Photos from Soldotna

26 October 2015


We got pictures this week.

This waterfall runs into the ocean

Homer Bound

19 October 2015

We are headed to Homer today! I am so excited.  I think i will love
it.  Everyone says it is way more hippie than up here.  So i think i
will fit right in.

Some highlights from this week:
1. People's nice birthday gifts
2. We drove out to the farthest reaches of our area, a place called
"Funny River".  Those folks.... good times.  They all live off of the
Beautiful Kenai River though, that i will send pictures of.  Got to
hear some nice stories about shooting neighborhood cats and lots and
lots and lots of stories about bears.
3. Helping our eternigator Vaughn Pick a new baptism date.
Unfortunately, it will probably be for after i leave.
4. We got stuck in a ditch, then my wonderful comp locked the keys in
the car, but we didnt discover that until we were finished tracting
(and getting chased by multiple dogs off people's properties), we had
our Ward Mission Leader's family come search with us for a good couple
hours. good times.  they finally skillfully broke into our car, so now
I know how to do that.  tricky tricky.
5. We decided to walk to our dinner appointment one day and talk to
EVERYONE we saw.... we saw one guy and his dogs.  Haha.
6. Met Natalie, a GOLDEN investigator who fell in love with the Book
of Mormon and asked us to teach her..... that turned out to be not in
our ward.  Gosh dang those Elders.
7. Selling back massages for book of mormon reading (a women only offer)
8. Haulin wood.

That is just about the extent!  I love soldotna and the peninsula! I
have had a great time.

There are so many miracles around.  We are just starting to learn to see!
Sister Galli
 (P.s. the Book of mormon rocks, tell someone about your favorite book
this week and carry it with you

0 New

Group email

12 October 2015

OK so actually I have plenty of time to write you group email.

So miracles happened on Sunday. A less active bore a VERY long
testimony about how she knows the church is true and needs to come
back into activity, and she brought her friend, who met with
missionaries 20 ago but stopped when she had an abusive boyfriend. Now
she is totally prepared, and loves the feeling that she gets at
church. Even though she has a ton of tattoos, she felt very welcome.
We met with her second hour and have a lesson set up with them every
Friday.
Also, my comp and I both got joint inspiration that we should be at
the church when there was no reason we should be, we couldn't figure
out why when we got there and so we had an awkward discussion in the
hall about what we should do. As we were talking, this girl came out
of a class room.  Turns out she was an investigator that the elders
are teaching and we were able to talk about a lot of things she was
learning and give her a little lesson about the spirit. We really
connected fast and it was definitely a tender mercy.

Oh also, we didn't have a dinner one of the nights this week, and so I
pulled out some halibut from the freezer, rummaged through some spices
and stuff that we found in the fridge, and we ended up with an
incredible dinner. Yay for creative companionship cooking! Sister
Rollins and I have some stellar times.

One last zinger. When I was here about two months ago I met a girl at
Dairy Queen that said she would meet with missionaries. But she just
never really was able or interested after that. I shot her a text this
week and explained who I was and she was so happy to hear I had been
back! She is young, going to school, ice skating semi professionally,
and working, so she has had like zero time, but still really wants to
meet with us. Then we were at Dairy Queen another day, and started
talking to another girl about meeting with us, and she said she had
heard the lessons when she lived in Cali, and wouldn't mind again.
Well.... Turns out these two girls are best friends. So we are jazzed.
We have had a lesson fall through, so please pray that we will be able
to meet with Nadia and Tay.

Alaska rocks.

Sister Galli

Shoot, Shovel, and Shut up

5 October 2015

First of all, a little about soldotna:
I am in a fishing town. It is famous for its fishing and people come all over the world to catch salmon and halibut. But in the winter (now) it gets much more dead. A lot of people farm here. They are pretty sheltered ;) but really really nice. It's got a very "chill" feel. Many people garden, and already in my time here I have seen 11 caribou and 2 moose. They are very common. Also, it snowed like crazy on September 29. :). Weird Alaska. It's warmer here then anchorage though.the population is 

4000 in all of soldotna, but we our ward is way less than that. 

My three favorite Alaskan foods are:

Caribou sausage, :), smoked salmon, halibut. Also a good ole moose roast does me well. 

*we interrupt this program to bring you a miracle**** 

I have always wanted to teach a family, so I started prayingprayingpraying for one. We went service tracting and this lady answered and said that she was happily in another church, so she wasn't interested, but when we asked about service, she was really happy to think of some people. That got us talking and it turns out she knows a Mormon lady really well who had gone on a long car ride with him and had told her the basic premise for our church. She therefore knew that we were Christian. Aaaand she had questions. Her questions were entirely along the lines of the restoration, she asked about Joseph smith and the Book of Mormon so we got to teach her almost the whole thing and she thought it was really good. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she was so excited and said she was an avid reader, so she would read it, and that she would have lots of questions. Unfortunately she said she wouldn't be ready for about a month, because her husband came into town from his out of town job and she was going to spend time with him. But she said we could totally do service in the mean time for her. Oh man when we were talking the spirit kept yelling at me: "this is your family!!!" I am so excited. 

Now for the funny: so the very first thing I did the morning after I got here, was to go do service at this lady's farm. Boy oh boy she is classic homesteader. She looks the part, from her jagged teeth to her hundreds of freckles. We had lunch with her and a bunch of TOUGH Alaskans. Beards. Guns. Eating moose sausage, work on the farm... Yeah. You know the type. They were just beating the fish and game department, particularly with the regulations make on hunting bears, that there even was a limit.  One lady who owns a farm herself, said that she and her neighbors met in a secret night meeting, and they made a consensus about what to do about the Bears wandering in to their yards and land. They referred to it as: "shoot, shovel, and shut up."  Ooooh boy I was dying inside. They then went to talk about wanting to take out the beaver population and illegally kill moose to process. Oooooh I had a good ole time. 

We also had a baptism this week! I definitely don't feel like I had anything to do with it, since I only taught him two lessons, but boy he is absolutely the sweetest kid. So genuine and kind. He truly wanted to be baptized. 

Also, wasn't conference just the best time! 

Anyway, it's been a great week, I love you!