Happy Fourth -- A Week Late

Just one of the beautiful sunsets we watch every night. Don't you wish you were here?
Top Notch Square Dance Caller!! He forgot to take my picture but that is okay as I lost my voice halfway through my calling.


I know this is a week late but last week got away with me. You will soon understand when you read the post for this week in a couple days. I had this written but just get it posted, so here it is.


Martin’s Cove was very busy over the weekend. It was expected with a holiday but didn’t think we would top our visitor numbers with 290 on Saturday. We are not sure where the holiday went nor what we signed ourselves up for as with our prior life we had the Fourth of July off. Family Home Evening for the 4th was great though. There were several flags that were thread bare from the Wyoming wind so we had a flag retirement ceremony. After the ceremony, some of the missionaries went to the fireworks at Alcova where they are shot from an island in the reservoir. We didn’t partake since we had early morning shift.

Since I spend at least three days a week in the office, there is only a couple days for doing posts. This week, I was blessed to work in the humanitarian center. As mentioned before, the sisters continually make quilts, knitted hats, and other articles for those in need. I worked on my first quilt since being here. It was a pink baby quilt and was so cute. I know I should have taken a picture but I was so excited to learn to tie and hope someday to be able to learn to bind a quilt. Then the ladies in the center did service for one of our sister missionaries. She was ill and was assigned to the flower watering around the homestead which is a good four hour job. Well, we divided and conquered the job for her. It felt good to be able to do service for another; oh yeah, that is an all day job now with being a missionary!!

The past week was actually fairly slow. I am truly grateful though because next week we are campground hosts. I did have a bit of an experience while working in the office on Thursday which I wish to share. At one of the multiple busy points of the day, I was transmitting on both radios and both telephone lines were ringing. At this point, an Elder came to the office to let me know the copier in the visitor’s center wasn’t working. I knew there were difficulties with it and couldn’t leave to fix it right then as I was the only one in the office. So, I told him if he sent the book over with whomever needed copies, I would just copy it. After a few minutes, a lady appeared with the book. I greeted her and asked her which page she would like copied. She mentioned she had several she needed copied. No big deal, I can do it. So, she turned to her first page which was Amy Loader and explained she was a direct descendant. I told her this was really neat as I was assigned to give the Amy Loader story for Prayer Meeting the next morning. I then started copying the pages. She asked if I would like to hear a story and of course I would as I miss most opportunities for stories while I am in the office. Her story was this: She and her husband went on a tour to England three years ago. Since their tour started on Monday, they went over earlier to spend the weekend finding the old home place of the Loaders. They went to the village and couldn’t find the home place but went to the church the Loaders attended before converting to Mormonism. They walked and walked around the church trying to get into the church to look at records but all the doors were locked. Now, this is very unusual as the churches are left open in European countries. Feeling a bit discouraged, they traveled to the next village as they knew some of the Loader children moved there when Amy and James left for America. They found another church and there was a gardener outside. So, they spoke to her about getting into the first church. She said it was not a problem just go in the blue door. They could not remember any blue door and that was very odd for there aren’t blue doors on the churches. After spending a little bit of time at the second village, they decided to return to the first and see if they saw a blue door. Sure enough, as they circled around the church they found a blue door which was open to access. This blue door led into the room where the records were stored so they were able to open books and see recorded christenings of the Loader children. When they were finished and as they were leaving, there was a lady approaching them on the walkway. The other lady asked who they were looking for and they said Loaders. She said she was a Loader. She was a descendant from one of the children which stayed in England. The couple and this lady discovered they were cousins. How exciting!! Since their tender mercy meeting, they have been able to get together in Utah, found the old home place, and shared family memorabilia which included letters Amy wrote back to her children in England. Family links being put together and I got to hear about it.

Saturday was our day off and we took advantage of it. I just wanted to do something other than buy groceries, clean house and laundry. So, we decided to take a drive in the country. We have purchased a gazetteer which shows some of the back country dirt roads. So, Randy drove and I navigated. We went to Alcova and drove the Alcova/Seminoe Cutoff which went through a really pretty canyon area. Half of it was easy gravel and half of it was paved. Not a bad drive at all so I was ready for some more adventure. After refueling and picking up a few groceries in Rawlins, I found a back road to the camper around the Ferris Mountains. From the gazetteer it looked just like the roads we had traveled. I am so glad my husband is as adventurous as I am. As the roads I took him on this time almost earned him a new truck. We ended up on jeep trail which hadn’t been traveled in a very long time. There were several spots that were washed out and then several sand trap areas. It was not designed for pick-ups but my pilot made it through for us. We ended up coming up behind the church property and through the actual Bar-11 ranch house and corrals. It was loads of fun and Randy was able to use his 4-wheel drive A LOT!!! But…I think I better wait a couple weeks before suggesting we do this again.

All God's Creatures

Two months of fun and exhaustion sure goes by fast. There have been so many tender mercies and great spiritual experiences we feel we are walking on cloud 9 all the time. Again, these past two weeks have given us the opportunity for even more. The most prominent blessing for us has been noticing the doings of God’s creatures. As I have written before, we have antelope that make their home right (and I mean right) outside our camper door and wander all over the campground with very little fear of us. Last Tuesday, mama antelope brought her twins by to visit for awhile. They sure are getting big and boy, can they run. They look like a movie on fast forward all the time. They love to run circles around the older antelope (literally) until mama makes her bleating sound and then they either drop down in the grass or run over to her. It is very entertaining.

One morning last week, we were headed into the homestead to work and noticed what we thought was a large coyote out in the grazing field between the highway and the visitor’s center. I watched it for awhile and then we figured out it was a wolf. The binoculars are in the truck within quick reach. Now that was cool, seeing a wolf in the wild. Maybe we should have been late for prayer meeting and kept watching it but we were good missionaries and carried on with our duties. Also for the past couple weeks, we have been watching a silver fox den. It was on the way to the campground where we square dance every night. Since we would head out in the evening, the kits were out and about playing. There were three of them but they sure didn’t stick around long and have moved out of the den and to wherever little foxes move on to. Mama Fox and one of her little ones.

Now some of the creatures we encounter aren’t quite as cute. Last week, a four foot rattlesnake decided to set up residence right outside the door to the office at work. Now, luckily I was safely tucked in the office working while one of the Elders kindly disposed of my guest. We have to constantly be walking with our heads down because these friends are quite plentiful this year. The missionaries have had to encourage at least one if not two to cross the veil every week. So far, Elder Smith and I have not been the ones to do the encouraging.

Last week, we were given the opportunity to be the missionary couple for the men’s callout/women’s pull. We had a stake of over 400 youth to speak too and tell them the significance of these two activities. It was a great experience which gave each of us a couple fond memories to hold on to. The young men are told of when the men left their families in the most meager of circumstances either to respond to mission calls or death. To help them grasp how this might have impacted the ladies, they form two single file lines to go up the hill leaving the ladies to fare for themselves along the trail. The young women are told about the sisters who instantly had to shoulder the responsibility of leading their families when the men left. We then share that each of these youth will have hard things to face in their lives but if they hold onto their faith, these hard things can be overcome and endured. There is a lot more spoken about which I may include in one of the weekly stories as it is fairly lengthy. After our opportunity to share with the youth, I was touched to see one of my young women sit down with her journal and write in it. She reminded me of Patience Loader who kept a great journal in 1856 and thanks to her writings, we have the stories we know today. Another touching moment was one of their young women was confined to a wheelchair. We have handcarts special made to accommodate wheel chairs and she was in one of these and had made the entire trek. We were at a point where she was going to watch the girls pull their handcarts up the hill and then the priesthood would come back down to get her. But to our surprise and touching memories, all the young women came back down the hill and pulled/pushed her up the hill. What an absolutely touching site! Elder Smith’s touching moment was part of the instruction given to the young men at the top of the hill. They are to remove their hat, stand along the edge of the trail and remain until all the women are at the top. After the young lady in the wheel chair was pulled up, I then started up the hill to join the group at the top. Most other groups just start gathering while the sister missionary comes up, but there was one young man with this group that stayed there and waited for me to get to the top. He listened to his priesthood leader and obeyed. What an example!

After this week, we have now had the opportunity to serve in all the posts for a shift and done each of the extra circular activities. So you ask, which one do you like best? That is almost as difficult to answer as the question when we are asked where we are from. Each post has special significance and wonderful stories to share with those who visit and each activity brings smiles, peace or understanding to the youth we are serving that I really wish we had the energy to do them all; all the time. The really sad part is we only have about six more weeks of busy season and then we will be occupied with more maintenance around the area. We just love it here! Square dancing with the youth. Elder Smith is in the middle of the picture and doesn't see what is coming up behind him. It soon got very wet.

This week’s tender mercy was reconnecting with a childhood friend after 40 years. I am so grateful I have a sister which is willing to reach out and ask the question; “do you want to know us?” My sister, Patty, our daughter, Sylvia, and her children, Patrick and Addy, came to Martin’s cove Tuesday afternoon with our friend, Kelly. She lost most of her family members during the past years, so we have opened our arms and she now has sisters, nieces and nephews, and cousins in her life. We all met for lunch to celebrate Sylvia’s birthday on Wednesday along with two of our cousins and she was formally introduced and accepted by all family members. We are only an extension of the true love of Christ and one big family which can be eternal.

Last Sunday we were graced with the utmost special fireside. We had Joseph and Emma Smith’s great, great granddaughter with us. She attended church with us, sat at the same table with Randy and I at the potluck (we felt honored), and then gave us a very touching fireside. Growing up, Gracia knew little about her relationship to Joseph Smith. She told us a story of when her mother saw the Prophet's name in her history book. Telling her he was her great-great-grandfather, she quickly urged her not to share that fact with anyone. Gracia then learned about Joseph and Emma when she began babysitting for an LDS family, who eventually introduced her to the missionaries. When she was baptized in 1956 at age 18, Gracia became the first descendant of Joseph Smith Jr. to join the church and remain active. Her whole story of learning who she was; led to a lifetime mission of reaching out with love and compassion to unite all the posterity of Joseph Smith. During her fireside, she had this long scroll of paper which got unrolled that was over 50 feet long that had the family tree she has put together so far. She travels all over finding more and more people for the tree and even pencils in the names if they haven’t been added. Her husband, Ivor, shared several parts of the fireside and you can truly see how much they love each other and are dedicated to their mission. It was one of those moments to always remember.
Gracia and Ivor Jones.
This teapot belonged to Emma Smith. The death mask behind the teapot is a reproduction from the original of Joseph Smith.
After a heavy rainstorm, the mountains around us have several waterfalls as water doesn't seep into the rock. All of us say the mountains are crying just like we do when touched by those who suffered and died here.
This little guy lost his mother so he is now part of the homestead family.
Old school lawn mowing. Sure glad the yard is only 12'x14'.
Colleen and Oscar. I am not so fond of dogs but Oscar thinks I am.
Oscar will not cross a bridge. He swims the rivers every time.

We are exhausted...

This week was pretty calm which gave us some time to catch our breath. With the day starting at 5:00 am and ending after square dancing at 9:00 or 10:00 p.m., it makes for some long, long days. We look so forward to our day off during the week but it is filled with doing chores around the camper and getting more groceries. Even though this is a lot of hard work, we get our paydays in such sweet, gentle ways. This past week someone mowed our lawn for us as we hadn’t had time to get to it. Then there are the smiles and thank you from the youth. And every once in awhile, we get some special dessert handed to us or chocolate. We don’t want that to happen too often because we would just have to work harder to burn the calories.
Most of the groups coming to do trek, schedule a river crossing in remembrance of the Martin Company crossing the Sweetwater to get to the cove. They are to reflect on how cold and bitter it was that day and how hungry, weak, sickly the pioneers were and yet they had to muster the strength to cross the river and pull their carts. Well, we have had to shut down the river for direct crossing as it is over six feet deep and would sweep these youngsters right off their feet with how swift it is running. The snow pack in the mountains feeding the river is still at 350% so it will be flowing full for awhile. Since it is so full, it is flooding out into a spillage area where we let them walk thru. That area is even getting about four feet deep. It is quite spiritual to watch the youth do this as they have to do it silently and by themselves.
As missionaries, we find it very intriguing on how prepared most of the youth groups are to have a great spiritual experience. Each member of most groups has selected a name of one of the companies to walk the trek for. They have read about their pioneer and can pretty much tell you their story. I was speaking with an 11-yr-old young man on Thursday about his pioneer. He told me he wanted to be like his pioneer. I asked him what he meant. He said his pioneer was always prepared for situations because he prayed about it and listened to Heavenly Father and the spirit to get the right answer and then he would do it without question. Now that is truly and stalwart young man. Another group this week took it one step farther. As they finished their river crossing, the leaders pulled the youth off to the side of the trail. They called out a couple young ladies and asked them to remove their shoes as they were going to walk back to the bus barefoot just like the pioneers whose shoes wore out, then there were a couple more pulled out and blindfolded as they were going to walk back blind in remembrance of those who were handicapped and still made the journey, then there was one young lady who was to pull the cart by herself with one of the heavier leaders in it symbolizing the youth that had to take over when the parents took ill, and lastly, one was given knee pads and gloves and asked to crawl back to the bus in remembrance of those who lost limbs from freezing during the journey. The youth took these tasks without grumbling and carried on. It was heart rendering to watch this take place.
Since this week was pretty calm, I will share some pictures of the homestead and Martin’s Cove.
This is the Visitor's Center. It used to be the ranch house for Tom Sun. There are seven different cabins put together to make this one house.
This is Martin's Cove. We love being assigned here as it is so peaceful and beautiful.
THis is Devil's Gate. One of the landmarks the pioneers used to cross the land. Only the river goes between the rocks. The pioneers came to the river about 1/4 mile to the south of this landmark.
This is the barn on the ranch. It is actually our kitchen where we have our wonderful Sunday potlucks. It is quite a quaint building.

Look at the Blessings

Just who are these people?

A snapshot of the Sweetwater River from Veil Bridge

Standing guard at the Welcome Post

One of Randy’s assignments is to orient trek groups as to the rules of the trail, why they are here, and to give them a little spiritual boost by sharing a couple pioneer stories and small video with them. On Monday, he was starting to tell a group about the video and who it was about (Heber McBride) and this young 12-year-old man raised his hand and suddenly got antsy in his seat calling out, ohhhh, oohhhh, ooohhhh. Randy acknowledged him and the young man blurted out, “I know him, he is my genealogy dude.” He then pulled out some index cards and started reading from them. Come to find out he was directly related to Heber’s brother, Peter (which you will have a couple stories about in my emails). Randy said he was so excited to make the connection and know his “genealogy dude” used to be right here. These youth sure are teaching us to love the small stuff!!


Tuesday was our day off so we went to Casper to spend the day with Kathryn, our oldest granddaughter, as it was her birthday. I was so excited for this day as I knew we would have fun. When we got to the house, she had a friend there whom had spent the night so we took her with us and doubled the fun. Of course, Randy and I had errands to run and the girls were very obliging to let us get them done and then we went to lunch at a quaint little Italian restaurant. Kathryn’s and my best Italian meal is Chicken Alfredo and that’s what we had. Kathryn’s friend surprised her with a big dish of ice cream with a candle for dessert. The look on her face was priceless!! The girls were so cute because they saw my pioneer dresses in the back of the truck when they first climbed in and asked if they could put them on for the day. We had a great day together just laughing and talking.

Kathryn and Sidney -- a couple of sporting young pioneers. Not so sure the shoes are the right ones though.

The Pony Express Rider handing out the letters--it was very cold that night

We had another week of evening activities for the trekkers. Thursday and Friday night Randy was the local Pony Express Rider and delivered letters from home to the trekkers. We can’t ride in on a real horse but the rovers are mules so we improvise. That’s what you do when you don’t have the real thing. Watching the faces of those youth as they are awaiting their letter is so precious as they just light up when their name is called. One young man got three letters so he was the talk of the prairie. We square danced Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night with different groups. Randy was suppose to call for the second hour of Monday night but the group had arrived so late they cancelled their square dancing. Wednesday night really touched our hearts and has buoyed us up the entire rest of the week. There are several couples that help with the square dancing as there are anywhere from 50 to 450 youth in a group. Each couple takes a set of eight boys and eight girls to be their small group to work with. On Wednesday, I was given our group to take over to the area and line them up for the Virginia Reel. No big deal, just waved my arms for them to follow and started walking that way. When I got to our spot I turned around and started talking to them about dancing and all I got in response was big, bright eyes starring back at me. Ummm….not a very excited group, I’m thinking. After a few minutes, one of their leaders walks over and tells me they are deaf. Okay comes out of my mouth while my heart is busy with prayer because how am I going to do this. So, I begin to teach them using the little signing I know and physically guiding them. Oh, I did develop my own signs too just hoping it would help. After only going through the moves about four times, they caught on and were ready to give it a spin when everyone else was done being instructed. By giving them the pre-instruction we were able to work on how I could tell them by signal when to start each movement. It was so fun to work with them as Randy and I would take each couple and physically show them how. Their eyes would just beam when they caught on. We had a great time and a very successful time. Lots of hugs were given at the end of dancing. Then the sweetest confirmation of how much they appreciated the time and effort happened on Friday. Randy and I were walking out to the truck after our shift and the youth from our square dance group saw us and ran up to us shaking hands and giving big, big hugs. They were signing over and over, thank you for teaching me square dancing, with big gigantic smiles on their faces. It brought tears to my eyes.

Of course when you have over 3000 youth wandering around there will be incidents occur and hopefully not too drastic of ones. This week was no exception. One of the young men of a group wandered, probably sleep walking, out of his tent and disappeared. When his group noticed he didn’t come back (as they thought he was going to the restroom), they alerted the leaders. The leaders looked around for awhile and couldn’t find him and soon notified our director of the situation. So a couple Elders and the leaders looked through all the camp, other group camps, the entire other campground, all the roads in the area, even 10 miles away at Muddy Gap. They looked for over three hours and then found him in the wrong tent fast asleep. Next time, I am sure the entire camp will be woken up and searched right at the beginning.

For several years, a very special visitor joins up with the trekkers. We have all be awaiting this visitor and were afraid he wasn’t going to come this year. His name is Oscar and he is a Great Pyrenees dog that lives on a ranch about 10 miles away from the cove. Oscar finally showed up on Saturday and came into the homestead off the trail with the Hobble Creek Stake of over 485 youth. Oscar carefully picks his groups he travels with and it is usually with someone he senses is having a hard time either physically or emotionally. He is known to protect the youth also. A few years ago, Oscar followed a group of boys back to their tent and began to bark. Oscar had discovered a rattlesnake inside. He even protects some of the youth while they were doing the river crossing. He will now stay at the homestead until fall and then he will walk back home and rest for the next year. I was at the Veil Bridge yesterday and was able to watch Oscar in action coming in with his handcart family he had chosen which had a young lady which had to be hauled out in the handcart. It was amazing!!


Oscar, the Trek Dog

The handcart family he was escorting

Our little friend outside the camper--isn't he adorable!! Oh, maybe it is a she.

Just wanted all of you to know that the wind is still blowing in Wyoming. I am sure glad I liked to be rocked!!

Split Shifts

One of our beautiful sunsets we enjoy in the evening

This week was the first week of scheduled split shifts due to the longer summer hours. One shift works from 7:30 a.m. to around 1:30 p.m. and the other works from 1:00 p.m. to around 7:00 p.m. The missionaries were divided into two teams and each team will alternate working morning one week and then afternoon the next week. We are on Team B and had afternoon duty this week except for my office duty days which I work in the morning on Monday and all day until 5 on Thursday. The blessing of this type of schedule is we have half days which we can do laundry, clean the house, and other small things around the camper and some valued down time.

Okay, so I thought our days would slow down and not be such marathon events. It somehow slipped my mind that we are here also because of the thousands of youth trekkers whom come to experience the pioneer trail. Our first group of 284 from Cody arrived on Thursday morning and then two more groups of around 50 each arrived in the afternoon. The big group spent the day pulling handcarts along our six mile trail and then departed in the evening while the two littler groups pulled handcarts to their campground six miles away to spend the next two days trekking along the trail. Each group begins their trek with an orientation which Randy had the opportunity to do for a group Thursday afternoon. Then, we as missionaries stay at certain posts during their trek to share stories with them and to give them certain experiences like a river crossing and the men’s callout/women’s pull. To end their days, we either do square dancing with them or reader’s theater with Ephraim Hanks and Thisbe Reed. Thursday night we had our first big square dance event and what a blast it was. I was able to help a group of 20 youth learn the dances and Randy was pleased to dance with a young girl from a family trek that was about 10. She was so cute and so were her sisters. So, our days are now starting with prayer meeting at 7:30 a.m. and ending at 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. with dancing and a whole lot of activity in between with visitors and trekkers.

This week our posts were at Martin’s Cove, the Visitior’s Center and the Welcome Post. It is so surreal to have duty at Martin’s Cove and to be up there in the beautiful scenery and just reflect on why we are here. While we were on post, a family group of about 20 came up. They walked the trail along the cove which is quite an adventure in itself but to top it off they pulled their grandma and grandpa in rickshaws as they were unable to walk the entire way. We were able to share all the pioneer stories we learned for that post with the family and they were so interested in them. It was a great first post assignment. While we were there we had the company of a snake, baby rabbit, chipmunk and lots of birds. Nature at its best.


Randy watching for visitors

More of a perspective of how high up he really was

When we were at the cove, the ranch hand’s wife and two children, her parents and sister with her six children (ranging from 1 to 10) came up. It was great to see her as she just moved here this past week. The ranch hand just started the job earlier this spring so they are new to the area. (Oh, have I mentioned in any of my writings that this is also a working ranch with 1200 cattle.) Randy was with another couple so I started sharing with this family. Well, it was fruitless as the children were just pinging off everything. The boys were climbing the rocks up the mountain and the girls were walking the rails around the seating area, oh and the baby, was trying to go down the steps after just walking for less than a month. I was a nervous wreck and tried to do my best to explain this was a reverent place and should be treated with respect. The grandma was trying to calm them down along with ask questions as she was thrilled to be there. It was quite chaotic. Well, then when we were at the visitor’s center on Tuesday, guess who came to visit and it was yours truly time to meet the next visitors. Inside my head, I kept saying that I needed to rush this through and get them well on their way especially for my own sanity. But then in my heart, I was impressed to do something which became the coolest experience of the week. I gathered the entire family on a grassy spot near the handcarts and then asked them to pretend with me. So, we pretended we were a family from England that had heard the gospel and wanted to follow the prophet and go to Zion with all the Saints. I shared with them all the events of preparing to go from selling all our personal belongings (even had them name something it would hurt them to sell), to getting to the ship, riding on the ship and getting sick, then getting on the rail cars and being crowded so had them squeeze closer together, to finally getting to where our handcarts were. Oh, but we had to wait for them to be built, so the ladies and girls had to sew tents and the men and boys had to build the cart. Then we were able to start off and I had them get three carts and we walked thru Prairie Park, a small trail that has bronze reliefs in it telling the story of the Martin Company. As we were going thru Prairie Park, we were still our family trying to make it thru the bad weather, little food, our clothes wearing out and I would tell them about a lady in our company that lost her husband because of illness, about being scared to cross the river and getting help, about losing one of the boys as he got to playing too far from the trail. All eight children were totaling intent on what was happening and I feel really gained a great experience from presenting the history like this. Grandma and the mom’s had tears in their eyes watching their children really grasping the significance of it all along with learning themselves. I am so grateful I was an instrument in the Lord’s hands for this family and them for me.

Our day off was Friday this week and we spent the entire day at the camper. After taking it easy for an entire day, the next morning we went for a small walk, worked in our little 10’ x 12’ yard by fertilizing, cutting and watering it. We also moved some rocks which were a tripping hazard. Saturday afternoon we were welcome post attendees greeting all the cars as they came into the site. It was really slow with only about six vehicles but I was able to get some office work completed as I took our computer with us to the post.

Our little friend at Martin's Cove

Our bigger friend at the Visitor Center