Nome November 30, 1982

Dear Family,

It was sure great to get your last letter and to get those pictures of Marks homecoming. I also received Mark's wedding invitation or I guess I should say announcement.

So how is everyone? I hear that winter finally got to you down there, it's getting to me too. Sometimes I wish that it was summertime again because I can't do some of that fun stuff that we used to do in the snow . . . but I  just keep reminding myself that it is only for this one year and that I have more important things to do.

This past week we had taught this lady, her name is Donna Finch, and we have been teaching her for awhile and now she is ready for baptism. She likes the church and what it stands for but when we challenged her she didn't want to commit to any date but I know that she will be baptized this week or the next. 

We also tracted out another lady, taught her and when we were leaving she asked us if we would visit her niece at the hospital. So we did and before we left the hospital we gave Francis a Book of Mormon. Then a few days later Francis was released from the hospital and we taught both her and her aunt.  It was a great discussion and I feel like Francis is really liking what we are telling her. She is from the island of Little Diamede which is the closest place you can get to Russia. It is about 20 miles from there. Big Diamede is Russia's and Little Diamede is U.S. Anyhow, she is in town for a couple weeks and we are going to be meeting with them again. They are both Eskimo and the Eskimos are really hard to teach because they don't understand English very well so we really have to explain things very well to them so they understand.

We are finally getting some good weather here and the sun isn't hid by the clouds all the time. The temp has dropped but the wind hasn't been blowing that hard. Right now it is about -10' and it has been down to -30' with the wind chill. 

Well I guess I better go. I love you all! Elder Daren

p.s. I need all the negatives of the pictures that I took while in Fairbanks, just the negatives of the prints not the slides. Thank you. I need them as soon as possible.