6 June 2018 - Wednesday - Happy Birthday Cambry Anna!

6 June 2018 - Wednesday

Mom and I got off to a great start on our day, this morning, with our prayers and scripture reading.  It always sets a wonderful tone for the day, and helps us to focus on our eternal goals.  I was able to get my first three mile walk in as well.  The morning air was so clean and clear even though the clouds were creating an overcast.  It was a good time to practice my talk for Sunday!

This was an especially awesome day.  First of all mom and I got to open up the Cherry Creek Campground after the correlation meeting.  Our assignment was to prepare the camp for the four trekking groups that were scheduled today.  And we had the bonus assignment to be the trail guides for the group we will lead tomorrow!  The Cherry Creek Campground will have about 550 campers here tonight!  Here is our prep work pictures;

We set up the camp sites by flag color - see the blue flag?

The morning skies over the campground

Mom wants to know if Amy has seen this tree before?

Once we got the campground set up, we had Elder and Sister Criddle to train as the new Camp Hosts.  They arrived about 11:30am for their training, and we reviewed with them their duties and responsibilities.  We then left the camp in good hands and went home for about three hours.  We had lunch, and I even squeezed in a short nap before we left for our evening assignment.

This group came in from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and had traveled over 13 hours to get here.  They came in three buses and several vans for a total of 150 trekkers, and support people.  They arrived at 5:30pm and we had them outfitted by 6:15pm.  They had some pretty well over-packed handcarts!

Trekker Pa

Trekker Ma

Handcarts filled to more than 17 pounds per person!

Getting our trek group organized at Outfitting

Trekkers fro Sioux Falls - 150 strong!

There is a tender mercy story that I wanted to insert here.  Mom and I parked our car at the Cherry Creek Campground, this afternoon, in order to have our transportation after the 3.5 mile trek into camp.  We did this by going into the Homestead 3.5 miles away and took one of the available Rovers to drive us back to the Outfitting.  As I was selecting a Rover, I jumped into the one that had two seats, one for me and one for Granny.  I could not get this one started so I took one that had six seats and it started right up,  We drove out to the Cherry Creek Campground and when we got almost there, we heard on the radio that the first group was just arriving. 

The Trail Guide for this group was President and Sister Pace.  The Spirit suggested that I ask if they needed a ride back into the Homestead.  He was so tired, and he readily accepted the offer.  Then we found out there was another senior couple, that had shadowed them, that also needed a ride.  That made it so I needed six seats!  As we headed into the Homestead the counselor in the mission presidency was coming out in another Rover for the President and his wife, only he had three seats available in his.  That leads me to ask this question; does Heavenly Father follow us in the details of our lives?  These kinds of tender mercies happen every day!

We finally began the trek into the Cherry Creek Campground at 7:15pm.  It is a 3.5 mile trek, and we had the most beautiful sunset pictures!  We did the trek in under an hour, and had them in camp by 8:15pm.  And I mentioned, earlier, that we had four groups total in the campground tonight.  Well, when our group came in, the group adjacent to their assigned camp site came out to the trail and cheered them on.

The group on the right cheering on our group on the left as they passed by

It was an amazing and a very tender moment of ministering by this group of youth!  And then we witnessed another great show of love and support when a large group of their Priests went with them to help them unload their handcarts and set up their tents.  I can well imagine President Nelson's influence on these young people tonight!  I had several reports from the leaders as we were trekking in that many of these youth were already taking President Nelson's challenge for a seven day fast from social media!

Trekking into the Wyoming Sunset!

Absolutely beautiful!

Mom and I had our first solo test together in being the trail guides.  We did well.  The group is excited and we will be out to meet them early tomorrow morning to begin our seven mile experience with them.  It will be a great day, because today was a great day!