Missionaries Arrive in Yellowknife!

We have had a very busy month in March.  Will post some of our activities and catch up on that later.

 Wanted to let you know that we have two Elders here now.  They got here last Friday, March 29th.  We were very busy the week before they got here getting things together for their apartment.  There is some furniture in the storage room here (remember Bro. & Sister Hall that moved in December gave us sofa, microwave, dining table etc.)  Plus we had boxes of odds and ends that people have donated to the missionary apartment.   We had to sort through all of that. We had just about everything we needed.  All we had to buy was a skillet, mattress pads and a toilet brush!  We got an expensive Teflon skillet on sale at 70% off at a store called Canadian Tire.  Yep, I was surprised too.  That store sells tires and just about everything else too.  We visited there a lot when we first got here and Elder Garrett was doing all of his repairs.

We have been busy this week with them.  We've fed them a few times too!  They actually have had three other dinner appointments this week.  I thought that was pretty good since half of the branch was on vacation last Sunday because it was Spring break.  We had them for Easter Sunday and a family that has one little girl.

There was a visitor here from California on a business trip so we invited him too.  (Forgot to take a picture of the whole group.)  He stayed until about 9:00 visiting with us.  (I think he missed his family!)  He has four little kids and his wife is expecting.

Elder Taylor is from Houston, Texas and Elder Dutson is from Payson, Utah. We spent some time with them setting up some goals of what we want to get accomplished here.  We worked up an introductory letter for them and put on there about General Conference this weekend.  They jumped right in and have visited almost everyone in the branch with the help of Elder Garrett.  They were excited to come to Yellowknife.  When we were in the mission office we were told that all the missionaries would like to be the ones to go to Yellowknife!!  So they have ended up being the "Frozen Chosen" because it has gotten really cold here again.  The wind chill factor was -37 yesterday.  We saw a post on face book that said "What a lovely winter we're having this spring."  That definitely applies to Yellowknife.  We had to get the "big coats" out again! That wind will really get you!

Catching Up

We are a little behind on this blog (just a little - almost two months!)  We have been busy but just seems the more behind we get, the harder it is to catch up.  Also we are not good at remembering to take pictures.  We are enjoying our time here and it is going fast.  We are thankful to have this opportunity to serve.  Elder Garrett seems to stay very busy just helping people and keeping things going here in the branch. He has had a couple of phone calls in the middle of the night for help.  He doesn't seem to mind, in fact he tells people to call him anytime.  He is blessed with a great ability to counsel with people.  We have gotten some in-actives to come back.  A couple of weeks ago we had four stake visitors and we had a total of 46 in attendance. That is up from 17 the first week we were here.  Our attendance really fluctuates because so many people here work on Sunday.  We have three nurses in our branch, three that work at the prison and two that work at the airport and that always entails Sunday shifts.

It is still cold here and of course there is still lots of snow.  It isn't snowing quite so much but we had three straight days of snow last week.  Actually it really helped to make things look better because all the piles of snow were looking pretty nasty.  What amazes us is that it will snow all day and the sun will be shining!  They say there are two seasons here - summer and winter.  Elder Garrett says there is summer - winter - and beyond winter!!  I think he is correct.  The first day of spring last week was actually winter - part ll or beyond winter!! We still haven't been above freezing since October 21st.  The most amazing thing is that since the weather has warmed up the snow is melting even though it is  not above freezing yet.  Today we watched a steady stream of water coming off the building and the temperature was around 25.  So people have resorted to wearing jackets instead of the big heavy parkas.  They tell us that summer around here is beautiful - we are waiting and waiting and waiting!!!

This is all the Garrett grandchildren taken after Christmas at out eight year old granddaughter Amzie's baptism.  We were able to face time for the baptism.  It was just like we were there.

This is the sign entering the ice road to the small little town of Dettah across the lake.  When we first got here there was a sign entering the lake saying the road was closed.  We thought that was pretty funny until we found out there is actually a road in the winter!  It takes less than ten minutes to get there.  If you drive around the lake it takes about thirty minutes.

We were amazed at the ice road.  We thought it might be a little scary but it is about six lanes wide and pretty awesome!  This is in the middle of the lake.

Driving toward the little town of Dettah.

In the middle of the Great Slave Lake

The snow is worn off of this part of the ice road and you can actually see down in the water.  The ice is about six feet thick.  Pretty amazing!!

There are even speed limit signs on the ice road!

 

Going back to town on ice road.

House Boats on Great Slave Lake.  We showed pictures of these house boats on the lake when we first came.  We thought it was funny that now you can see cars around them.  I guess in the summer they park them some-where on land!

House Boats.

The pine trees were beautiful covered with snow.  I kept forgetting to take a picture.  This was taken the first day it warmed up and was an overcast day.  It started melting really quickly from the trees.  I hope to get one of those gorgeous pictures next year!!

Houses in Winter

Winter street. The main roads stay pretty clear.  All the neighborhood streets are packed with snow.

We were driving the ice road early afternoon as the sun was starting to go down. We observed this phenomenon we haven't seen before.  This is called a sun dog or double sun.  It appears in the north when it seems the sky is being filled with more particles of moisture and is usually a sure sign of in impending change in the weather, usually not good.  Of course all of it so far has not been what we call "too good."  It was beautiful though!!

Beautiful Sun Dog

We have a new High Councilor over the Yellowknife Branch.  Bro.  Durham was released.  This is Bro. & Sis. Gorbohn.  They visited us on February 9th and 10th.  We had dinner with them on Saturday and then they spoke in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday.  We always love to have visitors from the Stake.  One reason is that we always have them speak on Sunday because there are not too many to speak in this small branch.  We will miss Bro. Durham who has always been so helpful but are finding out that all of the stake people are just as helpful.  I mentioned a couple of things that I couldn't find here.  The Gorbohns went on a cruise just after their trip here and while in Florida Sis Gorbohn purchased these things and had them sent to me.  WE LOVE OUR STAKE VISITORS!!!  They definitely are fulfilling their call to the Yellowknife branch!

Brother and Sister Milnes. Sis. Milnes is the Relief Society president.  She is a very sweet lady and I am enjoying working with her in Relief Society.  They and their children had dinner with us when Bro. & Sister Gorbohn  were visiting.  She brought the main dish and I did salad and desert.  What fun!!!

Tanner and Kristen Milnes

Melanie is a single girl in our branch.  She is dating Leo who is not a member.  We have had them for dinner twice so far and had discussions with him.  He is such a nice young man.  We will be having elders coming for six months and we will have them start teaching him. 

Elder Garrett with Melanie and Leo

The youth visited the nursing home here on February 13th.  I made cookies and wrapped them individually in little baggies with a ribbon around them (forgot to take pictures.)  The youth had a great time visiting and came back here for cookies and milk afterwards (forgot to take pictures again!)  We all had a good time.  We have seven amazing youth!!

I have been doing the bulletin board in the Relief Society Room.  I didn't think about taking the picture in January.  I prided myself on not having to buy anything for the board.  I found all the things in the Relief Society closet or ribbon that I already had.  The bows are recycled from Christmas!

Micheal Purcell

Elder Garrett has been meeting with Michael about going on a mission.  He is 18 and plans to go but he is a little nervous about it.  Who isn't!!  Elder Garrett has been meeting with him for the mission prep class.  He graduated from high school this past spring.  He, of course was the only Mormon in his High School.  He said when friends wanted him to do things contrary to gospel principles he encouraged them to do the things he believed in.  He said most of the time it worked!  Elder Garrett asked him to give a talk in Sacrament Meeting.  He had never given a talk in Sacrament Meeting before!  He was a little nervous and asked Elder Garrett to help him.  Elder Garrett did help him some and he gave an amazing talk!  He even spoke for about 25 minutes!  Watch out mission field.  Here comes a great missionary!!!  He plans to have his paper work in by March. 

Mr. Fix-It Has Been Busy

Elder Garrett has been busy just helping people with problems.  On four occasions he has had to go help someone who was having car problems.  Two of them have been at night and it is even colder at night!  I felt sorry for him when he had to put on all those layers of clothing and get out in the cold.    My job has been much easier!  He has helped someone fix their dog house, someone fix a window and various projects around the church building.  I found some projects in our pictures that we did a while back and I never did post that I thought were pretty interesting.

When we were fixing things and cleaning up the apartment I thought that I would shampoo these chairs.  Then I had a better idea.  We went to the store.

We bought these and a nice piece of upholstery fabric at Walmart for $10.00.  It was actually big enough to recover about six chairs so I thought that was an excellent price for up here

This is the finished project after covering these cushions and putting two new coats of stain on the chairs.  Looks like new!!!

We were cleaning the Relief Society closet out one day and this board was in there.  It was about three times wider than this and had all these hooks in it.  Apparently it had been used years ago with home made numbers on it for the hymns.  We were going to throw it out when Mr. Fix-it had another idea!  He would make himself a tie rack and put it on the back of the door to help the over crowed condition in the closet.  He sawed it off and put all the hooks in one row.

These are the over crowded conditions in our one closet

Now Mr. Fix-it has a place for all his ties and belts without having them jammed in the closet and falling all the time!!

Mr. Fix-it has another great idea.  When we were listening to something on the iPad sometimes we could hardly hear it.  So Mr. Fix-it would cup his hand around the back and you could hear it much better.  So he had this idea.  He cut a slit in the cup and we hook it around the speaker.  It really works!!!!

This is a commentary Mr. Fix-it wrote about his invention.  It is quite lengthy, if you don't have much time!

 Commentary continued.

This is Mr. Fix-it taking a picture in the mirror to show how his new invention works!!  Not that we are hard of hearing or anything like that!!!  He actually spent a little while on the foam cup getting the cut just right!

Belated Christmas

Thought this was worth sharing!!  Our oldest daughter mailed us a Christmas package on December 12th.  It just arrived today.  Unbelievable that it took over 20 days to get here.  It could have gotten here sooner by truck!!!  Anyway, loved this note from the 16 year old!

 Great Christmas card from Amelia!  We love you guys!

Celebrating the New Year in Yellowknife

We decided that we would have a branch New Years Eve Party.  We only have seven teenagers  so decided to have the party for the whole branch. 

We planned to do the shopping on Saturday for the party.  Bro. Bellis had a slight heart attack and Elder Garrett spent most of Saturday at the hospital.  So Monday morning first thing we headed to Walmart.  Only 3 boxes of party favors left, we took two.  Only 2 big bags of balloons left, we took one.  We made a piñata and blew up lots of balloons.  Sis Milnes (RS president) and her two kid helped us decorate.

 

Apparently Elder Garrett and I can make a pretty strong piñata.  After everyone having several turns it was not budging.  I had made piñata s before with starch but couldn't find that anywhere up here so decided to use glue!  Bad idea!  I looked it up on the internet later and found out that you can make a simple paste with water and flour!  Should have looked it up first!!  We had fun though!  Finally one of the men it several, several times and busted it.

Even the teenage guys couldn't bust this.  We even had them try several times without the blindfold!  It was a good disco ball though!!

Everyone was pleased with the results of the disco ball!!!

We shared lots of good snacks and nibbled all evening long!!

This is Sophie, the youngest participant at the party.  She kept the party going by passing the hats and horns around.  We played Chutes and Ladders with her.  She won a cake in the musical cake walk game.

We played balloon badminton.  We also had a contest to see how many times you could bounce your balloon on your stick held paper plate.  The winner bounced it 146 times!!!

We played lots of games.  One game was pining a famous person on your back and you had to guess it.  Each person wrote a New Years resolution or goal down and we guessed who wrote them.  We played musical chairs cakewalk.  Sis. Milnes had made 3 cakes.  The young people really enjoyed this.  We also played some card games.  The night went by quickly.

Some people were getting a little tired as the night went on!!

Did a lot of visiting!!!

Getting ready for the countdown!!  Only ten seconds to go!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

CELEBRATING!!!!!!!

Popping all the balloons and clean-up.  Everyone helped with the clean up and we were done with everything in about ten minutes.  A fun time was had by all.  Even Sis. Greenwood, who is Sophie's mother said it was the best New Years Eve party she had ever been to!!  Thanks everyone!!!