Thanksgiving Week

It was a great Thanksgiving week. Elder Kerecman and I did a lot of tracting and walking around this week, and people were suprisingly less open than usual. We were expecting people to be more open around Thanksgiving, but I think people were just stressed out with everything that accompanies the holidays. Today Elder Kerecman and I started out the day moving some furniture for an investigator named Benjamin. We moved, and had some things we couldn't take that he wanted, so we moved it all to his apartment. Afterwards we taught him and had a great lesson. He is praying about the Book of Mormon and about baptism.

We had Thanksgiving with a member family, and it was a good day. An investigator named Andrew that we had met the day before Thanksgiving invited us to come over for Thanksgiving. He was having it alone, so we went over and had a great lesson. The turkey didn't get done in time, and we had to run, so we didn't get to eat with him, but it was a good visit. Holidays as a missionary are awesome. I've honestly never really focused too much on what we actually celebrate until I've come on a mission. Since you're not with family and doing normal holiday things, you learn to appreciate what the holiday is really about. I've definitely gained a better perspective than I had before.

Well, this week is going to be a good and very busy week as we get ready for transfers a week from tomorrow. I'll have the opportunity to go to the temple this week with President and Sister Dance. It's been a year and a half so I'm looking forward to it! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Love Elder Squires

The Holidays are Coming

Well this week has been great, and it just keeps getting colder and colder here! It was an icy one today. We were thinking of playing football since it's Thanksgiving week, but it's way too icy and cold for that today. This week we had our zone conference for the Anchorage North Zone. It was great. There were two zones there, and we had a great Thanksgiving feast for lunch. Elder Kerecman and I have been busy this week with work in our area. We have some great people that we are teaching. One girl, Madison, will hopefully be baptized soon. We've been striving to meet everyone in the ward still, and there are some great members here in the Campbell Park ward. We helped move some desks to one member's house last week. She is from Sudan, and fed us some Sudanese food. There were these big pancake looking things that we dipped in this goat soup stuff. It was super spicy, and interesting to eat goat.

The work in our area has been a little slow since we had been traveling so much, but now we have a little more time for the next week or so to get some good work in. Elder Kerecman and I are having a blast and doing our best to bring souls to Christ here in Alaska. Well, I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. I know ours here will be great!

Love Elder Mat Squires

Snowy and White

Well, Alaska is awesome. Anchorage is all snowy and white. There have been a ton of car wrecks. A lot of people slide into ditches on the sides of the roads. It's funny because Alaska drivers always criticize out of state drivers for not knowing how to drive in snow, but they're the ones that always drive off the road!

So this week was great. Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy came to reorganize the Anchorage North Stake Presidency. We had the privilege of hearing him speak in Stake Conference, and then he had a fireside later that night, and he shook hands with me as I was catching up with Elder Piiparinen afterwards. He taught so simply and powerfully. We sang a special musical number at the beginning of the fireside, and Sister Dance had me sing a duet with a missionary that has a great voice. I don't sound anything like him but it was fun.

Elder Kerecman and I are having a blast serving together and working in the Campbell Park ward. We are working with some great investigators. We haven't had a ton of time to work in our area so far, but the time we have had has been great and full of success. Today we are moving into a new apartment, so that will take up a good part of the day. Well, I hope you are all doing great!

Love Elder Squires

Jung Tak

We didn't get email from Mat this week and we are guessing he's extra busy with his new responsibilities and are hoping to hear from him soon. But I did receive the sweetest email this week from Jung Tak, a new sister who was baptized by Mat while he was serving in Fairbanks in the YSA ward. She included these great pictures with her email and I thought I would share them with everyone.








Thank you Jung. We are so happy for you!!!

Anchorage

Well there have been a lot of changes for me in the past week. I left Fairbanks on Monday and flew to here to Anchorage. Anchorage has been a blast so far. It's only been a week, but it's been long enough to come to like the area. I'm serving in the Campbell Park ward, and my new companion's name is Elder Kerecman. He's from Spanish Fork, UT. We've been having a blast so far. He's been out about 20 months. We are serving a lot with President Dance.

It's been a very busy week, and there isn't enought time to fill in all the details. We're doing what we we call "whitewashing" an area, which means that the two missionaries that were here were both transferred out to different places, and my companion and I are both brand new to the area. It's been a great week of getting to know the members of the ward and the people we are working with. They are all great people. Well, there's not much time today to write so I've really had to sum things up. I'll be traveling a little bit over the next month, and I'll have some great experiences and opportunities to share the gospel. I love this work, and I love all of you!

Elder Squires