Education Week On Board!

A highlight of our cruise was being able to listen to these "Headliners!"

I felt like I was at Education Week!

Here is the short bio of Jack Welch.  This was his first Alaskan cruise so he and his wife were on all of our side trips as well.  We were able to listen to him speak four different times.  He was wonderful!  He is quite the scholar and we learned a lot! 

"John W. (Jack) Welch is well-known and highly regarded in LDS circles for his insightful studies of the Bible and Book of Mormon.

In 1970, Jack received a master’s degree in Greek and Latin from BYU, where he studied under Hugh Nibley, Truman Madsen, and Terry Warner.   From there, Jack went to law school at Duke.  
He founded the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) in 1979. Since 1991 he has been the editor-in-chief of BYU Studies Quarterly.He joined the faculty of the J. Reuben Clark Law School in 1980, where he still teaches courses."**

I was especially thrilled to hear him tell the story of how he discovered Chiasmus in The Book of Mormon!

He and his wife, Jeanie, were so warm and friendly and we enjoyed visiting with them and having dinner together one evening.

Here is the bio of John Bytheway:

"Popular BYU Education Week speaker; in demand youth speaker; author of the What I wish I''d Known.. series and many other recordings and books; scholar of a variety of subjects. John Bytheway's captivating teaching methods will leave you hanging on for every word as he expounds gospel topics using humor and amazing insight." 
We have been fans of John Bytheway for decades!
We told him: We raised our kids on your talks!

He was as funny as ever!

He's even funny when he's not speaking.  Here he is photobombing!

Here he is with his wife, Kim.  They have 6 kids.

We got to hear him four times as well.  His talks were filled with a lot of humor but also a lot of gospel insight and substance.   We loved every minute with him!

The cruise was greatly enhanced by the speakers!

**Longer version:"John W. (Jack) Welch is well-known and highly regarded in LDS circles for his insightful studies of the Bible and Book of Mormon, including numerous works on Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, temple studies, the Gospel of Matthew, the parable of the Good Samaritan, the trial of Jesus, and the legal and cultural backgrounds of the New Testament. While serving in 1967 as a missionary in Regensburg, Germany, Jack discovered the remarkable literary form called chiasmus in the Book of the Mormon. In 1970, Jack received a master’s degree in Greek and Latin from BYU, where he studied under Hugh Nibley, Truman Madsen, and Terry Warner. He then spent two years at Oxford Studying Greek philosophy. From there, Jack went to law school at Duke where he an editor of the Duke Law Journal, and also studied with the eminent New Testament scholar, James Charlesworth. He practiced law in Southern California, where he founded the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) in 1979. He joined the faculty of the J. Reuben Clark Law School in 1980, where he still teaches courses on tax, ancient laws, and Joseph Smith and the law. He has served as the general editor of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, on the editorial board of the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, and as co-director of the Masada and Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition at BYU. Since 1991 he has been the editor-in-chief of BYU Studies Quarterly. He has been a bishop twice and has served in a stake presidency. He and his wife Jeannie have traveled widely. They have four children and seventeen grandchildren."

Times To Remember...

...from the cruise!

(Besides the places we visited)

The time we spent at the outdoor cafe on the ship having lunch while in port in Seattle--all the sights, sounds and smells and the anticipation!  

It was so fun!

The time we spent listening to the lecturers!

(More on this later)

The time we spent having dinner most nights at Tsar's Palace!

All the times we walked up and down these long, narrow hallways to our room!

The times we spent with new friends!

The times we spent with our leader, the Cruise Lady, Diane Larsen.

She was so much fun!  And very on top of everything!

The times we commented on the gaudy carpet everywhere!

The times we came back to our room to find these cute animals!

The times we spent on our balcony!

We left the drapes and door open every night to listen to the sounds!

Dan had fun taking this shot of the full moon from the balcony.  That tiny light is a boat or ship in the distance.

Lots of great times to remember!

Skagway!

The last city we visited in Alaska was Skagway!

It's a very small town of about 600 people but the population swells to about 3,000 during "the season" (May to September).  They receive almost a million visitors a year!

When news of the Yukon gold strike reached the outside world in 1896, Skagway was one of the starting points to travel up the White Pass to the Yukon River and on to the gold fields.  The Canadian government required that each miner bring a ton of supplies--literally 2,000 pounds!

We visited this old recreated mining community...

Here is a list of supplies they were required to take...

 We learned that pigs were often used to carry some of the supplies up the pass...

...there was a little entertainement...

...and we panned for gold...

Then our group traveling in these vans made our way up White Pass to Canada...

We saw this 3,000 foot waterfall...

...and lots of other beautiful scenery...

We had a drink of this water...

...and finally at the top were able to look out over Canada...

...and finally back to the harbor with all the cruise ships...

We did stop at the Pioneer Cemetery and learned the story of Soapy Smith, con artist and gangster who swindled a lot of people in Skagway until he was shot dead.
(That's our tour guide telling us the story).

There was even an LDS chapel in town!

We didn't take this photo but the aerial shot shows what a beautiful little town it is!

Sawyer Glacier!

 After we left Juneau, we headed back south for 45 miles so we could travel up Tracy Arm which is a fjord with high cliffs on both sides and numerous waterfalls!
It was a beautiful journey!

The scenery reminded me a lot of Glacier National Park...

We started seeing large chunks of ice floating past!

And then finally we could Sawyer Glacier in the distance!

It was amazing to see!  Photos can't do it justice!

 A person next to the glacier would be a tiny speck; that's how big it is but hard to get the perspective in these photos.

We were able to see and hear some calving of the ice off the glacier!  That was a thrill!