we want to teach in completely different directions. Burt wants to talk and talk and talk and I want an outline. I have come to the conclusion that teaching with him is like dancing with him. It sure is difficult to know what the next step will be but together we make beautiful music.

I need to tell you about the size of our Stake. If you put it on a map of the lower 48 it would cover an area from Seattle Washington to Colorado, roughly. That will give you some idea of the job that the Stake people have keeping track of everything going on inside an area that large.