Sister Elly Rex: Anchorage Alaska Mission 2020-2022

  I was caught up in the beauty of the Alaska Fall weather when we woke up Tuesday morning to find the town covered in snow!!  You aren't a true "sourdough" Alaskan unless you have 5 broken trucks in your front lawn. If you don't believe me, come see for yourself!! We went to teach this 90year old couple who were BIG talkers. After a LONG time of listening to them babble nonsense, I yelled, "CAN WE SAY A PRAYER?!". The woman apparently didn't hear me and went on pretending she had a shot gun and made explosive noises of her shooting it. Me and 'BB' died laughing. I tried offered the prayer 3 more times but ended up just standing up and walking out.  A famous line from Inez this week during our study... * someone knocks on door*  "I don't care I'm talking to my sisters right now. Not my actual sisters but my sisters in Christ".  Church was cancelled due to the rising cases of COVID in the valley. So we decided to carol to our fri...

We helped a family move into our area by unloading their 2 stuffed U-hauls. They took the title "U-HAUL" to a whole new level. They brought every piece of anything with them from Colorado. Alaskans are BIG hoarders so they will fit right in;) After the service, the mom gave us a hundred dollar bill and told us to get dinner. We decided on the 50 piece chicken finger meal from canes. Between the 8 of us missionaries, we finished it in 10 minutes. It was legendary. Definitely the highlight of the week! After playing glow in the dark dodge ball with the youth, we went to our car to make some phone contacts. After a while, we rolled down our windows and played the song, "Book of Mormon Stories". A whole crowd of youth came over and started dancing to it. And then for the next 30 minutes, the youth stuck around and talked to us about our missionary work and how they want to go on missions. It was really cool to get the youth excited for their own adventure to move the wo...

Me and Sister 'BB' LOVE Mexican food. So we treated ourselves with some BOMB Tex-Mex. Alaska Tex-Mex cannot be related to Oklahoma's but it's what we've got and I'm thankful for it. We walk out of the hole in the wall Tex-Mex restaurant into an alley way. We see a woman smoking outside. We turned our heels toward her and started talking! She opened up instantly & asked us if we had any pamphlets to give her. Sadly we didn't because well... Tex-Mex!! But we did have a Book of Mormon. She asked to have it & we willingly gave it to her. She told us it made her look good holding the book in one hand and a cigarette in the other. #cute Meg and Carl, the goat people tried converting us to become Jehovah Witnesses. Sadly for them, we have a rock solid testimony that Jesus Christ lives and that modern day revelation exists for each one of us. They got fired up when I explained that I was grateful for Adam and Eve's decision to partake of the fruit so tha...

  A woman gave us basil, and told us it was spinach. I believed her and put the "spinach" in my smoothie. BIG MISTAKE. Basil in smoothies are no bueno.  We got a service referral from our Facebook page. His name is JesseLee! We called him and he asked us to help his family move apartments. Then he asked, "Do you know where my records are?". Turns out he was born and raised in the church in Homer, Alaska! He explained that he did some not-so-good things in his teenage years but wants to return to our church for his family. He asked us to share a discussion with his family after we helped them move. So, we did so! I have never met a family so desirous to learn the gospel and to change. His 2 elementary aged kids, LOVED the lesson and his Ex-wife told us she wants to read The Book of Mormon as a family every night. When the family you're teaching gives themselves their own invitation, you know they are truly desirous to learn more about our Savior, Jesus Christ.  J...