Tracting in Chickaloon:

This week has been awesome. Elder Bacon and I have been spending a lot of time in Sutton and Chickaloon. We've been receiving some referrals from out there so it's been quite the experience trying to find those people. We have this referral who lives in chickaloon. Chickaloon is a very sketchy place. It's pretty much what you would expect to see when you think about Alaska. The police have put "This is a crime watch community" signs on every corner. In all reality it's not a crime watch community. The people that live there are definitely Alaskans. They live about an hour away from everything (meaning out in the woods). Even then they all live super far apart from each other. When we told the ward council that we're going up there, they all gave us a surprised look. One guy told us how he was just hunting up there and a man walked up, pointed a gun at him and demanded him to leave. 

We tried contacting this referral but none of the houses have addresses so we spent three hours asking all sorts of people if they knew who this man was. Of course only a few did. It was pretty scary because everyone has these signs that say "Shot on site". We saw a bunch of really cool stuff though. A pile of about 30 cars, all sorts of broken down homes, a teepee, and a random bridge. 

Elder Bacon has been driving me a little bit insane. He is totally different from Elder Agad. Edler Bacon has to know about every little thing i'm doing. Anytime Im doing anything, and i mean anything, he's there. Every time i go to the bathroom he follows me. He goes through all my stuff. Its so annoying. Other than that he's pretty cool to work with.

Elder Ogden

Photo from a member that sums up Alaska

Tough tracting

Random Teepee

Goodbye Elder Agad:

I got a new companion. His name is Elder Bacon. He's really obedient which kinda sucks. It's a complete opposite of Elder Agad. It should be good serving with him.

On transfers I got to spend the night in anchorage with Elder Paulson. That was way fun. It's been snowing a lot here. It's definitely going to be a white Halloween.

Elder Bacon and I have been seeing a lot of blessings in the Fishhook area. Apparently the President has been talking a lot about it. I'm actually going to ask to stay here for at least another transfer. Our investigator read all of D & C in a week and is constantly finding more and more out about doctrine. She's already paying tithing and we haven't taught her it yet. It's just really amazing here.

Sorry I don't have a lot of time to write today but that's pretty much everything. I'll write more next week.

Elder Ogden

Balut Eggs:

This week has been good. It was really laid back since it's week six. We got our transfer calls on Friday. Elder Agad is going to go ZL in Soldotna. I'm staying of course and getting Elder Bacon as a greenie breaker. I'm really excited to get someone new but I here he's really strict which is a polar opposite of Elder Agad.

It's been absolutely freezing here. The actual temp isn't bad at all but the wind is a killer. It's been blowing like crazy and everyone keeps telling me this is nothing compared to what they've had before. Last night our power went out. We woke up to a bunch of roof pieces in the bed of our truck. There's also been a huge wildfire and the wind's been blowing it everywhere.

On Friday we had a lesson with a Filipino family. They had Balut (bird embryo) so we invited all the Elders in the zone. We all tried it. I was able to finish mine. It was so disgusting though. After my first bite I could see the ducks head. Hugh. Elder Agad said it was nothing for him because he usually eats it when the duck is more developed.

On the way home we got stopped at an intersection. The guy next to us was spinning his wheels making smoke clouds. Elder Agad and I looked at each other like who the heck is trying to race the missionaries. Well to our surprise it was the Stake President. The light went green and we just booked it.  I don't know how far or how fast we got but it was fetching hilarious.  Anyway not a lot happened other than that.

Elder Ogden

Tracting can be Dangerous:

This week has been interesting. There's definitely been ups and downs. On Monday we went up to Hatcher Pass again. We go there a lot. We went snowshoeing without the snowshoes. We were able to walk on this frozen lake. I actually fell in a little bit. Nothing too serious.

We've been meeting with a new investigator. Some missionaries met her at a grocery store and she said she wanted missionaries to come teach her. When we got there she started to pull out all these books I had never seen before and she was asking all these different questions. I was so confused. Well it turns out she thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses. We told her we were Mormons and taught the restoration and she accepted to be baptized so that's awesome. We pretty much stole the JW's investigator. Lol.

We had the last trainer/trainee meeting. It's so funny seeing the type of trainings we get here in Alaska. In the past couple weeks we've had two trainings on how to deal with and treat moose. It's a serious concern here. One lady got trampled to death outside her house near our area. Its really scary. 

This weeks tracting has been completely awful. Nothing positive came from it. We tried tracting in this pretty remote native village. The people there absolutely hated us. They seriously do not like white people at all. There were a lot of colorful words yelled at us. We also tracted into this really drunk guy a different day. The second he opened the door I knew we needed to leave but of course I'm an idiot and kept talking to the man. There was a lot of contention. All of the sudden he paused, stared at me in the eyes for a good thirty seconds then invited us in. In my heart I knew we shouldn't follow him but we took a few steps in. He then started yelling and cussing. He asked for a message so we showed a video and bore testimony. He then told us how angry and mad he was first of all that we knocked on his door on a Saturday and second of all that we kept trying to share a message about Jesus Christ. He then started screaming and cussing then punched a hole in his door and just stared at us. At that moment my heart sank. I just froze. He continued and told us how we were standing on the wrong side of his door (meaning we shouldn't have come inside). We immediately left. Of course right when we walked outside some teenagers drove by cussing at us. Right after that the drunk man got in his truck and chased us down saying all sorts of profanity. I honestly am surprised he didn't shoot us or hit us with his car.

In the end we got to go to church yesterday and that's all that matters.

Elder Ogden

Loving Conference:

Last P Day the district got together and went fishing at the Millers Lake. It wasn't anything crazy. We didn't catch anything. We've been trying to do stuff as a district because the sisters in our district have been complaining about our unity. They brought it up in district meeting. They thought we hated them and all the Elder looked at each other like what the fetch? Freakin Sisters.

Elder Janes and I went on exchanges for three days. It was great serving with him but he doesn't know how to have fun. He's so strict on every little thing. I hate it. He made us walk everywhere because he didn't want to go over on mileage. Of course I don't care about that stuff. Heck, last month Elder Agad and I went 600 miles over our privilege and we get 500 more than most missionaries. I went to the US mail service center to pick up a package and they handed me two so I took both of them. The first one was for me but the second wasn't so I gave it to the other Elders to see if it was theirs. They said no, so instead of giving it back to the center they decided to open it. Inside were two small boxes. We opened the first and saw a large Revolver. We all looked at each other in total shock. We saw that the other box also had a hand gun. We decided to ask a member to deal with it considering we're not allowed to hold any guns. Lol.

We've been doing a lot of service. We made a huge bonfire the other day. We also helped a member cut up a Moose he killed. The member gave us each a Black Bear Claw so that was sweet. The more I meet people the more stuffed bears I see in peoples houses. Just the other day this guy had a six foot Kodiak Brown Bear stuffed in his bedroom as well as 20 other animals. My favorite was this fat mountain goat next to his bed.

General Conference was amazing. It's sad to see President Monson's health as it is, but he is getting old. Hopefully his health gets better. His short yet powerful talks give me a reason to ponder its meanings. I really enjoyed M. Russel Ballards talk on spiritual growth and relating it to climbing a mountain. I could go on and on about conference but I'll just share this short quote. It's not from this conference but it's great. Robert D. Hales- "The greatest blessings of general conference come to us after the conference is over.  Remember the pattern recorded frequently in scripture: we gather to hear the words of the Lord, and we return to our homes to live them." Hearing from these great leaders is a blessing in and of itself but we can find and experience more. If we ponder the teachings and really apply its principles then Heavenly Father will be able to bless us in personal, miraculous, and awe inspiring ways tailored to our needs.

Elder Ogden

Just one picture from Bennett this week,
looks like he found a place to hang his hammock!