This will be my last entry (personally) for 24 months.  I'm gone serving the Lord Jesus Christ in the Japan Kobe Mission as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It's the best thing I could be doing with my time.  Maybe I'll have someone post updates for me.  If I can, then you'll hear all about it.  I love you all.

See you in May 2009.

Elder Bohman

The highlight of the week: Chrissy coming home.  It was so nice to have her back.  I missed her sorely the ....what, one week.....she was there and I was here.  OK, it was more like a week and a half.  But I missed her a lot, and now she's back, and that makes me happy.  Apparently, the people she was caravaning with took more than their good sweet time in getting up the AlCan, and they even stopped for the night in Tok.  Tok, only five hours away from home!!  I guess not everyone is dead-set on beating old time records when they drive that road.

It's Prom season in the AK right now, and last night was Emma and Adam's.  They dressed up the way Prom-goers do, and all had a good time.  Emma looked absolutely gorgeous in her pink dress.  I'm not sure where it came from.  She must've borrowed it from someone the way girls do.  Jen Saunders did her hair for her; also looked amazing.  Adam went with the all-white ensemble.  Very stylish, especially with his new fabulous hair-style that I gave him last week.  Though, he was wearing this way-sweet hat most of the time.  You couldn't really see his hair.  All the students from the family ward were dressed up for church today, too.  Meagan Farnsworth had this beautiful dark-blue dress.  A dress they snagged from one of Taylored's jobs.  Everyone looked very nice, and aside from the stretch-Hummer in the parking lot, it was just a normal day at church!

It seems that things come in waves.  Chrissy mentioned that she will get no attention from boys for a long time, and then at one time, two or three or more guys will all take interest in her.  The old phrase: when it rains, it pours.  And then, there's my store.  I am convinced there must be some conspiracy, but I have noticed that the type of customer we have comes in waves.  Last Friday morning, there were seven or eight different old men with really cool felt hats on.  They had dimples and feathers and hat-bands (I don't know if there's a word for them).  These were not your typical hat.  But for whatever reason, they were all in the store at one time.  Ridiculous.  And the creepy/gross mountain-men that haven't bathed in a year and don't know what hygene even is (hygene, hygene, hygene!), all seem to be in the store at one time.  And good-looking women all seem to be in the store at one time.  I don't understand it.  Maybe it's a psychological trick of some kind.  Maybe it's a statistical anomole, but whatever it is, it's freakin me out.  And that's all I have to say about that.

My mission call was revised by the First Presidency.  I'm now called to serve in the Japan, Kobe mission.  Apparently, they've reopened the Kobe mission, and they need elders to serve there.  I keep the same Mission President, President Tucker.  It should be really exciting reopening an area like that.

Had a great Easter.  It's always good to get together with the whole family, to talk, to play, to be what we are - Bohmans.  It's a title we all hold and do our very best to uphold.

Dinner at Uncle Dick's house.  Grandma was there, too.  There was ham and potatoes and jello and green beans and rolls and other good stuff.  We hunted for easter eggs after the "adults" (notice the quotations.....i'm technically an adult, too) hid them all over outside.  Hunting for eggs in the snow can get difficult - and cold.  Snow got down in my boots, and I bailed inside.  There was an inter-continental war going on outside with snowballs.  From inside, all you could see were the projectiles as they flew from one side of the yard to the other; the combatants throwing the snowballs were never seen.

Had a good conversation with Mom tonight about validation.  It's so insightful for me to talk to my parents about their marriage relationship.  It's hard to watch them go through the struggles they do, but I believe they are both becoming better for having gone through it.  All the tears, all the anguish, all the pain, and all the discussions all seem to point to one thing: compassion.  If they could humble themselves, both of them, and learn the other's needs, perhaps things would be easier.  I don't know all the answers, though I'm often accused of thinking I do.  I only know that there must be a less-painful way to achieve the perfected condition intended for us than the way they have gone about it.

I won't ever let the breakdown in relationship and communication happen in my marriage the way it has happened and rehappened in my parents' marriage.  It seems that by staying close to one another, free and open communication, and a sincere commitment to not be offended two people can approach every problem and every disagreement peacefully, healthily, and with love.  If you can found your marriage, and perhaps more importantly, your interpersonal marriatal dynamics on the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, nothing will or can stop you.

I'm home.  I've got tons to write about from my adventure, but not now.  I'm too tired.

I've only one thing to say.

I miss Chrissy more than I've missed anyone in my life.  There's this empty spot inside me that aches when I think of the fact that she isn't anywhere near.  It will be two weeks before we are together again.  Two years will be ruthless.

The Anchorage Fire Department responded to a 2 alarm fire shortly before 4 a.m., Mar. 22, 2007, at the Church of Latter Day Saints off Brayton Drive in Anchorage, Alaska. Five hours after the inital response, aerial ladders continued to pour water onto the persistent fire that remained isolated in the roof of the large church facility. ( Photo by BILL ROTH / Anchorage Daily News) Smoke bellows up and blocks the sun as firefighters battle a blaze at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Anchorage, Alaska, Mar. 22, 2007. Fire department spokesman Tom Kempton said the fire burned most of the roof of one of two structures at the Mormon church. (Photo by AL GRILLO / AP photo)

By ROSEMARY SHINOHARA and MEGAN HOLLAND
Anchorage Daily News

(Published: March 23, 2007)

The biggest fire that Anchorage has seen in years destroyed most of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints’ chapel in South Anchorage on Thursday as church members could only stand by and watch.

Church leader Mel Nichols estimated the loss in the blaze that firefighters battled all day Thursday at $2 million at least.

The chapel is inside a tan building off Brayton Drive between Huffman and DeArmoun roads and also included a multipurpose room and classrooms . No one was in the building, said Nichols.

The temple next door, a more sacred building to church members, was untouched by the flames.

The fire took more than 12 hours to control, the fire department said. About half the firefighters on duty in the city, 60 to 70 of them, rotated in at different times during the day to fight the fire, which burned inside the roof from a place not easily reached, said Anchorage Fire Department spokesman Tom Kempton. Firefighters for the most part had to pour water on the flames from atop ladders extended above the blaze.

The fire appears to have started in the heating and ventilation room near the top of the structure, Kempton said, and the cause is believed to have been accidental. He said it was the largest, toughest fire here in recent memory.

A neighbor reported seeing smoke and flames before 4 a.m. Nichols, who arrived about the same time as the fire trucks, said, “It was pretty obvious within the first 30 minutes this was not going to have a happy ending.”

“It looked like they were making some progress, then five minutes later the flames are everywhere again,” he said.

Neighbor Claudia Marinelli heard the fire trucks in the middle of the night. She went to see the fire about 5:30 a.m. and saw “flames shooting out of the roof,” she said.

She came to the wreckage another four times throughout the day, watching the fire’s progress and taking photos.

At midafternoon, thick gray smoke still filled the neighborhood, and firefighters were shooting streams of water onto the roof from the tops of two ladder trucks. So much water had been poured onto the structure that the air was moist, and the Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility had to boost the water pressure.

Dozens of cars and trucks flowed steadily down Brayton Drive to view the fire, staying typically just long enough to take in the damage. Some took photos. At least one had a video camera. Many who came were among the church’s 1,600 members, who had heard about it through family and friends.

“This is probably the most organized religion. It’s like the military. Everybody probably knew by 7 a.m.,” said member Nancy Morris.

“It’s our beloved building,” said Amy Schaugaard, also a church member, as she stood near the destruction late Thursday.

She said she had been going to the building for 24 years, attending baptisms, basketball games, dances and missionary farewells. “It’s a very sentimental place for a lot of people.”

“I was getting teary-eyed today,” said her husband, Ryan Schaugaard. Firefighters had to let most of the roof burn through before they could get to the flames, said Kempton.

“You almost have to peel back the roof to be able to extinguish the fire.”

The roof was a big, heavy structure, with beams overlaid by wood planks, then layers of foam insulation, more planking, plywood, then the roofing material, Kempton said.

Both firefighters and church leaders were worried that the church steeple would topple and injure someone, Kempton said, but it didn’t.

Eventually, though, the charred, burned-out roof caved in to the multipurpose room below. The big beams arching over the room were still intact, but sheetrock and blackened roofing material had plunged from the roof to the floor, said Kempton.

The fire was considered to be out by late afternoon, he said. But steam still rose from the rubble, and spectators continued to stop by the church to look at the damage.

“It’s never hit this close to home,” said Tom Gardner, a church member who came to see it. “But thankfully it wasn’t the temple. That would have been devastating for a lot of people.”

“We first saw it from the highway (in the morning) and were just stunned,” said Kirsten Stanton. She came back several hours later. “I guess you’d call it morbid curiosity.”

Classroom wings are intact, but 3 to 6 inches of water has pooled on the floors.

Nichols said the building is about 18,000 square feet. On a normal Sunday, 800 to 1,000 people use it at different times of the day.

The building was about 30 years old and is self-insured by the church, he said. The building’s value is not known, but Nichols said it would probably take a minimum of $2.5 million to replace it, not counting any demolition.

Just as the chapel was being built in 1976, a different fire gutted it. A news report at the time said the damage was estimated at $1.2 million.

---

Daily News reporter Rosemary Shinohara can be reached at rshinohara@adn.com or 257-4340. Megan Holland can be reached at mrholland@adn.com or 257-4343.

-  http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/anchorage/story/8731770p-8633490c.html

Wow.  My stomach is so bloated right now.  I accept responsibility for most things, but this is clearly not my fault.  Let me explain.  Anna has been telling us about this amazing restaurant called The Melting Pot.  It's a fondue place, and the food is absolutely spectacular; the price tag is absolutely spectacular, as well.  We're talking upwards of $40 per person to eat there.  So, though it is without a doubt outside of my price range, Anna really wanted us to have "the Melting Pot experience."  So, she and her mom treated us to it tonight.  I'm telling you, between the incredible cheese, wonderful broth-cooked meets, and the gourmet chocolate desert, I ate myself nearly sick tonight.  It was well worth everything, though.  I kid you not.

Wait.  Gotta go.  Jenna's parents still have my jacket, and I've gotta get it back before tomorrow morning.

Be back later.

Sleep is good.  I guess I got really jet-lagged today or something, but after I wrote Part 4, I slept.  Christen was already asleep, and I fell asleep right next to her.  We were both out.  Really out.  As in Grant was able to get ready and leave without us being aware of him even being there.  That's how out of it we were.  And Anna called a couple of times to see if we wanted to do stuff with her.  Jenna had called her this morning to tell me that I left my coat in her truck; it's at her parent's apartment now.  I have to pick it up some evening Tuesday or Wednesday.  We did lunch at Geico, in the cafeteria.  The food was surprisingly good; though, I can see how it would get boring after a while of eating it over and over.

After lunch, Christen and I headed down to Chatham Manor to look at the beautiful grounds.  It's the wrong time of year, though, and nothing was in bloom.  It's been so unseasonably cold lately that the buds on the trees hadn't even let the leaves start to show yet.  Lame.  Very.  I was so disappointed about it too, because that's probably my most favorite place in all of Virginia.  We walked around the grounds, though; we looked at all the cool stuff, and we read the placards detailing what happened there.  For the first time, I went inside and looked at some of the cool stuff that is inside the house.  It's an old place; it dates back to pre-revolutionary war times.  And it served as a major headquarters/hospital during the civil war.  If you have some time to kill, or just want to see pictures, check it out.

We killed more than two hours at Chatham, and then it was time to get Anna.  But I thought we had to get her at 4pm, and it was actually 430pm.  Since we were already in the area, Christen and I ran over to Carl's - the old-timey icecream shop in Fredericksburg.  It's been a favorite of our's since we lived in the area.  All the locals love it, and it's very popular.  Three small milkshakes later - one of them a vanilla malt for your's truly - we were on our way to get Anna, and we picked her up right on time.  How good of us.  *pats self on back*

Dinner at this Japanese steak house called Ozeki.  It was good food, and the entertainment was great, too.  The cooking is all done on a grill around which the tables and chairs are set.  So, the chef's job is not only to cook your food, but he also entertains while he cooks.  It truly is dinner and a show!  The entertainment was great.  We played this game where the chef tried to through pieces of shrimp into your mouth, and you had to catch it.  I'm proud to announce I caught BOTH pieces he threw to me.  Anna caught both, too.  We're pretty much awesome that way.  Christen didn't catch either of the softly thrown ones to her, but she got some shrimp.  The chef actually pitched it off of his grill spatula line-drive style into her open mouth.  Way cool.

Family home evening with the YSA.  We played catch phrase.  That was fun.  But the real fun of that portion of the evening was the discussion about the Creation.  Does man have stewardship or dominion over it?  I, of course, think stewardship.  Some people think dominion.  What was really interesting though, was the elderly couple - who totally look like whacked-out liberal cooks that have zero experience to talk - who were toting Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.  Deenie Kidbey, who was moderating the discussion....or giving the lesson, depending on how you want to say it - couldn't remember the name.  So, I offered, "An Inconvenient Lie.  I think that's what it was called."  It was sarcastic and humorous, but that couple behind me would here none of it.  They corrected me right away; though, in their defense, he acknowledged that it was sensationalism.  But yeh, goodtimes.  It seems wherever I go I rub people the wrong way.  In some regards, anyway.  (I hope everyone knows my stance regarding things like global warming, stewardship over the environment, etc.  i'm not a raging conservative by any means.  but neither am i a raging liberal, and i have little regard for people who are.  they generally speak out of emotion, lacking real-world experience.  this does not impress me.  i'm much more interested in a gospel-centered approach to caring for the Creation the way HF intended for us to do.)

While at Chatham today, Christen was reading a letter on display from one of the surgeons.  "Why were people so much more poetic back then?"  It's a great question: one that I've thought about regularly.  The only answer I could come up with has to do with the context of the letter.  All war-time letters that I've read, be they from the world wars, revolutions, civil wars, etc. all seem to have that same passion, poetry, and pathos.  I think when you are in that environment, every day is your last.  Every letter is your last, and you write to make it count.  The desire to capture for your loved ones so perfectly the scene of horror, death, destruction, and senselessness propels the writers to find the words to express those deeply held emotions.  I don't ever want to have to endure that scene; war frightens me so much.  There was a time when I was fascinated by it; I wanted to experience the brotherhood that came from enduring war together.  I never understood why men like Bro. Beggs would speak so highly of their brothers in arms and in the same breath hope I would never have to experience what they had experienced.  In my naivety of youth, I thought I too must experience it; I almost wanted to.  But time and experience has taught me that there is no glory in war.  Men - good men - would not fight war if there was another way.  It brings those horrors of which I spoke earlier.  Wars may be waged in the name of a just cause; that is proven time and time again in the Book of Mormon.  But war has no happy ending.  The civilian population is always decimated.  Innocents are always harmed.  People's lives are always up-ended.  Families always pay dearly.  I long for peace.  I long for a time of quietude.  The chance to raise my family in peace is both my soul and sole desire now.  I want to leave you with some interesting annecdotes from the battle of Fredericksburg.  Something to chew on, if you will:

After the Battle of Fredericksburg, a Northern band on the east side of the river played a series of patriotic Union songs. After a while, Confederates on the other side shouted over requests for Southern songs. The band obliged, finally ending with "Home Sweet Home". The seasoned soldiers of both sides tried to sing along. But choked by the emotion of missing home, neither side could finish and the band ended in silence [K]

These times would pass when the spring brought a new campaign, and a stunning Confederate victory, at Chancellorsville.

-http://www.brotherswar.com/

Right.  Sorry about that half-finished entry last night, but like I said, Christen and I were talking.  I wasn't about to stop that to finish writing in here.  I love you dearly, but I love her more.

...Having Christen back is such a blessing.  For a long time, she and I didn't get along.  But now that we're both older, wiser, and less tempermental about stuff, we're able to not only get along, but be best friends.  It's so excellent to be able to sit across from her in the living room and just talk - about everything.  She and I approach life from such different sides, and the opportunity to learn from each other is constantly present.  She teaches me so much about life, because she experiences and views it in a way that many times I had never considered.  I'm glad that we're not buddy-buddy in the sense that we're carbon copies of each other.  Otherwise, I think I'd get bored, and we'd fight to keep it interesting.

I had forgotten how the weather here in VA is so beautiful.  It's a clear, beautiful morning today.  The sun is shining.  The tank is clean.  THE TANK IS CLEAN!!!  Ok, not really....there's no tank.   But the sun is shining.  And the sunrise this morning while we took Anna to work was absolutely gorgeous.  I don't know if they have been having sunrises like that regularly, but it was incredible.  Perhaps it was growing up here that gave me such a profound appreciation for sunrises.  They have so much hope in them.  Or maybe it's promise.  Either way, it was nice to look at.

We don't have any specific plans for today, but we have lots and lots of people to visit.  We have to be back at Anna's office (Geico) to pick her up at 430, exactly.  Because when my clock hits 430, I hit that door.  So, we have until then to play.  We're doing dinner with Anna's parents Wednesday night.  That should be a whole lot of fun!!  Things with them have changed so much.  They were never close, but she says now they are tight.  It's heart-warming to see that things once so broken can be mended, that relationships are capable of both evolution and healing.