March 28, 2016

Two baptisms!

Wow, what a week! Easter truly is a great day. I've loved diving into the New Testament this 

week and reading about what the Savior experienced for us, particularly betrayal. That's a 

hard one.

Our stake had an Honoring Christ display at the church all weekend - a small art gallery and 

then several music performances all about Christ. I got to play the organ as background music 

for some of it...Haven't done that in a while. It was nice just to play for an hour or two.

Easter Eve was also a great day for us this year! Amber (pictured below) was able to get 

baptized! It has been such a blessing to be able to be part of her conversion experience. She's 

seriously a boss with all of the obstacles she's had to overcome to get to this point.  And of 

course Saturday afternoon she texts us and tells us she's been sick in bed all day... But she's a 

champ and came anyway! There were probably 50 people there to support her, which was 

awesome. Just the love and support from everyone there made for an awesome experience...
And the water wasn't cold, thanks to our hauling water!  #gottalovealaska

We only were able to somewhat hear the Women's Broadcast while we were filling the font... 

From what we heard, it was all about service - serving everyday, not just in service projects. I 

loved how they kept talking about reaching out to refugees - although there aren't many (or any?)

Not really sure... If someone wants to look that up for me :) in Fairbanks, Alaska, there are 

certainly many all over the world that need our love. And that's definitely something I want to get 

more involved in back at home!

How are you accountable for your time?

Love you all! Fairbanks is still getting snow... More flurries this morning. But it's hot now all the

time, like 40s most days.

Sister Rollins 

Sister Christian, me, Amber and Dean!  And Jesus of course.

This is how you fill the font in Alaska if you want warm water...

PS for those of you who may have read the subject line: the second baptism was of our 

phone.  But don't worry, it still works.  Mostly.

Mar 21, 2016
Sister Strong, Sister Strong, her prayers are very long...

It snowed again!! Glorious. I seriously love it, even though everyone else here seems to be 

done with winter.

Oh, we got our transfer calls, and Sister Christian and I are staying together for another 

glorious transfer! We are super psyched.

We did lots of service this week! We went to the Foodbank and helped out, and we went to the

World Ice Art Championships 2016 and took tickets from people from around the world! It was 

a blast. Also, we had a heater in our ticket booth so we didn't freeze. I took some pictures (the 

igloo is the least impressive thing in the whole park) but if you look it up online it will be three 

times as cool. For those of you on missions, just think there was literally a staircase with

Cinderella running down it carved out of ice. Life size. There was someone who got married 

there. Gotta love Alaska.

Amber is doing super well! She is set to get baptized next Saturday. She came to a baptism this 

past Saturday, and it was an awesome experience for everybody there. We taught her and Sid, 

who's getting baptized April 9th, both a lot this week since it was Spring Break.  It's so weird to 

teach people my own age who are in my same situation... But it's really neat at the same time to 

be able to connect with them and not feel too supremely awkward, since most of them are more 

awkward than I am :)

Pros of going to two wards every Sunday: you get to hear lots of talks. We had a wonderful high 

councilman speak this past Sunday in the YSA branch all about the Atonement. He challenged 

us to read 2 Nephi 9 every day for a month to increase our understanding and appreciation of the 

Atonement, so I'm taking him up on that! I love that because of my Savior, I can have new life. 

And so can you, and so can all the people whom you love that might not even be on this earth
anymore. So go claim it.

Sister Rollins
The four sisters of our apartment on our last Sabbath together


We actually do live in igloos here.  This is my home.

March 14, 2016
HASHTAG HALLELUJAH

Oh, we went to North Pole last week! Here's our little district at the
North Pole. It was chilly, but we don't wear coats in Alaska.

Okay, first things first: Jesus is the realist. Go watch the hottest new video: #hallelujah at 

followhim.mormon.org. Go do it.


Did you do it yet?


GO. NOW.

Okay, now that you've experienced that beauty and serious part of Easter, which is far more 

important than anything I might say, I will send you entertaining things.

Sister Christian and I are going to start a new line of scents: 

Word of God: it smells like gold plates/papyrus scrolls 

Baby in a Manger: special edition with a faint smell of shepherd!
Walking the Roads of Palestine: comes with extra dust to put on your feet
The Tomb: the spices they used were actually Old Spice... Shh
Resurrected Being: you can only imagine.

Okay, back to serious: wow, I've never had so many teaching appointments in my whole

mission! This week has been insanely and awesomely busy. I'M SO EXCITED FOR EASTER!

Also, it's somewhat hilarious that the whole town of Fairbanks is on Spring Break this coming 

week! Expect no super crazy stories from me.

It snowed finally! Although there's a good couple feet on the ground, it hasn't snowed in the 

six weeks I've been here. But yesterday during church we look out the window, and what do 

we see? SNOW! I am one of the few people residing in Alaska who get super excited.

People are so cool! We're teaching a few people who have a date for baptism. Probably the  

coolest is... Okay, they're all awesome. One really cool one is Sid, a student at UAF. He 

decided he wanted to be Mormon one day... And came to church and quit lots of bad things! 

By himself! We asked him if he was reading the Book of Mormon, and he said he *only* read 

it a half hour a day. You go, Glen Coco. He's doing really well, but Spring Break is usually a 

bad time... But that's okay, he's got God on his side.

March 7, 2016
Running in the cold means you don't get sweaty

Pros of running in the negatives: you don't get hot and sweaty.
Cons of running in the negatives: you get ice on your face and can't feel your fingers.

The work is fabulous! People are coming to church and preparing themselves for baptism. 

The commandments make people better people, that's why God gives them to us. Guys 

sing us love songs and then we teach them about the Gospel and tell them to date girls from the YSA branch. If I dream about the apocalypse, I'm now safe in those dreams because I have lots of friends in the army to save me.

There was a kid in church on Sunday who bore his testimony and shared the really cool 

story of how he got to church that day: his friend on a mission messaged him on Facebook and rebuked him for not going to church. He responded that he had just moved to Fairbanks and too bad, there's no Mormons up here... But she left him with 1 Nephi 3:7 - the Lord will provide a way. So he agrees that if there's a way, he'll get there. Lo and behold, the next 

day someone randomly walks into his barracks room and mentions something about 

Mormons and the YSA branch, so he asks more questions and ends up getting a ride to 

church! He's got a lot to work on, but he also has a lot of faith and is definitely being led by God.

Repent! Everybody needs to repent. And don't worry, that just means to change to become 

like God. This work I'm working on repenting of pride.  Do it.

Love, 

Sister Rollins

All the missionaries in the Fairbanks zone, so basically the northern half of Alaska

Feb 29, 2016

50 Below and the Sun is Shining!

Back to Messages

And this sign of -50... Is a lie :( it was actually insanely hot,
50 above. Literally was dying in a sweater #truealaskan

As you can see from the sign, I went to the northernmost Denny's in
the world! It was delicious.

So these are all the sisters I live with! Me, Sister Strong, Sister
Schoppmann, and Sister Christian being all cute as we head to do our
shopping.

Investigators are falling from the sky... Almost literally. We had three people this week invite 
their friends to hear the gospel, and they all said yes and are insanely excited... So yay for 
teaching lots of people!

We went tracting in a trailer park, that's always fun. People always warn us about the 
crackheads and drug dealers... But we survived and found a kid that accepted a Book of 
Mormon and wants to meet with missionaries. Too bad we were tracting for the elders... But 
that's okay, as long as he hears about the Gospel it's fine.

Goals goals goals. Are amazing. Follow the Spirit.

Moose count: 52

Did I already send that number? Probably. Haven't seen any up here in Fairbanks yet...

I'm busy finding, teaching, and learning how to be a better person. As I was reading in Elder 
Montoya's talk this morning, work on smiling and expressing your compassionate feelings. 
The world will be a better place because of it.

Many loving words,

Sister Rollins

Here in Fairbanks, you can tell half the town is in the military because everywhere you go the houses are pretty utilitarian.

Feb 22, 2016

Curly hair and Alaskan babes

Poor Sister Schoppmann is going home in four weeks!  Pray for her soul, she’s sad.

Hey look, this is me with my combat boots in Alaska.  Yay.  Also note the new bag, my old one lasted until my hump day and then bit the dust with a death rattle…Poor guy, the strap completely broke.  Probably fixable, but with a $9 replacement I’m happy.

This week in Alaska: children were born, houses were all the same, Jeramia scheduled his patriarchal blessing for this coming Sunday (yes!) and post Valentine's Day candy was 

purchased and consumed with great zeal.

I went on exchanges with Sister Schoppmann, pictured below. We taught one of my new 

favorite people, whose words of wisdom deserve your attention: "don't y'all go diggin 

through a woman's hair without askin' her permission first, ya hear?"

I also got to see someone from my last area and teach her! She is less active and her 

fiance is taking the lessons, so that's exciting. They moved up here right after I met him, so I was really disappointed he would be up here in Fairbanks... But now I got to be there for a
little bit, so that's awesome. We taught them about the Plan of Salvation and challenged him to pray about a baptismal date with her. It was cool to see people that I knew and loved and teach them :) as Kathryn always says in her New Zealand accent: "#tendermercies"

We also had a really neat experience with a recent convert of a couple months. He has 

been struggling to know whether or not he should serve a mission at 24, and it's been really hard for him being in the military and other such problems that keep cropping up. We were
thinking "wow, it'd be cool if this one elder we know that's 26 could talk to him. Too bad he's in Anchorage right now..." Lo and behold, who shows up to our district meeting the next 

day? That very elder, here on exchanges with the zone leaders, here for one day. We
contacted Jeramia and they had one of the most spiritually intense conversations I've ever 

been a part of. It's cool God sent that elder all the way up here to have that conversation, 

and now Jeramia's opening his mission papers as soon as President Kratzer gets back in
town!!

I just wanted to mention that sharing personal spiritual experiences is an amazing way to 

really bring the Holy Ghost into a room. Usually we don't think of telling stories as a a way to feel the Spirit - you might think of singing hymns or talking about Christ or making 

covenants at baptism as some of the ways you can feel the Spirit. But when you can look 

back in your life and identify clear indicators that the Atonement of Jesus Christ changed 

your life, as you tell that story and testify that it happened, the Spirit will confirm your words. That's one thing I've really focused on this first half of my mission, identifying specific 

experiences with the Atonement and ways that Jesus Christ has actually impacted my life, 

and I am so glad the Lord has blessed me with those experiences and is helping me 

recognize them. I know I have changed, and I know anybody can change if you reach out to Christ and let Him heal you and help you. Alma 7:11-13 tells us that He does know all of our sins and infirmities and anything that stresses us out or causes us pain, and He will help us
through it - He will run to us and bring us that peace and strength we need to make it 

through.

Love,

Sister Rollins

Feb 15, 2016
Stop! Red light red light

Wow! There's actually snow in Alaska, yay.

This week happened! There's not many moose sightings in Fairbanks,  unfortunately. But 

we do have snow, as evidenced in the district picture below!

We started teaching a Korean guy, which is super neat. He is learning English, and there's a recent return missionary from Korea who knows him and is helping us teach, since he 

doesn't understand half of what we say. It's been really neat to introduce him to the concept of God and help him understand that there's Someone out there looking out for him.

We had a regional broadcast from Salt Lake on Sunday for church! That was quite 

enjoyable. My favorite speaker was James J Hamula, who I recognized from a really great 

talk he gave a few conferences ago - "The Sacrament and the Atonement." Well, he gave 

another really great talk, and my favorite part was when he started talking about broken
things - every broken relationship, every broken heart, every broken anything, every broken dream - is susceptible to the Atonement. We are broken so that we can offer that on our 

altar of sacrifice and He can then cleanse us as we partake of the sacrament each week in 

the holy ordinance.


So remember, things are broken so that you can let God fix them. Ether 12:27

The church is true, the book is blue! Give something to God this week.

Sister Rollins