8 June 2018 - Friday

8 June 2018 - Friday

Here we are at the end of another week in the mission field.  This has been a very busy week for these two senior missionaries, and we have walked close to 20 miles.  My goal is to do the 20 miles each week, and, this morning, I was up for my usual morning walk of three miles without being a part of a trek group.  

Mom and I reported to our correlation meeting this morning to be on a work crew.  Mom did some deep cleaning with another sister, and I worked on some sprinklers with another Elder.  The Church History Department wants the green grass to be brown prairie grass, so we capped off 9 more sprinkler heads.  

Can you imagine the time and effort the missionaries put in to re-doing projects other missionaries have completed after receiving different instructions from Salt Lake?  It seems like folks in the different Church departments change ideas when leaders change, so here we are taking a green field where trekkers have lunches and dinners and turning it in to a field of brown prairie grass where the can have their lunches!

Capping off sprinklers with Elder Roberts

After our morning meeting we were sorting out the supplies that we would need for the day.  We had gathers most of these supplies and were heading out to the field we were going to convert back to prairie grass.  Then we saw these horse, and mule, drawn wagons coming down the entrance to the Visitors' Center;

They were following the Oregon Trail, and they were trying, as hard as they could, to travel on back roads.  There were four or five men who looked just like they were older seasoned emigrants from the 1800's.  I went over and spoke to two of them and invited them to come through the Visitors' Center.  Another senior couple were working there at the Visitors' Center, and took them under their wing.  I never heard what happened other than they wanted to see the United States from a pioneer experience.  They did not appear to be members.

I also got to see where Bernard Sun and his wife were buried on the Sun Ranch property.  Our FM supervisor took Elder Roberts and me up to the hill top and I caught these pictures;

This is the man that negotiated with President Hinckley for the property here

Bernard Sun's wife

The view of the ranch from their gravesites

What is very interesting here is that the family chose this site as the final resting place for their family members.  When the BLM, (Bureau of Land Management),  found out about the burials, and the grave site, they researched the land and found out that this was just outside their Ranch Property of well over 3 million acres, and made them buy another five acres to keep this site in the family.  

Handcart Family just passing over Veil Bridge

I was working on the sprinklers when the father of this family, pictured above, walked up to me and asked how he could go about taking a handcart with his family through Martin's Cove.  What a great question!  I immediately called the counselor in the mission presidency and arranged for them to take the trek.  As he gathered his family together, he and his wife and a younger son were excited, but he had two teenagers, a son and a daughter, who were less than enthusiastic.  The Spirit said show them the movie we play for every trek group, "The Fire of the Covenant".  Since there was no conflict, they got to see that film.  

It was then my pleasure to take them out to the Veil Bridge, shown in the above picture, and shared a rescue story with them, and then got them on their way.  I did not hear back from them after their trek experience.  However, I know they are from Idaho Falls area, and I asked them to go in and say hello to Jared at the deli.  Let's see if that happens!

Tomorrow is our Preparation Day.  It is the last Saturday we will have P-day for six weeks.  Beginning a week from Monday we will have our P-days on Mondays for about six weeks.  Have a great night!  Thank you for checking in with us!!