On Monday, I posted a brief blog
about the visit of the Barretts and Tringalis to Cove Fort last Sunday. It was such a pleasure to see them and
to hear news of the ward and their families.
Last Sunday I woke up with a
“Charlie horse” in one of my legs.
After trying to rub it and make it go away, I finally got up in hopes of
walking it out. As I walked into
the living room I was immediately aware of an unusual smell. I thought it smelled like gas and when
I got to the kitchen I noticed that one of the burners was on enough for gas to
be leaking out. Luckily for us, we
had left the windows open during the night to try to stay cool. On my walk to the fort, I had time to
think and realized what a blessing that “Charlie horse” was. It is nice to know that the Lord does
watch over us.
On Monday, I was able to take a
tour with a single woman from Australia who was riding across the United States
on a motorcycle. It was amazing to
listen to her talk about all the places in the world that she has been and the
things that she has learned as she has observed people. It made me feel like my life was rather
boring, but then I remembered that I had something that she didn’t have. She was interested in learning more
about the Book of Mormon but didn’t have room to take one with her so she said
she’d download it onto her iPad.
The other tour that day was with a very senior couple who had bought
their property for their home from Gordon B. Hinckley. Their family grew up in his ward and
were surrounding by his children and their families.
Cory wrote this week and mentioned
a project that he is working on to digitize the story of E. E. Kane who is the
grandson of Thomas and Elizabeth Kane who wrote about their visit to Cove Fort
in the 1870s. E. E. Kane made the
same trip in the 1930s with Heber J. Grant. I am very excited to be able to read/see the project when it
is available to the general public.
We found out some disturbing news
at Family Home Evening this week.
Before the meeting there were three original Hinckley artifacts in the
fort. By the end of the meeting,
we were informed that the bellows in the blacksmith shop did NOT belong to Ira
Hinckley and that the Hinckley clock in Angeline’s room did not work when it
was given to the church. I had a
hard time giving tours this week without mentioning the changes in the status
of things.
We had former Cove Fort missionaries
stop by this week. They requested
to just see the film so that is what I did. During our conversation, I mentioned that I was from Clovis,
California. The other couple that
they were traveling with used to live in Fresno. It turned out that these couples were the aunts and uncles
of Scott Olsen. Another case of
small world.
It was a stormy day on Tuesday and
we almost had to cancel our plans for the evening but the rain finally let
up. We drove over to Monroe with
the Hemmerts (from Reno, NV) to have dinner and then go to the community
Broadway Review. It was held in
the high school auditorium – they have VERY nice high school auditoriums in
Utah. There were twenty-five acts,
some better than others, but a good way to spend an evening. We were a little worried after the
opening act of “New York, New York” where the guy was actually hurting our
ears. Then there was the boy that
might have been in my school class singing/talking “Sixteen Tons”. How great to see the support this young
man received from friends and neighbors.
Then, the best act was a teenage girl singing, “You Can’t Get a Man with
a Gun” from Annie Get Your Gun. We were glad that we went.
Pioneer Day, July 24th,
started out making us feel like the pioneers. There was no water in the trailer and when we looked out the
window, we saw two of the elders out by the pump area. I ran out to see what was up and
confirmed that the pump at stopped.
Our landlord spent his holiday working on the pump and by the time we
got home in the evening there was water.
We were part of the Pioneer Day
parade in Kanosh on the 24th.
We rode in a modern-day covered wagon pulled by two draft horses. Our job was to wave to the people and
throw candy out to the kids. We
had to be relatively quick since the parade route was just four blocks long
(pretty much the entire length of Kanosh) and then we turned around and came
back the same way. Today was the
first day that we were allowed to wear period dress and we spent the entire day
in long skirts and bonnets. 
After
the parade we hung around Kanosh to watch their celebration. They had a community lunch in the city
park. They cooked everything in
dutch ovens -- about fifty of them.
The lines for lunch went all the way to the street. It was a good lunch with roast beef,
potatoes and vegetables. The other
neat thing that they served was homemade root beer that they had made in
plastic 30-gallon garbage cans and stirred it with canoe paddles. Very interesting.
I worked on the Book of Mormon
display at the fort this week. The
old labels were all different fonts and sizes and were not in alphabetical
order. The labels were easy but
the alphabetizing became a major problem when I realized about a quarter of
them had been screwed into the display and at least half of them were
velcroed. It took most of my shift
to get the thing finished. We
wanted to make it look a little nicer for Cove Fort Days.
Thursday we went to St. George to
celebrate Stephen’s 64th birthday. He was able to have a nice dinner and then was pleasantly
surprised to find that fulltime missionaries in St. George receive free ice
cream at Cold Stone. We had the
opportunity to Skype with Ashley and Kevin from our hotel and then Jenny called
Stephen to wish him “Happy Birthday”.
Friday we spent time at Grafton, a
ghost town just west of Zion National Park. It is interesting to go and learn the history of those who
gave their lives in these remote places.
In the cemetery there were the graves of a family (husband, wife,
brother) who had been killed by Native Americans in retaliation for murders
committed by pioneers in northern Arizona. This was also the place where part of Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid was filmed.
In Zion NP we drove up to and
through the tunnel that was built in the 1920s that went all the way through
and connects to Highway 89. It was
a cool tunnel. I hiked the Canyon
Lookout Trail on the other side of the tunnel – I could see down the whole
mountain side where the road climbed up.
On the way home we stopped at Kolob Canyon and drove to the overview and
then I walked another mile to the lookout where I could see the North Rim of
the Grand Canyon.
We got back in time for a game
night that we had announced. It
was better attended than last week’ with seven couples showing up. It was nice to be able to get out of
the trailer and have some fun with the other missionaries.
The week ended with one more
thunderstorm on Saturday. It seems
like we had heavy rains almost every afternoon.
Today our speaker, the Richfield
Stake President, told the story behind Hymn #325. He referred to us as the “lower lights” who are responsible
for leading people back to Christ who is the lighthouse. I liked the analogy.
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