Now, one thing you have to remember is that this is in Fairbanks and our house is located about 8 miles outside of town in the hills so the temperature here was:
This temperature difference is why people prefer to live in the hills.
John chopped wood on Sunday morning while I puttered around the house a bit and then headed to church. Because of the cold temps in town, I knew that all they would have is sacrament meeting.
When I arrived at the church, I found that Elder K was dressed in his native clothing. Well at least the tupenu is Tongan, plus for church he normally wears that with a white shirt and tie. The heavy boots are for the cold weather and the knitted scarf is one that a church member here gave him - I am sure that he will have no use for either of those when he returns home. He told me that he was dressed that way as he was going to be leaving Fairbanks. He was being transferred to Wasilla.
He had only been in this area for 2 months and it was sad to see him go. He and Elder B had come by the house several times to get me straightened out and going to church. I had gone a few times since I had moved up here but just never felt comfortable. This time around it is different and each week I go, I find the people to be more and more friendly. I told Elder K that the only reason he had been sent to Fairbanks is to get me back to church and now he could move on. He is a very quiet, spiritual person and it was so plain to see his love for the gospel and for the scriptures. It is very sad to see him leave.
I asked him for his mailing address and he said "Do you mean my stake address because I don't have a home address?" He lives on a small island and they get very little mail. As a matter of fact, he had only received one piece of mail in his life and that was his mission call.
Monday and Tuesday were fairly quiet here. I spent quite a bit of time out in the shop with my good buddy Treadmill. The more I walk, the less I want to sit. We've had to put quite a bit of wood in the boiler to keep the house warm. So once again, the wood John split was barely enough to get us through the week.
On Wednesday, I headed into town to pick up MP for our BBBS outing. She was supposed to come out to the house to work on her mobile but she had spent all day at an Upward Bound session at UAF. She had learned about filing taxes, writing an essay for a scholarship, and what her money personality is. So she didn't really want to drive all the way out here. I asked her what she did want to do and she said they hadn't had a lunch break all day so she was hungry. I asked her what she wanted to eat and her response was "Sushi".
Now, my sister Anna had tuned me into atkins.com and I have been on a very low carb diet for a couple of weeks - mainly meat and veggies so all the rice of sushi wasn't going to fit into that and the price of sashimi is just a bit exorbitant for what I wanted to spend that day. But I decided I could find something I could eat.
MP ordered a rainbow roll and I settled for a seared ahi tuna salad. While my mouth watered for the roll, I was good and ate my salad which was quite good.
MP was very encouraging and told me it was better to be healthy than eat sushi. She ate 7 of the 8 pieces of the roll and then said that she was full. I told her she had to eat the last piece or I would be tempted to eat it so she did pick it up and took a bite. MP was very talkative about everything - I think sometimes she just needs an adult to sit and listen to her with no other kids around.
Then the waitress came and said she was going to give us cheesecake. I told her no thank you. But she did bring a piece to MP - granted it was just a small piece as a sample.
When we got done eating, we went to Bentley Mall to get some more solution for MP's ears. She's been very good about keeping them clean. We looked around a bit and then decided to head on home. However, just as we left the mall, her cousin texted her and wanted to meet up with her at the mall. I told her that I would have to clear it with her aunt so we ended up taking her home where she put on some warmer clothes and got approval to go hang out with her cousin.
The temperatures at this time were about 20 below. Her plan was to go hang out for a while and then she would go home by 8 o'clock. Home is about 2 1/2 miles from the mall but to me that is just a long ways to walk in the cold temperatures. On the way back to the mall, she talked a lot about her family - more than she ever had. It was very interesting to learn more about them but also very sad to think of what a rough life this young lady has endured.
When I got home, I started working on my AZ quilt. Feb 14 is AZ's 100th anniversary - I won't have the quilt done by then but at least will have a good start.
When John got home that evening, he told me that the temperatures had ranged from 20 above 0 on the hill near the mine to 26 below a little ways from the house. It looks like the extra cold weather is getting ready to move on out of here.
Thursday as soon as I got off work, I was getting ready to head out to the treadmill when the doorbell rang. It was the missionaries. Elder B with his new companion Elder F from Texas. We chatted about many things for a little over an hour and then they decided they had better go.
They left and I headed out to the shop to get some sweating time in.
All too soon Friday is here. I am done with work for the week and ready for the weekend. We got about 4" of fresh snow today. Because of the temps near 0, the flakes were larger than they normally are and it was relaxing to sit and watch the flakes fall.
Tomorrow is the start of the Yukon Quest so guess I'd better get to sleep so we can head down town in the morning. Hopefully we can actually get close enough to see the mushers as they leave Fairbanks to travel the 1000 miles to White Horse, Yukon. At least the temps are going to be a lot warmer than last weekend.
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