Alaska Pictures

Here are some pictures from when Melissa first arrived in Alaska.

All of the missionaries in front of the Anchorage temple

Look at all those redheads!

If I'm not mistaken, that looks like a house submerged in snow? Holy.

Remember when their car got stuck in a ditch and the elders came to bail them out?

If you don't remember this story, read about it in her email sent on January 3.

Thank goodness there were some heavier elders to save the car!

I'm assuming this is her current companion, Sister Brown. She looks adorable.

Melissa's legs sunk in the snow up to her knees. Oh my.

Is that thermometer working correctly??

Gorgeous! The sunsets last longer in Alaska, which is a nice silver lining.

MTC pictures

We just got Melissa's memory card from her camera, so here are some pictures from the MTC in November.

 

With our cousin, Amy Hansen

Letter from Jan 23

Jan 23, 2012

My dear Parents, and any other familia that happens to be around...I'm sitting at my counter in our kitchen.  I just ate some smoked salmon that Carleen gave us last night.  Carleen is young and hilarious.  She took our pictures a week ago and is editing them and we'll send home the dvd of them.  Hold on.  I just cooked some $1.69 frozen lasagna - microwave dinner - and I'm gonna go eat it.

So last night we went over to Carleen's for dinner and she'd cooked us food storage rice and beans like she said she would - ha ha - but added spam and garlic to the rice and also cooked nachos and moose bacon and we could eat with our fingers, nuthin fancy, cuz we're super comfortable with Carleen.  So we went over to this family's house after Carleen's and just sang and played piano, well I played, simply "to bring the Spirit in".  We sang Primary songs and sang and laughed.  Sometimes we just need to go over to families' houses spontaneously as missionaries cuz the parents need a boost and so do the kids.

It is not quite so cold today, about 10°F and there is no wind :) it's quite nice, I just had my pea coat on, I was okay.  I'm wearing my maroon wool sweater I got from Mary, my rose-colored downeast t-shirt, my wood bead necklace I got from Mama, my tan skirt that Mama and I love, my blue spandex leggings, and my wigwam socks.  Hee hee. And my Cate the Great boots.  But only when I go outside.  I can slide those on and off quite easily.

Since we were gonna go to Anchorage today but now we're not, we called the family that was gonna feed us just to let them know, also telling them it's okay if they already made plans, we have plenty of food.  Well the husband was sick but the wife insisted we stop by so she can give us some $ so we can buy our own dinner.  She is the R.S. president.  We are very grateful to her.  Sometimes we actually don't mind not having a fam to feed us cuz then we can have a lazy dinner and take a quick rest during that hour so it's okay.  Hee hee.

This week we have a goal of putting C on date!  We weren't even able to meet w/her last week. Man. At church yesterday in gospel principles class the discussion about priesthood organization got a little deep and we asked her later, and yeah, it was all going over her head - oh no! I just bumped a picture of Jesus and it fell into the sink.  My goodness.  Anyway it's cuz this ward has too many talkers.  Smart people.  I was actually quite interested.  But the problem is, while C is smart - she hasn't even learned the basics yet - and sitting in on a deep, thorough discussion of priesthood organization - Samara, you remember, stuff about "quorums" - can be like sitting in on a calculus class when you're just starting pre-algebra. Sigh.  So yeah, hopefully everything will work out with her.

Well I just love my family.  And I love being in Alaska.  The sun doesn't rise very high and the sunsets are beautiful.  I've taken a few pictures.  I'm sending my memory card home in the package - it has some videos of me attempting to film the sound of the wind - I should have filmed in daylight when you can see the snow swirling like mist wraiths across the ground and blowing through the air like a sand storm and the trees going crazy.  Hee  hee.  My pea coat is so covered in animal fur.  Far away you can't tell.

I'm excited to study my study guides!  Well I mean the scriptures with my study guides.  Like it says in D&C 20:11...we gotta OBTAIN THE WORD!!!  Oh wait did I tell you A, la mujer mexicana, went to church yesterday?  And getting a translator was crazy.  Carleen said she couldn't translate a Sacrament meeting.  We called another woman and that was the night before - we left it to the last minute accidentally - and then in the morning her back hurt - so we called others - no go - we said prayers - she called back, said she felt okay to go :) :)  Prayers are answered - A sat with headphones and understood.  Love you!!!

Week 2 of Second Transfer

Soooo our baptism happened yesterday! Man it was crazy to get everything done. Let me tell you:
- last week we were in anchorage for two days for these few things: transfers, zone leadership conf. which sis brown goes to cuz she is a training sister, recording for me and another sister named sister rivera, and "sisters training" cuz for the first time in a long time, all the sister missionaries in alaska were gonna be in anchorage at the same time. DURING THIS, i got a phone call from the guy that schedules the stake center (the building where the baptism was gonna take place) and he told me we could NOT have the baptism at the time we wanted it cuz the font would be filling during relief society of that ward and the relief society president said "it was a no go, we would have to have our baptism at 6 or 6:30." The problem is, our investigator's good friend in church couldn't MAKE it if it was that late. It is not SUPER normal to have baptisms on Sunday, but Saturday wouldn't work.

-so, a relief society president was rescheduling our baptism....and of course all these elders around me hear me going through this on the phone as we pulled up to the mission home (sister brown was in ZLC while I was out with sister rivera and 2 other sisters...we'd just come back from tracting in the snow--we'd already recorded music for the day---and by the way it snows SO MUCH in anchorage, you get COVERED in it when you are tracting) so these ELDERS. They are like "YOU KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING? SATAN." And "YOU CAN'T LET A RELIEF SOCIETY PRESIDENT CHANGE THE TIME OF YOUR BAPTISM!" they get ALL worked UP, it is hilarious .Captain Moroni style, they were about to rip their coat and go fight a war about it.

- stressful.

- I can understand, though, why a relief society pres wouldn't want the font filling right there while she is teaching relief society. Cuz the water would be so loud. And if we filled the font before church even started, the water would get cold. Seriously by 10 a.m. there would be classes all day til 4 p.m. in that room.

- finally the bishop of that last ward that meets there in that building called us back (we had called him ever so sweetly and explained) and said what they'd done before is tie a jumpsuit around the faucet and the water goes through the leg of the jumpsuit (people get baptized in white jumpsuits that are there hanging by the font, this is what we would use) and the jumpsuit acts like a hose and silences the water

-So the zone leaders that we have are amazing and talked to THEIR relief society pres who has the 11-2pm ward who said "pssh they can fill the font during my relief society, no problem!" so they were gonna start the font at 12, and let it run til 2pm till the OTHER relief society pres's class came in, and then we were gonna come and fill up the rest of it at 4 (baptism finally scheduled for 5:30) with pure hot water and make sure it would be warm enough. BUT GUESS WHAT, so the zone leaders started the font at 12 like they were supposed to (you see our ward is at another building 15 min away, so that's why the zone leaders--two elders who are in charge of the zone, by the way, is who THEY are ---were gonna do it. BUT GUESS WHAT, someone thought it was too loud so they turned it off, with a few inches of water, so sis brown and i headed over there quite agitated at 2 and she took off her tights and waded in while a class was going on in the room on the other side of the big ol curtain, and she started doing the jumpsuit thing, we got it to work, yay, it took a while.

- then we could barely figure out the copy machine to make the programs and we got quite stressed out and we can't be stressed, we don't work well together stressed, sis brown and I.

- but the baptism finally happened, and it was PACKED, and it was wonderful, and she was baptized, and afterward said she was "overjoyed." the bishop of the ward didn't want her going a week before receiving the holy ghost in the next church meeting so he got her confirmed a member and given the holy ghost right after the baptism, under permission of the mission president, who attended her baptism.

-When she went under the water, relief and a slight shock went through my body. It was amazing. Baptisms are powerful, spiritual experiences.

-While she was getting ready afterward, we had everyone in attendance write down their thoughts of it on slips of paper. Or they wrote their testimonies. Or if they were 5 they drew pictures. We put these slips into a photo album and gave it to her as a gift, which she LOVED.

SO THAT WAS OUR BAPTISM, it was pretty cool.

It has been difficult teaching the woman who speaks spanish...language barriers really are barriers.  And our other investigator hasn't been texting us back...hopefully he will this week.

Hopefully the two daughters of the woman who got baptized will start taking the lessons with us, one of them already wants to be baptized but it's just cuz of the way we do baptism, by immersion....we needa make sure she understands what a huge but life-fulfilling commitment joining this church is. It takes commitment and a lot of sacrifice to follow the Savior. To really follow him and do the things he did, is hard. The OTHER daughter hasn't shown much interest at all but she is the one who actually came to her mom's baptism--grumpy and not smiling--but by the end of it was smiling, said she liked the baptism, and I even was able to give her a hug goodbye.


MOMMY. What immigrant song? I am so confused.

I wear my purple down jacket or my white fleece under my 50% wool peacoat and am just fine...but if out in weather about -15 degrees or colder, if I stand STILL for too long, I really think about buying a better coat, but this thought never lasts long enough for me to really do it. If I get transferred to fairbanks in the winter I definitely will actually buy a coat.

I wear my tall dark boots that are rated down to -25 degrees all the time. Every day. Except if I know we're gonna go tracting, or we're gonna go to the musk ox farm, and then I wear my bunny boots. Those other boots I bought are warm, but the inner liner is so tight every time you take your foot out, it comes with it, and they are not as warm as the bunny boots, and I am thinking about not really ever wearing them...HAHAH...and leaving them here for another cold-footed sister.


On sundays, I take my little flats into church with me and change shoes. Hee hee.

You just wear layers...tights...leggins that are not longer than your skirt...with wool socks on your feet...

Today I am wearing brown tights, leggings (not even wool socks, it is like 30 degrees). My brown moleskin skirt that goes to mid-calf. My green sweater with a darker green downeast tee shirt underneath. My big lightweight earthy tone watercolored scarf. And my peacoat. That's it.


I must run, I love you all. I love hearing about all the detailed family adventures momma tells me.
-sister ashbrook

don't eat yellow snow. it really does look disgusting. and is in front of every house that contains dogs.

FYI- this is the email from last week. I haven't had internet so I wasn't able to post this until today. :) -Anne

Hello familia.

Today is the first day of my second transfer woo hoo. We actually normally do our emails at the mat-su college and today all the stinkin elders took the computers so I am on a dinky laptop. hahah sighh.

So I just read two of Nick's emails you guys forward to me and he is hilarious. Talkin about thunderstorms in georgia. Wow. And just the way he talks, he is so funny. And it's cool to read about another missionary's exploits cuz now I can totally understand and relate and stuff.

Life is good, staying really happy, I am gonna be speakin in my ward in a few weeks, the topic is "finding joy in the gospel" and sister brown was like, "well that is a perfect topic for her." (to the 2nd counselor in the bishopric who asked me to speak) And I tried to be all sarcastic and say I am never happy but it didn't really work.

No more wind :)

We asked our investigator to be baptized a week ago and she has set a baptismal date for this sunday, the 5th. It was really cool cuz sis brown prayed that morning and then looked at the calendar and february 5th looked like a really good date, she said it felt right. To fulfill one of the requirements in the training program, I asked the question to our investigator to be baptized and i was all nervous but it just felt really good and she kinda squirmed with a big grin and said "yes..." hahah. And then she asked, "Do I have to pick a date?" ;and I said, "Well, actually, that would be so cool, and sis brown came to me this morning and said february 5th felt good." And our investigator cried, "No that's not a good date! It's my daughter's birthday and we have all these plans and she has an ROTC competition thing." And then it got out of her she thought it was a saturday and we said, "Well it's really a sunday!" and she heaved a sigh of relief and said, "Oh, well then yes, february 5th will be great."

Then the next day she texted and said her daughter wants to know if she can get baptized the 5th as well cuz the church she goes to doesn't do baptism by immersion and she knows that since that's the way Jesus Christ was baptized, it's the right way to do it. Man we were like OHH MY GOODNESS. But we don't know if it's gonna happen QUITE so soon cuz this daughter HAS taken some lessons, but a few months ago, and we need to make sure she receives all the lessons and really believes this gospel before she makes such a step, and  we even talked to the mission pres about it, and he said that waiting for the daughter sounds good. And so our investigator understood when we talked to her about it and she will talk to her daughter.

Oh my word, so we have a week to teach her the commandments. She is trying to quit smoking and got a blessing and says the urges have been down by half since the blessing, and the things that were said were exactly what she needed to hear and "really hit home." We are gonna teach her the commandments of obedience, word of wisdom, tithing, and fasting/fast offerings today. Hopefully. It's our p-day but she wanted day-time but we have a barbecue today with all the elders in the zone for all those who are leaving the mission to go home tomorrow and so time management really comes into play here. Haha.

We keep getting smoked salmon from people who are amazing angel people and sis brown is not TOO fond of it so it's all mine but I must buy cream cheese and crackers today so I can eat it with something. hahaha.

Transfers are tomorrow and I am singing an efy song called "take it home" with an elder on piano and singin harmony. Efy stands for "especially for youth" and it's these big conferences for the youth with speakers and stuff, i never went to one growing up, and they release a cd with "fun" music on it, that i usually thing is cheesy cheese mc cheesey pants, and have never liked listening to efy music and any of the breathy voiced females who pop every note and it's just not my cup of tea. But the singer for this song is actually really good, they really are getting music that matches what is actually "hip" music to listen too, it's totally stylized and all, but so much better than the whiney ones. So anyway this latest efy cd is SLIGHTLY better than previous ones, this song is really cool, and elder calk learned it and taught it to me and I am gonna bust it out at transfers tomorrow somehow.

The investigator we are teaching who is a delightful hispanic woman came to church yesterday--i feel it is a miracle every time investigators show up, it is totally not because anything we have done has merited it--and we got a translator for her, and she is so cute, and we are teaching her the rest of the restoration tonight, and we'll have a translator then as well. The last lesson we had with her she opened up a lot to our translator about her anger with God when her mother died, but that she knows she has been blessed by God so much in her life. We shared with her a few thoughts about why bad things sometimes happen to good people and both the translator and our investigator had tears comin out their eyes. The spirit is always so strong there, I love the hispanic people. I have seen a lot of openness and love come from the hispanic people. I feel so comfortable at that home.

We got our investigator that we met caroling on Christmas Eve to pray for the first time with us--he was a lil embarrassed and he cried out "Why do you make me do these embarrassing things?" and "Don't look at me!!!!" as we all got on our knees to pray. And we had him follow the steps to prayer in the pamphlet and he prayed and it was just awesome. It helped that he'd just spoken to his dad on the phone real fast, and I said to him, "You just talked with your dad on the phone. Praying is like talking to your heavenly father on the phone. It should be JUST as natural."

Man.

I love being a missionary. I have gone into SO many different people's houses. Met so many dogs. Shaken so many hands. I have probably entered into as many or more different people's houses this past month than I have the entire year of 2011. And then these people that we meet--when they pray, when they come to church, when they want to get baptized--it is all them. I don't even feel like I deserve it. Sis Brown reminds me of those scriptures that talk about how the missionaries are simply "gathering the Lord's elect." There are amazing, amazing people out there. Some of them don't listen to us--they are still awesome. But the ones that do listen and they act on what we say, they are the Lord's elect, because they are making these choices that bring them closer to Christ, and the fact they make these choices show what kind of person they are. They are amazing! They are my examples.

Anyway that is cool that you had a rad party at Lily's, I wish I could have seen all of you. Tell Danny & Tiana and the kids I say hello, and Laura and the kids.

Mom, what color am I? The son of the man who invented the color scheme is on a mission here. Hahah. Sis Brown thinks I am a yellow white. I said yeah that sounds good but mama I am curious, what did you say I am?

Trivial fact: you get used to the feeling of numb toes, did you know that? At first it is so painful. Then it is just a way of life. Solution: wear wool socks. Ha.

So I sent a package it should take a few weeks to get there sorry for my run on sentence. The memory card is in it. The letter I wrote to you is also in it. SO, the memory card---i said maybe develop some pictures and mail them? Well scratch that. Can you copy the memory card onto your computer but don't delete them off it and then just mail the memory card back? Sis Brown wants some of my pictures that's why. ha. Hopefully that will be all right? Then I can delete the pictures after I am done with them.

LOVE YOU!!!!
I am starting to read the old testament with my study guide. It is fascinating.
KAY THE END
sister ash.