Physics equations are strangely comforting
June 28, 2016
This week just blew by. Except there's no wind here...

Exchanges with the 5th ward sisters meant I went back to Fairbanks for a day, which was very strange. I've never been anywhere close to any of my previous areas, so this whole seeing previous ward members in McDonald's is really strange to me. It's not bad though! 

North Pole is doing fabulous! We had two different people this week walk up to the elders and ask to meet with the missionaries, so that was neat. They both live in our ward, and one came to church and enjoyed it! The other has a sister who came to our ward activity Saturday.

Speaking of our ward activity, it was HOT. Okay, like 85... But it seriously feels boiling. We survived with water balloons and a slip and slide... If you go on your knees, your skirt doesn't get that wet...

We started teaching two teenage girls, Claire and Linda this week. They're doing awesome, they came to church and loved it! Their mom is really cool too, but for now she works on Sunday's so can't come to church :( but they've been reading in the Book of Mormon as a family, which is super cool! They are such cool examples of doing things as a family to me - the mother and daughters are just best friends and do everything together! It's really cute.

I'm loving being with Sister Rose! She's a lil sweetie. We laugh a lot and have good times talking to atheists from Iowa. Also, the most common comments when people find out where we're from:

"Neither of you are from Utah? Wow!"

"Oh, Ohio and Iowa are really close, aren't they?"

"Oh, y'all are from back east!" (...literally Iowa is not in the east, nor is Ohio really. But that's okay.)

Love you all! This week I read Ether 3 and was blown away by the brother of Jared's praying skills. First, he acknowledged his will wasn't the best but God knows best. He then thanks Heavenly Father for his blessings, and then humbly asks for God to finish the work he has started that he can't complete. Except he says it way better than I do... Go learn how to pray better by reading that chapter :)

Love you all!

Sister Rollins

June 20, 2016
North Pole!

Happy Father's Day! Sister Rose is my mission dad, so it's pretty cool
I got to be with her for Father's Day. We took a picture.



Our six lovely sisters serving in the Fairbanks area!
This week has been great!  Not too much to report on.  North Pole is a lot like Soldotna - dirt 

roads and fun, laid back people.  The roads here look really similar and there's not many 

landmarks, so getting around isn't too easy, but I'm picking it up pretty fast.  Unfortunately, we 

can't really walk anywhere here like we were doing in Fairbanks, so that's a bummer.  We 

might get bikes instead.

Someone from down south contacted us and asked us to call her brother-in-law.  We did and

he came to church!  He hasn't really been to church in about twenty years, and he seemed to 

enjoy Sacrament Meeting.

We had an interesting Sunday School class where I learned something I already knew more

deeply: if you don't have enough faith in something to be open to it being true, you won't listen

to the truth and be able to identify it as such.  If the truth isn't even a possibility in your mind, 

you won't be able to identify it when it comes.  So be open to stuff.

Gotta go, have a great week!

Sister Rollins

June 12, 2016
Christmas for July!

 Salutations, greetings &c!

Welp, transfer calls have come in, and from my subject line y'all can infer... I'm going to North 

Pole! Yes indeed, it really will be Christmas in July for this sister missionary. Am I excited? Oh 

yes.  It's back to rural Alaska for me, which is just peachy!

Although I'd like to take a minute and just say how much I dearly love the Fairbanks 2nd Ward 

and YSA Branch. For real, the friends I've made here can't ever be replaced, and it's really 

really sad to leave. So Fairbanks will definitely be missed. But for all of you who know

anything about Alaskan geography, North Pole is about 20 minutes from Fairbanks, so I'm not 

actually going far. Also, my new companion will be Sister Rose! From Des Moines, Iowa. 

Former roommate of Rosa Nielsen. Yes. It's gonna be good.

This past week has been filled with service! We planted flowers for the city, went to the 

Foodbank, and then helped someone whose house had completely burned down sort through 

some stuff. That was sad :(

Lots of people came to church! Six nonmembers, to be exact. It was exciting stuff. We didn't 

have enough hands to catch them all, but luckily the the ward does.

Saying lots of goodbyes, seeing people for the last time. Trying to cram information in Sister 

McGraw's mind/writing everything down I know. Nothing else too exciting.

Oh, and we did a musical number with Brendan! In both units. It was actually the same song I 

did with Sister Webster and Jessica in Palmer, Abide with Me. Fun times.

Remember who you are and what you stand for! One experience I was reading about this 

week was the angel Moroni appearing to Joseph Smith three times in one night, adding a little 

each time to his message. Thinking of my own forgetfulness at times, this week I wondered if
maybe Moroni forgot the end of his message, so he was sent back to deliver it... And then 

forgot more again, and had to go back again... Rough! But the Lord knew exactly what Joseph 

needed, which was to hear that message three times. God knows exactly what messenger 

He's sending with all their strengths and weaknesses, and He will use even your weaknesses 

to get a point across to people you need to touch. So don't be ashamed if you're trying to do 

the right thing and it doesn't happen perfectly - that's okay! You did it. That's what counts.

Have a beautifantastic week! Peace and blessings.

Sister Rollins

June 6, 2016

The Weekly Part 50 something

Me and my companion and Jesus! Yay.

Occasionally we go downtown to try and talk to people, but then the only people there are a 

steel drum band who's practicing across the street from the courthouse in the parking lot of 

a sketchy Chinese food place.  So we take a picture instead.

Antler Arch!  Collected from all around Interior Alaska.  Pretty sick.

Cancellations.

Another wedding this week! I will be playing the Wedding March. Exciting stuff.

I have no words, sorry! It's been an up and down week. So yes.

Taco King still does not agree with me. Thank goodness the Spirit prompted me to ask 

someone else for dinner that night as well.

Love you!  Bye!

Sister Rollins

May 30, 2016
Drinking and driving or smoking and biking?

Quote of the week: "Friendship is the best kind of ship!"

Happy Memorial Day! This holiday means a lot more to me now that I know people in the army.

Thanks to everyone who serves, without that I may not be able to share the message of Christ 

with those around me.

It's been a week of ups and downs, peaks and troughs, hills and valleys. Bad things happen 

and then good things happen. The army loses your stuff and then finds your stuff, you think 

people won't come but then they show up 30 minutes late to their lesson, you don't seem to
talk to anyone all week but then everybody shows up at church!

Last Monday we put zero miles on our truck because we carpooled during our preparation 

activities and then walked the rest of the night!  Exciting stuff. The bummer thing about walking 

in Fairbanks is the only people you see/could possibly talk to are loud, yelling teenagers... But 

it's okay, because the Lord still sees you walking and blesses you.

Sister McGraw got sick again, which was a huge bummer for her. But never fear, general 

population of the world, for she's almost back to full health already! It was a scary flashback for 

her, since last time her cough lasted more than the five weeks I was with her, but within
the week she's almost gotten back to normal, just an occasional cough.

People are progressing! Cynthia and Demare (I still don't actually know how to spell his name...

 Apparently sometimes he goes by Kendrick?) are awesome! We met with Cynthia on Thursday,

 and she is so incredibly spiritual. She's excited to prepare for her baptism on the 26th of this 

month! She is such an example to me of just having faith in God, no matter what life throws at 

you.

Oh, this other random girl we talked to just when she was sitting on her front porch called us 

Saturday and asked us if she could come to church Sunday... Uh, yes. Definitely. Feel free to 

come. Please do, actually. She came and loved it! We'll teach her on Saturday.

Exchanges were on Wednesday, so Sister Larcom and I had a blast! Picture included below. 

(Side note: I don't wear glasses most of the time, I just ran out of contact lens solution this week.)

Okay choose the right! "Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is a power to be reckoned with in the 

universe and in individual lives." That is a fact. This week has been an opportunity for us to 

learn that. I'm not the best at expressing how important the Gospel is, but seriously, it's the best 

and most important thing I have in my life. Christ really did die for my sins, and I can be 

forgiven. I've definitely felt that this week.

Don't smoke and bike!

Sister Rollins

Mosquitos here really are huge.
Last week Sister Strong joined the long list of missionaries that have licked the North Pole (I didn't get pictures when I did it, but it definitely happened)



Add caption

May 23, 2016
And it came to pass

It's finally really spring here! Yay Alaska... But the choke cherry trees are exploding and the 

pollen count is ridiculous.

Yesterday was an exciting Sabbath! Both Sister McGraw and I took up all of sacrament 

meeting in the YSA branch with our talks, she went 10 minutes and I took 25. It went well, I 

talked about accepting the Lord's directions in our lives as He directs us through the
scriptures, personal revelation, patriarchal blessings and parents/leaders. Basically a talk on 

humility. Then we busted it over to a part member family's house and invited them to church...

 They were about to walk out the door and take a walk, but instead they came to church! She 

isn't a member, and she really liked it! They had to leave after two hours because her 1 year 

old was really fussy, but she was actually disappointed she couldn't stay, so that was really

awesome.

Then during the third hour of church, two random people walked in and wanted to know more. 

And who knows how to teach nonmembers? Well, the missionaries of course! So we taught 

Cynthia and Dmari the first lesson and they want to know more! Some members kindly invited 

themover for dinner Thursday, we're excited. They're so cool!

Then we got stuck in some conversations and couldn't leave the church for almost an hour... 

Just as we were pulling out the other set of sisters pulled up and had been praying for us not 

to leave! They needed us to unlock some things, so that was cool. Prayer works!

Otherwise we've been very busy with lots of appointments, teaching members and 

non-members alike. Our dinners keep cancelling, but lots of other people keep telling them to 

call us last minute, so we get fed Thai food that's disappointingly mild (because Alaskans don't 

do spicy) but still delicious and have leftovers for days!

We've also been trying to walk everywhere, which is a little difficult because of the lack of 

walking in general by the people of Fairbanks... But it's really fun!

Something we saw as we were walking to a lesson: from what we can tell, this plant literally did 

grow up through the blacktop. Please take a moment to appreciate this truly Alaskan plant - it 

survived the 


winter, so the blacktop is no problem.

Time is short!  Just like most of my companions.  Be humble, humility really does change people’s perceptions of you.  Not that I’m humble, I’m very proud.

Okay, I’ll stop saying weird things.  Have a lovely week!  Tell someone you love them.

Sister Rollins

Ward Mission Leaders, a Wedding, and Wasps!

May 16, 2016

Wasps have infested Alaska. Don't worry, my district leader sucks them up with a vacuum.

Wedding! So we picked up an investigator and his girlfriend when the elders left two weeks 

ago, and he's doing pretty well. We go over to their house on Friday, and they tell us they've 

decided to get married! Yay! In two days! Yay! We baked them some Ghirardelli brownies 

(thanks, Mom!) and spread some frosting on top to make it look cake-ish.

The traditional cake shoving!  Happiness and blessings.  I think this is the first wedding

 I've been to that wasn't for someone related to me.  Weddings are actually pretty cool.

This is my by the Click Day door (every time you hit another month on your on your mission, you click forward to the next month) at my twelfth click day, which I hit last Friday.

I just wanted to take a moment to acknowlege how thankful I am for all of my wonderful ward mission leaders.  The ones right now are really good!  Jeramia is our branch mission leader for YSA, and Brother Baksis is ours for 2nd ward.  Well, what does a ward mission leader do, you might ask!  Coordinate the missionary work between us and the members!  Basically motivate everyone in the ward to do missionary work and help us know what to do.  Jeramia's a lieutenant in the army, so he's already got the motivational part down.  And Brother Baksis is the best complimenter I know, so he's got the motivation that way.  Both are awesome people.  They set up lessons for us and get members to lessons and just are in general amazing.  So go contact your local ward mission leader today and tell them you want to do missionary work!

This is super scattered, just like my week has been!

Don't do drugs!  Or eat the yellow snow.  Or the brown snow, that's pretty much all that's left.

Love,
Sister Rollins