Pictures

We received Elder Record's SD card with a few pictures. I have included more pictures from his time as district leader in Fairbanks as well as current photos. Elder Record did not send any captions with the pictures, so I will do my best.

Fairbanks














A nice collection of older cars.

Helping out with the season catch. Elder Record with Elder Beirne.

Elder Beirne studying diligently.

Halloween with Elder Beirne. The pumpkin Elder Record carved and a great pirate (not sure who he is).

Elder Record by Bethlehem and a reindeer.


The district in Fairbanks. Elder Record is second from the right.

Sand Lake in Anchorage

A meeting with other elders. Elder Record is second one from the bottom left.

Sister Watson and Elder Record. Sister Watson was in Elder Record's district in the MTC, came out at the same time with Elder Record, and is going home very soon.

Elder Hartman and Elder Record

Elder Hartman, Elder Higley and Elder Record

Elder Record and "the hand" or just an annoying companion

Just being goofy. Must be Record Elder day instead of Elder Record.

Elder ?, Elder Conlin, Elder ?, Elder Beirne, Elder Record and Elder Wright. Elder Record trained Elders Conlin, Beirne and Wright. I'm guessing the other two unknown elders are being trained by one of Elder Record's trainees, making them Elder Record's "grandsons."

Week of Service

Hello everybody! This week was cool and unique. Being in Anchorage, we don't normally get to do a lot of service. I mean we do, but as far as like physical labor service for people, you don't do as much as in other places; just because it's a city. On Saturday we got to help a member of our ward move out to a different ward. Later that day we got to help some people that are investigating the Church, move into our ward. We got a few missionaries to help us out and a few members of the Elder's quorum in the ward. So she was able to meet those guys. Oddly enough, but pretty cool, she moved in right next door to one of the counselors in the Elder's quorum presidency. Anyway, it was a really good experience and she was able to get some fellowship. I think it left a good impression. We are excited to continue to teach them where the other missionaries left off.

There was a less active member we have been working with, and we go over and do our laundry there every Monday. He got called as a family history consultant. That will be fun because we get to work with him and have him help us out on some of the people we help. We can get him involved in the loop. It will be a nice way for him to serve other people. Which is the best way, I think, to regain your testimony; just start helping people. Well.... that and praying and reading your scriptures (haha) and everything else too.

We also helped this other guy move out. He is moving a bunch of stuff into storage.

We have been helping some missionaries prepare a training for Thursday. It's a Samoan language training and we are helping them prepare their presentations.

We have had a few really good lessons. We have been getting more and more new investigators. It's cool to see how the Lord prepares people for us to teach. The whole zone seems to be doing better at that. We have music and the waking word coming up next week. That's always entertaining, and our zone gets to host it on Tuesday.

It's been really warm, but the past few days have been really cold.

I love you guys. I hope you are all having a good time. The Church is true, and we'll talk to you next week.

Love, Elder Record

Feeling Better and Working Hard

Hello! So, I had a good week. We are heading to emails because we had a holiday on Monday and the libraries were closed.

This last week, I got sick. Wait, was that this last week or the week before? Yeah, that was this week, wasn't it? We got sick, but surprisingly enough, even though we were sick the last couple of weeks, we have been super, super busy. There is this ten year old we started teaching, and she is on date to be baptized. The situation is pretty cool, because initially the father didn't really like the Church and prevented his wife from attending. She was able to come back because he kind of softened up a little bit. He was at Church the Sunday before Christmas. Come to find out, he gave his ten year old daughter permission to get baptized. His wife is a recent convert of a few years. It has been really neat teaching her, and we just got out of a lesson there. It was fun. We taught her about the restoration of the gospel. So it felt good. I always love doing that.

I love teaching. In fact, when I eventually figure out what I want to go into for my occupation, I probably want to do something with teaching, because it's very, very fun. I like helping people understand.

Other than that, we have had a couple of good opportunities to work with our ward mission leader and the ward missionaries. We have been helping that organization get started. It's neat to see. We have our ward mission leader who conducts our correlation meeting. We have been going out to visit people with the ward missionaries, and with Brother Faber, the ward mission leader. It's starting to run very well. I think it will help the ward get involved in more missionary work as we keep this going and expand it. Which is good, since most of the missionary work needs to happen within the ward and their association with others. We kind of come in and do the teaching so to speak. It's good to see that going. That was a highlight for me this week.

We have also been doing some family history. We taught the assistants a little about family history. We have been preparing for a culture training on the following Thursday. We are helping everybody get their presentations; the different elders in the different Samoan areas. That is a lot of business we end up doing as zone leaders, but it's fun and needs to be done. I like it because I'm getting a variety of experience on my mission. I have to tell you what though, I really mission training and being a district leader (haha). That was fun! I like doing the more one on one type stuff. As a zone leader I feel kind of detached. The district leaders are the ones that really have influence on helping the missionaries in their districts to do well, and improve and progress. They have a good amount of influence on how well others do. The zone leaders do the more business stuff to make sure everything works; but it's fun.

We had an investigator we hadn't taught in like a month. We finally had another lesson with them with one of our ward missionaries too. That went well. We were able to get back on page with each other. He is reading his scriptures and things. It was nice to see him doing well. He is going to be baptized in April.

Some members took us to Olive Garden. They have really good food. I like their shrimp. They have like tons of shrimp stuff. Life is good. I love Alaska! I'm sending my SD card back in the mail with some pictures on it. You should be getting that soon. I'm taking my vitamins and staying healthy. When I said I gained 20 pounds on my mission, it's gone back to only 10 pounds. So, I don't know if that's good or bad (haha).

I love you all. Keep doing your best. Keep reading your scriptures. Keep helping other people, and strengthen them and help them be the best that they can be. They will always appreciate it. Love you guys, and I will talk to you next week.

Love, Elder Record

Sick, but Life is Good

Hello Family. Unfortunately, this week I've been kind of sick. I got sick on Friday. Well, I guess it started on Thursday a little bit. I just have a cold. It's not very fun, but I'll get over it.

One thing we did this week was zone leader conference. That lasted a good part of the day. We just got trained in different things that the president thought needed to be spread through the different zones. We had a zone meeting on Thursday morning, where we shared that training with the zone and the things they needed to do. We had our interviews on Tuesday, so that was fun. We got to talk with President Beesley.

We found a less active family who was wanting to come to Church, through our ward mission leader. We went over with some ward missionaries, invited them to come to Church, offered them a ride, and they came. It was pretty cool, especially because they live right across the hall from some other less active members. So as they get excited, they will be able to help each other out, and come to Church.

I felt like this week with some of the people we were visiting, we got to find out what their hold up is; what their need is and how we might be able to help them. With a couple of people, unemployment seems to be a big thing that is stressing them out. We'll see if we can't help. There are some people we know that can help them.

I went on exchanges with one of the district leaders. That was fun. We got to strengthen and build them. There is a family who joined the Church like two years ago, but her husband said for a little bit, “it's either me or the Church.” He has kind of softened up, and she has been able to come back to Church. He actually showed up to Church on Christmas, which was pretty surprising, but cool. He allowed her daughter to get baptized, so we are going to start teaching her; she's eleven. It's really neat to see hearts softening.

It's been really warm; freakishly warm. It's like 40 degrees right now, and I can't hardly wear a coat – at all. It's raining like crazy and everything is melting. It's like breakup, which is weird. It is really an abnormal winter. I guess I really don't know what normal is anyway because I was only hear for last winter, which was more snow than it's even gotten before. This year it is not snowing hardly at all, but it's raining like crazy.

Flu is going around. Hopefully I don't catch the flu (haha). I'm praying. Life it going good, except for the sick part. I'll probably rest a lot today. I won't play basketball. I won't weaken my body any more to get sick. I need to save up my energy.

I hope you guys have a good week too. See you later.

Love, Elder Record

Service and Family History

Okay, so, this week we had our transfers officially. Elder Leota went up to the Turnagain Ward – I think I said that last time. But, it actually happened this week so that took up part of the beginning of the week. Since it's our responsibility to help out the other missionaries in the zone, we got the opportunity to move a bunch of furniture for them. So we got a really good work out. I didn't even have to weight lift; not that I do anyway, but that morning I did a little bit, and then I found out we would be moving all that stuff. But that's okay, even though I was tired, we still did it, and we worked hard and it was a good work out.

We also helped this other lady move out of her house into a new one. That was fun. It was good service.

The zone changed up a little bit. We have more missionaries and a lot of fun people I enjoy serving around. President Beesley shared a really cool scripture at the transfer meeting. It's D&C 58:3-4; I think. It talks about how you can't behold with your natural eye for the time being, what God has in store for you. You have to work through that trial of your faith before you can see those blessings and before they come, but they are coming. I thought that was pretty cool scripture. And of course with God, nothing is impossible. So it's really up to us to change our own situations and attitudes. I mean everything we are in is designed to help us grow, and the only thing that keeps us from growing is our own attitude.

We had a couple of good lessons this week. We were able to help some people out with family history, which is fun because we always end up talking about the Plan of Salvation and families and those wonderful points of the gospel. We then link that to families and help people discover their families. It's just fun, because they get really excited.

We got to help a family come to Church that was not going to come to Church. We called them and they said they were coming. Church was just about to start, and we gave them a call, and they needed some help getting out the door. So we went over and gave them some support, and we got them to Church (haha). That was a neat experience.

That is kind of the news for the week.

Elder Record: Can you think of anything else Elder Higley?

Elder Higley: I missed my turn.

Elder Record: He missed his turn, but he is going to turn up here.

Alaska is fun. There are lots of ravens; they are everywhere. There's snow. It's sunny, but it's cold. There are a little bit of clouds.

Elder Record: Where are we? I don't think you parked at the library (hahaha). Yeah, I don't think this is the library.

Elder Higley: There it is!

Elder Record: Yep, there it is.

Elder Higley: We can walk there. Do you want to walk there?

Elder Record: No. It's cold.

Anyway, life is good, and the Gospel is true. Jesus Christ lives and loves us.

Elder Record: And that is a “Do Not Enter” (hahaha) This is why you have a companion. I love Elder Higley.

Elder Higley: I would have been just fine. No cars came.

Elder Record: That's true, no cars came. (haha)

Anyway, bye.

Love, Elder Record