10 August 2018 - Friday

10 August 2018 - Friday

It was another beautiful sunrise morning as I took the opportunity to walk to the main road and back.  I sure enjoy the beauties of the Wyoming mornings and especially the cool temperatures.  This morning I was greeted with the low 50's as I took the three mile walk.  Mom is saving up for our Rocky Ridge trek next Tuesday.  You may not know this, but the pioneers still had 325 miles to go from Devil's Gate to Salt Lake City when they were here in November 1856.  I have had this goal to walk those last 325 miles for all those precious pioneers that were not able to do it on their own.  It has been a marvelous experience for me!  Only I am walking the 325 miles on a day-to-day basis that will add up to the full 325 miles by our release date in October.  Right now I am close to 300 miles.

Today mom and I got the best work assignment ever!  We were asked to help build the wall in the new garage that will house some of the vehicles this winter.  Needless to say, I was excited.  The assignment had been given to two other senior missionaries, yesterday, and they had not yet scratched the surface on building the wall itself.  They did mark the top plates and the bottom plates and ran some chalk lines on the cement.  But the wall was not even started!  I could hardly contain myself!

Laying out the 18' wall line to include a 3' door and a 12' roll-up door

A good safety officer wears the eye and the ear protection!

Boy, was this a fun job.  We even had to make a glue-lammed 12' header to accommodate the 12' roll-up door.  Everything was laid out on the floor and then raised up into the final position.  There was a steel beam in place for the top header, and our wall had to fit under that 18' beam.  Jared, this reminded me of putting up that outer wall for Amy and Josh's laundry room!  And it was just as tight!

We were working in-between two steel 12" poles!

You should have seen the level markings as we set this wall!

That glue-lammed header board is with one eighth of an inch variance!

The project took almost six hours for us to finish it off.  That included about an hour of back slapping antics that were almost as much fun as building the wall!  However, I was just as tired when mom and I got back home as I have been on these six mile, all-day treks!  But oh was it worth it.  I am anxious to begin some remodeling and building when we get home!  Any projects available?

I had the FM supervisor come up to me and thank me for the heads up on that cement sanding project yesterday.  He admitted that the project was beyond the scope of what the senior missionaries could safely do and I felt he was genuinely grateful for diverting a potential disaster for senior missionaries attempting to work on this project.  The result will be to just paint over the old paint instead of trying to remove the old paint.  

Mom and I are so excited for our next family visit!  Bob and Mary will be here in less that one week and we have been given an extra P-day that will be well used in their visit.  And the best part of the schedule next week is that we did not ask for any preferential treatment.  The Lord took care of that by Himself!  We can't wait to show those precious children and grandchildren around the mission.  And we are especially excited about meeting Adam!  It will be a little harder to sleep these next few days!