3-13-11

Hey Mom,
We had a pretty good week. Our investigator Shelby Butler is on date to be baptized on March 26th. Did I tell you about her? She's 64 and just had back surgery and is pretty weak right now. But she believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet and she understands the need to be baptized by proper authority. The main thing is if she's physically able. She hasn't even been to church the past 2 Sundays because of her health. President and Sister Dance were at church, which was cool to see them. They said they just wanted to come to church up here, so they flew up at midnight. It's good they didn't go to our apartment because there's mini marshmallows all over the floor. We found 2 marshmallow blow guns with ammo in my desk that the last Elder had gotten in a package, so we had a war on Saturday night.
So, we go to the Ashcraft's when we wake up and start our laundry with 2 other missionaries while we study and Sister Ashcraft makes us breakfast. Quite a convenient system. Missionaries really get spoiled. Maybe it's just like that in the US. I didn't know Gary had been in Fairbanks. Do you know how long?
It's warming up a bit here. The roads are super icy. We had part of our bumber replaced where previous Elders had broken it, and of course the next day I slid into the back of a Toyota. Luckily it didn't do any damage, and even more luckily the guy in the Toyota just came back and said nothing's hurt, I'm happy if you're happy, and drove off.
The one thing that I was hoping to see while I was here was the northern lights and they came out for 2 nights last week. It has something to do with solar flares and how cold it is when you can see them. I got some decent pictures but it doesn't even compare to what it was like. They move pretty slow, but all the sudden they started dancing around like crazy, and I could see hints of red and blue in it. Here's a picture.
Anyway, I better go. Shelby's husband is the head of security on the base at Fort Wainwright and he said he could let us take a picture on the base so we're going to try and do that today. Do you or grandpa Wainwright know if we're related to General Wainwright who the fort was named after? That'd be cool to find out. Also tell Grandma thanks for the letter. Talk to you later.
Love,
Elder Bryce Wainwright

3-7-11

Hey Mom,
So far I like Fairbanks a lot. It's been sunny everyday, and has hardly been in the negative degrees. We have a cool ward and a lot of really nice houses in my area. We have one investigator Shelby, who is probably going to be baptised soon. She was going to get try and get baptized with her husband but I don't think he wants to. This last week was pretty slow, but I have good hopes for the ward, and we have a brand new ward mission leader here, who wants us to be tracting less and teaching more. I feel like I'm kind of a sloppy District Leader, like I forgot to call my district for the weekly report until 10:20pm last night. But I'm trying to get everything all figured out. Bruce was saying that he wished they gave more training to District Leaders when he was new, but they really don't tell you much. Elder Savaiinaea is a lot of fun. (pronounced So-va-ee-na-ya. I don't know if that helps.) He's been teaching me some Samoan words like soa(companion). He played rugby for his country, and his younger brother died from breaking his neck playing rugby. We are playing volleyball today so that'll be fun. We can see Mount McKinley from here in some places and hopefully I can still see the Northern Lights.
Glad you got to talk to Britnee and everyone went to Red Cliffs. The member who showed us Mount McKinley last night has been to Red Cliffs before.
The box was stuff I didn't need or have room for. I still have my carhardt which is plenty warm. I left my gloves in Ketchikan, so I just bought some new ones.
Have a great week. Love you.
Elder Bryce Wainwright

PS - It was Elder Savaiinaea's birthday last week and we didn't do much except I bought him Pizza Hut for lunch, so this morning a really cool family, the Ashcrafts, who do our laundry, made him breakfast today. Then we played air hockey.
-Here's a picture of my pen- it's made with an olive tree from Jeruselam.
-We did service at a worldwide ice sculpture competition