Beginning October 26, 2015 we are serving a 6-month mission in the Washington Tacoma Mission (more at home than abroad this time). We are serving in the Gray's Harbor Ward in Aberdeen, Washington, which is located at the head of Gray's Harbor on the west coast of Washington state. The climate here is not at all like our high desert climate in Idaho. Since arriving we have seen the sun a few times, but have mostly had clouds, rain, and fog. I doubt they ever have a clear blue-sky day all day long. The mornings are foggy; later in the day the clouds may clear a bit and the sun shine, but soon changes to cloudy again. Then for a few days it rains constantly. This is the way it is here in the winter. Snow, though, is rare. I hope so, because we live on a hill and the streets up to our home are steep and narrow and it would be very scary to drive if they were snowy and slippery. Every time we make the drive up here I think "this is a lot like Austria". The road is quite narrow, there is moss and green and even still some wildflowers growing in the grass at the side of the road. We walk (when it is not raining) along the road behind our house. Deer are all over in this area and they are not afraid of people. They come into the yards and eat what they want. Fall colors are still on a few trees, but a lot have lost their leaves by now. There are lots of evergreen trees as well. I think that is the "name" of Washington--The Evergreen State. The weekend before we arrived they had several days of lots of rain and flooding in some areas. It is happening again this weekend--lots of rain and periods of high winds. The Olympic mountains to the north of us cause the clouds coming in off the ocean to dump their rain, the rivers bring it all down and then overflow their banks down here. A real threat and fear is that of mud slides and hillsides collapsing with the already saturated soil being deluged with more rain. There are a few houses on these hills where the earth behind their house is gone and their house is literally on the edge. They have huge plastic tarps hanging down over the dirt. They have to be terrifically nervous when weather like this comes.
We were at the MTC in Provo for the first week and arrived here on Monday, Nov. 2. Sunday after that was Stake Conference (about 1/2 hour drive from here). Stake Conference was very good. The stake covers quite a large area. Our ward covers a large area, too, but most of the people live down here near the harbor and not up in the mountains. We have met a few ward members, but haven't really "met" most of the ward yet. There are many, many names on the ward list (like over 1000) and a great many of them are unknown (not active, moved, etc.). Most of our job here will be to help with that and help with reactivation. There are 4 elders serving here in this city, and 4 more in surrounding areas/branches that are in our district. There was a baptism Sunday evening. We visited with an elderly couple in their home, the Petersons. The wife was raised in Driggs, and the husband in Archer. He knew Aunt Bertha and Uncle Olin. They moved here to work in the logging business in the late 1940s. We are grateful to be safely here, to have good shelter in the storms and to be protected when we must go our in the storms. We hope that we can be good help here to this ward. Thanks so much to Rachel for keeping an eye one our house and stuff in Sugar City.
I'll post a few photos of the area here. Some show the harbor and some of the city below. I had Gene stop one day one our drive up the hill so I could take a few photos of the view from there. Others are in the area behind our house where we walk, photos of our apartment, etc.
Driving up the hills toward home. The town of
Aberdeen and Gray's Harbor are in the distance.
There are houses on each side of the road all
the way up. The day was overcast but not
raining and it is hard to see detail in the distance.
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Here you can see the town and the upper end of the harbor.
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| Main house belonging to the Bishop |
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Our apartment upstairs, across the drive from the main house
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| Our apartment on left, main house on right |
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| The driveway, looking opposite direction from above photo. |
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| Fallen fall leaves by the road we walk on. |
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| The road behind our house where we walk. Our house up the road bit, to the left. |
Driving up the hills toward home. The town of
