Glacier Fields

The first picture is my favorite picture of Denali, you can see the glacier fields.The pictures are the Midnight Sun game taken at 11:15 p.m., Looking at the Sun set about 12:30 at the end of the game. It looks darker but it is really rather light. Watch the ground squirrel , he is watching the people and then when people would walk by he would duck. It was so fun to watch.

Weather Report
High + 72 Low + 48
Daylight: Sunrise 3:00 Sunset 12:47
For a total this week of 21 hours and 48 minutes of sunlight.

We just short of 22 hours of daylight and the sad thing is that it is starting to get darker now that we have had our "Mid Night Sun" celebration.

The fun thing about being in Fairbanks is that they have a big celebration on the longest day of the year. We were busy doing missionary work so we didn't make it up town and I am sorry but we did go to the ball game with the bishop and his wife that night. The game starts at 10:30 p.m. At 12:00 midnight they stop the game to sing the Alaska State Song and then the game resumes for 9 innings. If it is tied, which it was on Wednesday night they would play until sun set, which was at 12:48 p.m. They play all the game without artificial lights and it is so fun to see. It was just light enough the whole game. Our team, the Gold Panners won the last inning, the last one up to bat hit a double causing a run in and we won by one point. That was very exciting but the most excitement for me was the sun just about ready to set and it was beautiful. We would have stayed up another hour and watched the sun rise except we had a Zone conference the next day and needed to be at church, all in our places, at 8:30 a.m. We had a visiting general authority, Elder Ron Halverson.

The Zone conference was wonderful and what a treat to have a general authority. He taught us about the 76 section of the D&C and explained the importance of our mission and introducing people to the gospel. The 1st ward Relief Society prepared a lunch of fruit and Halibut Chowder like I have never eaten before!

Weather report: The sad part is the smoke from the fires, you may have heard about. Some people in Nenana lost their homes and the Parks Highway to Anchorage is closed about every other day. Today is a funny day as they are all talking about the floods in Eastern Alaska which will affect the Chena River and us today, the fires just 50 miles South of Fairbanks, which has smoke blowing in our faces every other day, and we had snow last night on the Richardson Highway going to Anchorage. Now that is some weather!

I have included 3 pictures of our trip to Denali, no time or room for the other animals as I am getting kicked out of the library.

We love and miss you all and hope you are having a wonderful summer, I guess, it is difficult to imagine because it still feels like spring here. It is so beautiful.