Zone Conference in Juneau

Hey Mom!

So I literally just got back to Whitehorse. We came straight to the church so we could email. Today is supposed to be P-day, but we've been traveling most of the day, and we have a lesson at 4, so we pretty much just aren't really having a p-day this week. I'm extremely tired from all our traveling. I'll tell you about that in a sec, but first of all, that's awesome that Daniel made the team! He's such an awesome kid. I knew he could make it.

So I might have to include more things about our trip another week. The trip was awesome! Southeast Alaska is the most beautiful part of Alaska I've seen, and I've seen more beautiful places than most missionaries! On Sunday, Elder Stephens and I stayed for the first part of Sacrament meeting so we could take the sacrament, and hear Nicole give her first talk as a member of the church. It was a great talk. We left right after, and got the truck packed up and headed for Skagway. We drove through carcross, into British Columbia (which, I might add is a different mission, so it's pretty awesome when you don't just get permission to leave your area, but to leave the entire mission), and then back into the USA. It felt good to cross that border, even though I really love Canada. The drive was really amazing, and we got to see some intense wilderness and scenery. It took us a couple of hours to make it to Skagway from Whitehorse. Skagway is tiny, and there's hardly anyone there in the winter, but it's a beautiful little city, and it felt really good to be back by the ocean again. The weather was pretty bad, and the drive there was kind of sketchy. It was raining and then snowing really heavily in Skagway, so the airport workers told us we might not even be able to leave Skagway til the next morning, and might have to spend the night with some members in Skagway, or at the little chapel there. The pilot flew in, and kind of rushed us on the plane so we could beat some of the bad weather and thick fog. We boarded a little ten passenger, single prop bush plane, and took off quickly towards Juneau. It was an awesome flight. The pilot had to fly low to stay out of some of the weather, so we could see some great things, Elder Stephens said he saw some whales.

We stopped in Haines to pick up some people, and then headed off to Juneau. It is an amazing place. It's very picturesque, and is how you see Alaska depicted on TV and in pictures. Well, we stayed the night with the zone leaders and missionaries from Petersburg, Sitka, and Ketchikan. Zone Conference was amazing, and Brother Watson came and talked to me about meeting you guys at church. He said you were great people, and he said he picked on Daniel a lot during priest's quorum. He taught us a ton, and what I learned will really change the way I do missionary work. It was great to see the missionaries in the Juneau zone gather together from far places and have a great spiritual experience together. The flight back to Skagway was even more amazing than the one to Juneau because the skies were clear, and you could see all of the white mountain peaks and the glaciers and a lot of green. What a great experience we had taking that journey. We stopped in Skagway for lunch, and now we're back in the Yukon. Well, it's been a great week, and many awesome things lie ahead here in Whitehorse. I love you all!

Love Mat