Primary Letters

Our primary children had written Sean letters, along with drawing pictures, which were mailed to him. I was able to have a peak at them before they were mailed and they were absolutely precious.

Sean mailed the following letters to Jamie Bayles, our good friend and the Primary President. She was kind enough to share them with me. Thank you Jamie...any info I can get, helps keep me sane. (Many others have shared too. Thank you, also). The 1st letter is written to the whole primary and the 2nd one was written specifically to his class of 11 and 12 year old boys that he taught in primary.

April 21, 2010
Dear Primary,
Thank you so much for the letters that you sent me. That was very thoughtful of you and I really appreciated it. Some of your pictures made me laugh, so thank you for that. Alright...so the question that most of you asked was “is it cold?” I will tell you that it is a little chilly, but I am on the coast so it’s not as cold as some of the other areas in Alaska. However, it has been raining or snowing every single day, except 2, since I have been here. So you guys better enjoy the sunshine.

I have seen and eaten almost every type of wildlife you can think of that lives in Alaska. The moose meat is definitely the best. I am in a very small town and there aren't too many places that we could live, so we are living at the church. It looks just like the church back home, but just a miniature version. It has been a pretty cool experience so far.

My companion and I are the first missionaries that have been in this town for 3 or 4 years, so it has been a little harder to meet people, but we are doing a ton better now. We currently are teaching two people and just today, received commitment from one of them to be baptized on May 15th. His name is Harrison and he decided he wants to be baptized in the ocean. So we are going to do it in a place called Hartney Bay.

Being a missionary has really opened my eyes to see how blessed we are to know about the gospel. There are kids here that are living with no supervision really and they grow up not having the same privileges that you all have.

Well thanks again for the letters. I hope you all are having a great time in primary. I miss you all and look forward to keeping in touch. Take care and I hope to hear from you soon.

Love, Elder Sean Stoker

April 21, 2010

Hello everyone,
Thank you so much for the letters that you guys wrote. That was nice of you. I hope everything is going good in that class of yours. Last Sunday, I was actually teaching a primary class here and the entire time I kept thinking about you guys. But one thing for sure, I realized how much I enjoyed teaching you guys. They never would talk and you guys never stopped talking. So thank you for always talking and at least participating in the boring lessons I taught.

I was glad to hear that Tanner is teaching you guys now. You will learn a lot from him and Brother Holm. You guys are a lucky bunch.

Since I have been in Alaska, I have been in a blizzard, a huge rainstorm, earthquake, and the other day, there was an avalanche not to far from the church. So basically I have seen it all in the 2 weeks that I have been in Alaska. I have also eaten tons of moose, bear, and fish. This one lady fed us some weird type of food that I have no idea what it was, but it was not good at all.

Being a missionary has been hard at times, but good. I know my life will be blessed because of me serving. I hope that you all prepare yourselves to be able to serve a mission. It is a great opportunity and I know you will be blessed.

If you have any questions for me let me know and feel free to write too. I would love to hear from you guys. Well thanks again. I love you guys and I hope you enjoy class. Talk to you soon.

Love, Elder Sean Stoker

Earthquake shakes southern Alaska

Robert found this in the newspaper today.

Earthquake shakes southern Alaska: ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The U.S. Geological Survey says a preliminary magnitude 4.8 earthquake has shaken Anchorage and other communities in southern Alaska, but no damage has been reported.

The earthquake was recorded at 1:48 a.m.local time Saturday. The USGS National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo., says it was most strongly felt n the Valdez area.

The quake was centered about 100 miles east-north-east of Anchorage and 25 miles south of Nelchina. It was about 20 miles deep.
-BY ASSOCIATED PRESS"

Valdez is about 45 miles away from Cordova. I assume no news is good news. I will ask him about it tomorrow when we receive our email.

Beautiful Cordova!

Wow...how grateful Sean is to have begun serving his mission in such a beautiful place!

1st Home away from Home

This will be Sean's home while serving in Cordova. It looks pretty cool. A classroom has been made into their bedroom (glad they have a "do not disturb" sign), and the baptismal font is their shower. I think Sean will love having a basketball court right across the hall.

Cordova, Alaska

This is no April fool's joke. Sean received his first assignment today. He will be serving in Cordova, Alaska. Cordova is about 150 miles Southeast from Anchorage. It is a beautiful little fishing town located near the mouth of the Copper River and at the head of Orca Inlet on the east side of Prince William Sound. The population is approximately 2,500. Although it is only 150 miles away from Anchorage, it took Sean and his new Companion, Elder Jordan Giles, from Pleasant Grove, Utah, about 12 hours to travel there. They drove in a car from Anchorage to Valdez, about 6 hours, and then boarded a Ferry and travelled another 6 hours to Cordova. So between the flights on Wednesday from Salt Lake to Alaska and now this trip to Cordova, I imagine he is very "jet lagged."

These are some of the email conversations we received from Sean on April 5, & 6.

"Hello, well I am in the town of Cordova, Alaska. I had to drive 6 hrs from Anchorage to a town called Valdez. Then we took a ferry 6 more hours to Cordova. They just opened this area to the missionaries so we have to start from scratch and it has been really hard. My companion is named Elder Giles he is from Pleasant Grove. We are living at the LDS Church here. They made us a room but it is the nicest building in the town basically. It is a fishing town and it is a really cool place. I've taken some pictures of it. Well if you have any questions about it here you can ask..I will be able to use the email tomorrow, but I'm not sure for how long. It will be in the morning sometime and I will email you more info about everything. Also I have seen a black bear, 2 moose, tons of sea otters and on the ferry I saw 2 whales, so it has been pretty cool. Well I will hopefully talk to you tomorrow, love you."

"Hi again, Well we live in the church and the shower is in the baptismal font. They put a shower head on the thing. We haven't been proselyting yet because we have to go meet with all the members here to find people and teach.........I'm not sure how long I will be here, I'm guessing until August when Elder Giles goes home.....because they will close it again before winter and I don't think they will keep sending different missionaries to this small of a town. .........It is in the 30's, it's been snowing the entire time I have been here but it hasn't stuck to much until last night. There is about 2 feet on the ground. We watched conference at the church with the branch. No one here really has cable or satellite. There is 1 store here and it costs a ton of money for everything, but oh well. The members have been very nice and make sure that we get fed a ton, so we are never hungry. I haven't got my license yet, but I probably will soon...".

We found out the reason he was able to email us on Tuesday also. It is because the library is closed on Mondays so they have to use the bookstore, which charges money per email or time (I'm not sure). President Dance told them they were allowed to email on Tuesday at the library, just this one time, since it was his first contact with us, but in the future they would have to do it on Monday, which is their "P" day. So I guess he will be paying. But it is worth it, even if we have to send him extra money!