12 July 2018 - Thursday

12 July 2018 - Thursday

Talk about addicted, even though I was faced with the six mile Trek Host assignment with mom, I just had to take my three mile morning walk this morning.  Last night we had a downpour of over three inches of rain.  There were a lot of big puddles of water this morning, but the air was absolutely clean and refreshing!  That is the part of my addiction that I just love to experience each morning...and... perhaps the morning sunrise pictures....  take a look at these from this morning!

These were the morning clouds that remained from last nights downpour!

The cloud cover was panoramic over the Missionary Village

And here it the promise of the coming sunrise at 5:15am

This is the sun peeking over the hill where the pioneer grave is marked!

I sure enjoy these morning walks!  The temperature this morning was in the very low 60's.  That irritated the mosquitoes because I did not see any!  And this morning I was very very close to my 15 minute mile!  Even with taking so many sunrise pictures!  The afternoon temperatures reached the low 80's with just enough wind to keep most of the pesky mosquitoes at bay.

Mom and I were one of the two Trek Hosts for the Arapaho Colorado Stake, of 300 youth, this morning.  They stayed at the Sixth Crossing site last night.  As they were getting their camp set up, last night, the rain came down hard and turned into hail.  Many of their tents collapsed from the storm and their bedding was soaked in the ensuing rain water.  Most of the trekkers had to huddle in the back of two big U-Haul trucks for the night.  They divided the boys and the girls and they had an authentic Fort Seminoe/Martin Handcart company experience.  They had no way of drying their clothes, and not everyone had a change of clothing.

Even with those challenges last night, they were close to being on time here at Martin's Cove this morning.  However, the Trek Leaders and the Stake President decided to change the trek format for today to reduce the trekking time and to accommodate those still wet.  They discussed a variety of options, and the member of the mission presidency worked with them on some choices around the other 500 youth coming today from three other stakes.  It was quite a matrix!

We were finally able to accommodate their requests and got the groups going on an abbreviated trek, due to dozens of the youth who had blisters and sleep deprivation from their experiences yesterday.  What was interesting to me was that the Stake President wanted to cut the experience short if it was over 4 miles of trekking.  In reality the shortest round trip was 5 miles, that he was adamantly opposed to.  But, somehow, his Bishops convinced him to go the 5 mile route.  And we ended up going almost 6 miles with his blessing!

As we started off, the stake president kept changing what we had agreed upon.  We ended up going almost 6 miles and narrowly missed several other groups in the trekking matrix.  Of course the Trek Hosts were absolutely amazing in their ability to keep the group one step ahead of others.  But we can't take the credit since this is Heavenly Fathers program!  What a blessing it is to be His Hands in helping a fragmented group have a spiritual experience!  We had several leaders express their appreciation for what took place on this special process that mom and I were so privileged to participate in!  After all, that is why we are here!  

Here we are parking the handcarts and preparing for the cove experience.

Mom and I were both near exhaustion when we got home.  I just wanted more water and cold sliced up melons and fruits!  We turned on the swamp cooler to high and enjoyed a wonderfully relaxing afternoon.  The best part of this experience was we were able to take the front trail, we took with the Sathre's, and get ahead of another group that left before us on the sand trail.  Ultimately, that group took an extra three hours for their trek experience, and we would have been out on the trail closer to eight hours rather than the four hours we took to accommodate this special request.  

It made for an absolutely wonderful day for two senior missionaries!  Tomorrow we have the Visitors' Center assignment and report for work at 10:00am!  That will give us another two hours to prepare for the day!  Yea!  Have we mentioned that we love serving together here in the Wyoming Mormon Trail Mission?  Thank you for joining with us on this sacred adventure!