Day 2 Recap in Juneau and Arrival into Skagway

Day 2 in Juneau was a good one. I think the whole "Assignment in Alaska" is starting to become more of a reality to me and my new partner for the assignment. We are talking alot about what's to come and getting a bit more familiar with the idea of this all. As you can imagine, coming from South Florida I am like a fish out of water. (Pun intended lol for the purpose of Alaska)

We started the day with Breakfast and drove into town. There is a local WalMart in Juneau (Yes!!) that we thought would be a good idea to hit...Brother Klepinger was kind enough to lend us his vehilcle to use. I was the driver for the day. As I pulled in to the parking lot, we were greeted by what we thought and what seemed to be very, very large Crows. Turns out that they were "just Ravens." Yes that's right, Ravens. As in, Edgar Allan Poe, Raven. Or NFL, Baltimore Raven. (My fav word again-Wow. We were pretty wrong about the Crow part)...turns out that they are quite plentiful here and about as common as a Crow to those of us originally from the "lower 48" (I'm picking up the Alaskan lingo rather quickly according to some locals...No, really :) that's what they tell me lol) So that takes some adjusting to. Not exactly every day you see a Raven, unless you live in Alaska. Guess that will be a new reality to adjust to. Along with some of those wild animal sounds I keep hearing.

After a bit of searching and talking to a few people I got some cold weather gear from there. Also, at the same time I am there, asking some of the locals in the store where there is a good place to get a haircut. Of course, they look at me (rather strangely) and can immediately tell I'm not from the area. Ironically, it actually leads into some great opportunities to witness to people thru out the day and let them know that we are missionaries on assignment. After talking to some, we found the Barbershop and I got a trim. (Picture attached) From the looks of things it seems alot of people cut their own hair, so the Barbershops in Alaska as you can no doubt imagine, are few and far in between, as well as people living in the area with "my type" of hair. (I think you know what I mean there lol)

I was actually to speak for a while to the barber, named Gerry who cut my hair. He had alot of questions about what we were doing in the area, and why we are going to Skagway. He asked about it being a requirement to do a "Mission" to be a Witness. He also mentioned to us about the local congregation and some of the brothers there. I spoke to him about the jw.org website and encouraged Him to take a look at it. He gave me his contact info. I'm looking forward to following up with him on the interest.

From there, we went to NAO (or Nugget Alaska Outfitters) again to get some more things and we were able to witness further to people alike that were working in the store and shopping.

Next we took a drive down the Glacier Highway to Downtown Juneau...was pretty interesting. We decided to take a walk thru the town and get a good idea of what Alaska is like. Or the vibe of it all. One thing we notice right away, is that people seem to be in their "own world" here. I can clearly remember people telling me: "Alaska is the US...so don't worry." Sorry to break it to you, but not quite. It's really a foreign place and it is it's "own world". This is what is called a "domestic missionary" assignment.

People stare a lot. And I do mean a lot. Lol honestly, it takes some adjusting to get used to, but they seem to be kind and friendly, helpful and informative. They can sense right away that we aren't from the area. We look forward to heading now into Skagway, AK and seeing what we will actually find as we officially arrive in our new home, our Branch Assignment this AM.

We pray Jehovah's blessing on our travel there today. A very small plane will take us on up about 80 miles further north to "the gateway to the Klondike" as it is called by the locals.

We will talk again very soon...as always, thank you for your prayers and thanks for reading and following my "Klondike adventures"...Love you all.

M. J. Penfield