Winter: I just might die. I am committed.

Hello my wonderful friends and family!

I have been growing a lot lately. I have a lot to talk about, but unfortunately I probably won't be able to touch on it all. But I'll try.

I just recently discovered the Ensign. Yes, I have known of the Ensign, but I've never discovered the Ensign. I am obsessed with them now. I have stacks and stacks of them. During lunch I'll read them. When we wait in the car for an appointment I will read them out loud to Elder Nichols. Its like my spiritual potato chips. I just can't get enough.

I really want to learn to harmonize.

It is so cold. And Winter hasn't even started. It is sooo cold! I hope I don't die. I'm going to go to some thrift shops and see if I can't get wool socks and gloves.

Our ward had a missionary centered sacrament meeting. It was awesome. All the parents of the missionaries got up and gave short little talks about their missionaries. They updated us on what was going on in their lives, and then they shared what they've learned from the experience of having their children out on missions. It was really awesome.

Referrals: working with the ward is hard to do sometimes, but I've really found that when the members of our ward are doing their best to share the gospel and invite their friends to meet with us, a lot gets done. I want to encourage all of you to pray for missionary opportunities every day. It really will help everyone. Please please please.

The Activity Day girls put together a package for us, it was so awesome. I am so grateful! They filled it with the best stuff! Food, hand sanitizer, envelopes, candy, macaroni and cheese, and more! I loved it.

Music... I'm on a constant search for more religious music. The youth site on lds.org has some pretty good music. I'm going to try and figure out how I can get a hold of some EFY cds. That's awesome music. Also Alison Krauss has some awesome music. If you ever find music that you think I'd like, I wouldn't argue with you if you sent it out to me :)

We helped with the last day of the Fall Fest. It was a GREAT opportunity to publicize ourselves. I noticed a lot of people looking at my tag and talking to their friends about us. We were able to talk to a couple people. It was such a great opportunity. It was also very fun!

My sister Mary sent me some suggestions on what to name my reindeer, and I chose to name my little reindeer Louis. Just like Louis Lane. I picked her because she is just like me in a way, she only has one antler. Just like I have only one working ear :)

So far, training the reindeer has involved coaxing them to come to us, putting a halter on them, attaching it to a rope, and walking around with them. This is supposed to help them get used to a halter and a rope. It is a lot harder than it sounds. When you finally coax them to you, you have to hold on to them really tight as you put the halter on. They also hate being on a rope, and they will fight like crazy to pull the rope out of your hand. There was a reindeer (Sugar) that I literally wrestled with. I held on as she flipped around, consequently flipping me around. We ended up lying on the ground, and Sugar was still flipping out. I had her in a head lock, and I realized it would be safer for me to just let go of her than it would be to try to put on a halter. Those antlers can do some damage. It was 'gnarly'.

We got transfer calls this Friday night, and Elder Nichols will be transferred to Anchorage this Tuesday to be a Zone Leader. He is super bummed. He hates the city. He also really likes the cold. He wanted to go to Fairbanks, or Nome, or somewhere of that nature. Poor guy.

I am going to stay six more weeks in this area, and I am excited to hasten the work. Now that I know all the names of the people, now that I know the way around the area, I am going to work with my new companion and we are going to do some major missionary work. I'm just praying that my new companion will have the "positive anxiety" that I have. I truly want to work harder than I ever have before.

My new companion will be Elder Good. I know only one thing about him. He snores. He is infamous for snoring. Insomnia and snoring doesn't go well. Lately I've been having a really hard time getting some solid sleep. This morning I had to make a big commitment. I was seriously wondering if I could make it through the Winter. Through the darkness, cold, and snoring. A little part inside of me wanted to give up. I realized I had a very valid reason why I could go home. I realized I could milk the excuse that I can't make it through due to my insomnia. That was when I really had to take a cold hard look at myself. Am I committed? Am I converted? Do I want to give up? Or do I want to grow some spiritual hair on my chest? (I don't want to grow actual hair on my chest). Am I going to wallow in self pity? Or am I going to take control of my attitude? I felt a little despair. But then I made the decision. I'm committed. I'm going to do it. Right when I made that decision I felt excited. Warm. Calm. Happy. I know that the Lord is watching over me. I know He is with me. I just know it. He will take care of me. I just need to do my part. Just a couple days ago I started a goal journal. I have a daily goal, weekly goal, transfer goal, mission goal, and life goal. I'm consistently reviewing them and adjusting them. I've really seen the Lord help me as I've worked on accomplishing these goals. Oh how I love this gospel. Oh how I love my Savior Jesus Christ and Father in Heaven.

Activity Days Care Package

Lois and I

Best Friends

Sister Schoppmann chose a pretty crazy reindeer, so she named her Frostbite.

We usually work with girl reindeer because they are nicer.

Fall Fest

Well Hello My Friends!

This week was a great week! But last Monday seems so long ago!

We have been driving a Chevy Malibu for the past 10 weeks. Malibus and Alaska don't go well together. We often bottom out. We have hard times driving in certain roads, and they aren't that safe for winter. Well, last Monday we were given a brand spankin new Nissan Frontier. It is awesome! The cool thing about Alaska, is that every picture of a vehicle looks like it is on a car ad:

 

We were eating at the Bakers home last week, and a moose and her calf decided to peek in the window. Sister Baker got up and grabbed some hamburger buns and started to feed them:

We hiked the Palmer Butte last Monday and at the very top there was a bench and an Alaskan flag. Perfect picture:

 

Remember Brother Saunders? The one who has a bear cub as his teddy bear? Well, he has a son. He is hilarious.

We had dinner with them and I started crying because he was so funny. He should be a comedian. He tells the funniest stories. He also showed us a hilarious trick. This is what he said,

"The day I realized that I had something in the front of my brain called a frontal lobe, my life enhanced immeasurably. I had the advantage over animals! Ha ha!" He went on to tell us a story about his dog that I couldn't do any justice. After the dog story,

"My wife wanted to buy a cat. What?! No way. When I was little I hated cats. A dog? Sure. Cats? No way. She kept begging me, and I gave in. But on two conditions. First condition: the cat has to be toilet trained. I've seen cats on youtube that are trained to do their business in the toilet. My cat has to do that. Second condition: The cat needs to know that I am in charge. If I want to sit where it's sitting, I can throw it out of the way.

We got a cat. The first condition never happened. But... the second condition has made up for that.

Remember Pavlovs dogs? If he can do it, why can't I? For the first couple months that we had our cat, I would go out of my way to throw the cat off of what it was sitting on. As I did so, I would hiss. I got to the point where I could walk into the room, and the cat would get a little anxious. When I hissed, it would jump up and run away. Now as this was happening, our dog was watching. The dog thought, "Everytime this guy hisses, the cat runs out of the room. I want to get in on this action!" When I would hiss, the cat would skidaddle, and the dog would be right behind her. Watch this."

He then went on to bring in the cat and dog, put them on the linoleum floor, quietly stood to the side, and "HISS!" The cat jumped up and started to run, but the floor was too slippery. She was running in place. Right behind her, the dog was chasing her in place. It was awesome. After the whole demonstration, the cat gone, he brought the dog back in. He proceeded to hiss over and over again, and each time the dog would start to look frantically around for the dog, while running in place. It was hilarious.

We spoke in church this Sunday, and everyone thinks we are leaving. Apparently in the past, all the missionaries that were getting transferred out would speak at church. After our talks, everyone has been telling us how much they will miss us, and they wish we could stay. We've told them that we don't know yet, and they all reply that they are going to be praying that we stay. We've been told we are rockstars. Its pretty cool :) Being a rockstar is simple: obedience to the rules, loving everyone, working diligently, working together, and being converted. Grayson is grounded, so we won't be able to teach him until he gets his grades up :( Sabrina has started dating a fellow so she hasn't been as interested :( But it's okay. We are starting to get a couple referrals, and we will continue to work. God will bless us, we just need to do our part.

We also watched Meet The Mormons in the Relief Society Room this week. I loved it. So much. Everyone needs to go see it. Invite everyone to go see it. I love love love it. I hate church movies because they are so corny. But this one is not corny at all. Its awesome! It really made me miss my mom though :( But that's okay, it's still a really good movie!

Winter Isn't Quite Here.

The daylight hours are still pretty normal here, the sun is down by 7:30. I'll make sure to let you know when daylight is getting weird.

My companion said something really funny this morning. "It's going to be weird going back home because at church we won't hear anymore hunting testimonies where people have lost sight of a moose, and found it right after praying."

Gotta love Alaska.

Something interesting about the fashion here: back at home there were certain shoes and brands that were really popular, and shoes that everyone wore. Well here, you are in with the fashion crowd if you wear Extra Tuf boots or Bogs. Kind of like Vans or Toms or Nikes are popular back at home, Extra Tufs and Bogs are popular here. The difference is that they are actually pretty good quality footwear.

Colombia, The North Face, and Carhartt are among the popular brands here as well.

The Reindeer Farm is holding an annual Fall Festival, which we have the privilege of helping with. It is a lot of fun, and a great way for people to see our missionary badges. We helped out at the potato launching station and the hay maze. I got to stand on top of all the hay bales and give assistance to those who couldn't find a way out. (Mostly to little kids). It was a lot of fun.

We ate dinner at a campfire, and I got some pretty sweet pictures on the frozen ice bank.

The boy who was poached from us was baptized this Saturday. It was awesome. The font is in the mother's lounge, which is extremely small. Everyone packed in there to watch the ordinance, and we stood outside in the hallway. We didn't see the actual baptism, but boy could we feel it. I was standing in the hall listening, and then all of a sudden I got a super punch from the Spirit. It was crazy how extreme the feeling was. I didn't know what it was at first, because I was just standing there, and I didn't connect it with the baptism. My heartbeat was going extremely fast and I felt super warm inside. After a little bit of thought I realized what it was. "Did you feel that?" I asked my companion, "You bet I did. That was a good one." was his reply. It was an awesome experience to be able to distinguish and identify the Spirit. It's cool because I can disprove the theory that it was a Placebo effect, because I didn't even watch the baptism! I wasn't even in the room! And I still was hit by a spiritual train. It was awesome.

We were super tired today, so after personal study, we began our comp study with a prayer, did the necessary things, and then laid in bed as we listened to some general conference talks. It was a great comp study :) Don't worry, that's definitely not how we usually study. It was just a P-day style comp study!

Comp study p-day style.

Elder Nichols dared us to try and hit him. He was standing out in the field photographing us as we shot him. I'm gathering my ammo.

Remember the picture of the trucks in the water? That was knik river. It had overflowed. Now look at it. A glacier is at the head of this river, so once it froze, the water stopped. I'm walking out in the middle of it.

We pulled over and took this picture. This is courtesy of Elder Nichols camera. It's a bit nicer than mine :) We took this picture on the bridge. We cross this bridge almost everyday.

Bear Meat, Reindeer, and Poaching...and General Conference

First of all,

I LOVED CONFERENCE!

I can't wait until the conference Ensign comes out! We went to the stake center for Saturdays session, and Sunday we watched it with the Saunders family. (The fella that has a stuffed bear cub as a teddy bear).

Sabrina was able to see the last two talks of the last session of the last day of General Conference. It was close, but she saw Elder Bednar's talk! She also got to see the Prophet talk!

Man it was crazy how my questions were answered during conference. I had specific questions, and somehow I got specific answers. It was awesome. I am so glad we have real prophets in the world. At first it was kind of overwhelming, because I just kept hearing all the things I need to do that I haven't been doing. There are so many things I can improve on. I started to feel quite overwhelmed, but then I was comforted and got the spiritual impression that if we all just live the doctrine of Christ, and truly seek to improve everyday, and if we read our scriptures and pray, it will all come in time!

We have awesome members of our ward. One of my favorites is Brother Bingham. He is such a cool guy. He's awesome. His wife does our laundry for us :) I love the Binghams! Anyway, he went on a hunting excursion, and got a moose and a bear! He gave us some bear meat to take home and cook up. He gave us little steaks from the backstrap of the bear. I can now say that I have had bear meat! I've had moose meat, and you can definitely tell that it isn't beef. But bear meat tastes a lot like beef. If you placed bear meat steaks and beef steaks in front of me, it would take a little bit of thought before I could distinguish between the two.

  

Last night he gave us some more bear meat, a little fancier than the back strap. He gave us smoked hindquarters. He gave it to us so that we could "gnaw on it and get your man thing going on." Brother Bingham is awesome.

Winter is coming. Pictures truly are worth a thousand words.

 

Last Saturday we found out that some other missionaries in our zone have been poaching on us. That is a really bad thing. Poaching means that they have been coming into our area and teaching people that are in our area. It really messes things up. I'm running out of time so I won't go in too many details, but they've really put us, our bishop, their (our) investigator, and the ward in a really tight spot. We all need to remember Proverbs 20:7. That's the first one I found, but it makes the point.

Missionary life can be a roller coaster sometimes, and this week was a little more up and down than usual, but things have hopefully worked out! I know the Lord is on my side!

We've been helping out at the reindeer farm, and this past week we haltered all the reindeer that were going to be sent to California, and we gave them worming medicine. It was interesting how we had to catch them. They were basically herded into smaller and smaller pens until they were pushed through a little pathway one at a time. At the end of the pathway was a large pillowy clamp thing that was closed on them as they ran through. After that we had to hold it closed as they were being haltered and fed worming medicine. It was super fun. We are going to start training baby reindeer! I am so excited! I don't know quite what training means, but I do know that it involves working with my own baby reindeer. I will be able to name it, and work with it. More details to come!

 

I love you all so much! I am very grateful for your prayers! Keep being good :)

Elder Tyler James Garver