Valdez Glacier

So today was my first official pday!! So far it has been awesome! This morning I got up, worked out, ate, and then I cleaned the tub.... IT WAS SO Bad. Like it was black on the sides and brown all over... and it was a white tub! Then I cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom. It’s so weird being self-motivated to clean. I mean they don’t even do housing inspections here because it’s 5+ hours away from Anchorage. It’s actually relatively close compared to most of the other areas, but it’s still fetching far.

This area is awesome though. There are so many glaciers! Every mountain has a few! And they are all covered! Today was awesome! This morning after getting ready me and my big Tongan comp, Elder V, went out snow machining with the C’s! It was so much fun! It was saaaweeeet!!! P.S. They call snowmobiles snow machines here in Alaska! It threw me off at first but it makes since! I mean we don’t tell people that we ride in an Automobile.... Hahaha! The coolest part was the destination though! We went and checked out the glaciers!

It was surreal, the parts that we went thru were just tunnels that had been created by the rivers that ran thru the glaciers (when it was actually in the glacier), but it was worn away now and we were able to go and walk inside the tubes. Those things are slippery though! You have to stay on the snow that has blown in, or walk on the rocks that were exposed as the glacier melts. Really though, it was unlike anything I have ever seen, and no amount of pictures could do it justice! I love it when I see things in nature that just capture the splendor of God!

We went and climbed around in them for awhile. I climbed up this tube that was just wider than my body and Elder V climbed up the other side and we took pictures of each other. It was soo epic! So then we ended up climbing up to the top of it and Bro. C. showed us this part that we were able to slide down to get back to the sleds (also another name for the snowmobiles). Then we headed back. Did I mention how much fun snow machines are? They are so fun to ride! We got back and the Christensen’s fed us many quesadillas! We talked for awhile and then we took off to go and do our email!

That’s how my preparation day has gone so far! I’m gonna be sending you my memory card soon cause it’s pretty stinking full! I’ve got some epic panoramic pics that you could put together for me, I took them using my cam but it doesn’t splice them together automatically.

General conference/Easter was wonderful! We were fed! We were taught! We taught! It was a great day! I loved all the talks! I'm looking forward to this week. This is kind of a tough area but I know that we will find the diamonds in the rough with the Lord’s help. It’s gonna take quite a bit of searching this week though. So we are really going to focus on finding new investigators. I’m still trying to memorize who all we are teaching, but it’s coming along quickly, especially after I meet and teach them a few times.

Speaking of memorizing! Tongan is coming along! I now know most of my general hello, good bye, how are you, what are you doing type-phrases. It’s kind of going slow cause we really haven’t had that many language study sessions yet but we will have it every day this week and it should be great!

I’m so glad that I was able to hear from all of you, Mom and Dad! I hope the brothers liked my letters! I love you guys and I can’t wait to hear from you! I’ll probably write you all another letter sometime this week if I catch a few spare moments or if something prompts me to write! Mom, I’ll be sending you pictures soon! I love you guys! I hope someday we can all come up here as a family and check all this out together, like when were grown up! Haha I miss you guys!

I’ll talk to you later!

Love, Elder Winterrose!