May 22, 2016

Sorry I didn't post last week, too many things going on and no

time to post the pictures.  On a walk one afternoon, it was actually

sunny and dry, NOT LIKE TODAY, OR YESTERDAY OR 

TOMORROW.  I found a badger skull.  I was so excited

to start my own skull collection.

On Sunday May 15, Elder & Sister Kennedy brought Clark

Kelly Price for a fireside and I got to show him my

skull.  He has a huge collection and he was so excited

and proud of my little find.  We really miss the Kennedy's

this year.  They were always a lot of fun.

On Monday May 16, Ray and Georgia stopped by on their

way to travel the whole western United States in four days.

We were lucky enough to have them eat breakfast with

us before getting serious about the driving. We love

Jody's restaurant they have great food.

I'm not kidding, they truly drove a ton of miles in four days.

The Stratton's, Dee and Sue, sent us a care package

from Cedar City.  Of course, it was a critical package.

It contained the basic necessities of life, 

CHOCOLATE!!!!!

Thanks for thinking of us, we don't deserve your

love and kindness.  You two are great.

This guy came on a route review this week, he is with

a group that isn't ours, but still, we had to take his

picture.  He is a direct relative of the Moss who

developed the Deseret Land & Livestock Ranch in the

1800's.  It was fun for him to see the old shearing

corrals next to our trailers. 

This is Clark Kelly Price.  He is a famous painter of western

art and lots of church paintings.  He is wonderful to listen to

and very interesting.  We heard from him in 2014 and were so

glad to get him back this year.  Look up his art work, you

will be amazed at how beautiful his work is and how

many of his paintings you have seen.

On Wednesday May 18th Elder and Sister Johnson were

finally able to come to the mission.  They live in Evanston

and served with us last year.  He has been really sick

and unable to come out with us.  All of us were so excited

to see them.  He is doing much better and we hope they

will be able to move their trailer out here this next week.

We love them lots.

Here we are at our Prayer Meeting on May 18, 2016.

First time we have had all eleven couples there together.

That night we had our own campfire cook out.

Pearts brought their fire cooker and we combined

our food and had a hotdog roast.  It was fun.  We

sat under our new building so we were out of the wind.

One Sister said to me, "I never realized a Mission

could be so fun!  This is the best Mission ever."

How right she is.  A campfire is truly close

to heaven.

On Thursday May 19, we were visited by Elder Lynn

Summerhay's (now just Brother Summerhay's he has been

released in April), Elder Mark Durham, our new area

Authority Seventy and President Platt, (he is a counselor

in the Evanston Stake).  Brother Summerhays brought

Elder Durham up to meet us and show him the 

DL & L and what we are all about.  He was

really nice and quite impressed with what we are doing

here.  We hope to see him again a couple of times

this summer.  

We are going to miss Elder Summerhays.  He

has been amazing to work with and has touched

our hearts several times.  We love his laugh and

his big smile.  He even kissed Elder Cowan on top

of the head.  It was a funny moment because only

Elder Cowan and I knew what he was doing.  In

August 2014 when he was here he kissed Elder Pratt

on the head as a good bye, it was so funny.  We

were the replacements for the Pratts.  So this was 

Jeff's farewell kiss also.  

This is a nest we found on the ground on Saturday.  It is

just out in the grass by the trek center.  Hope the badger that

is living close by doesn't find them!  And that badger, I wish

I had a picture.  He runs around here right by our trailers and

doesn't act the least bit scared of us.  He also puts his tail up like

a dogs tail, he looks like a dog running in the grass.  In fact,

he looks like Jack running in the grass.  I will try to

get a picture of him.

How funny for us.  This year it is Cowan and I teaching the

new missionaries the hoe down dances.  Elder Nordgren

always did the teaching and they are not here this year.

What things we have learned to do on this mission.

On Tuesday May 17, we all went to Payson to go to the

Temple. What a great day that was.  We have found that if

we take time to do spiritual things the work projects go so

much better.  Most of the Missionaries are Ordinance workers

and so we are all missing being in the Temple every week.

Besides, it was raining again!

On Thursday May 12, we were visited by Jolene Allphin.

She is a author and we use her book "Tell My Story Too"

in our mission everyday.  We have now heard her speak

three times and I never grow tired of hearing her stories and

her testimony.  She is someone I will miss not seeing every

summer.  Hopefully we will cross paths again.

Check out how cool Elder Cowan looks in his new Cowboy

Hat he bought in Murdoch's in Evanston.  He looks like

a local.  We love Evanston, we will forever love Evanston.

Sunday May 8, 2016 Mother's Day

On Tuesday we were actually able to take the new missionaries

out for their first trail ride in the 4x4's.  They had a ball.

Several said this is the best mission ever and think they are the

luckiest people in the world.  It is fun to watch these couples

spending time everyday with each other and playing

and enjoying life.  It is like watching a new young couple

discover themselves in love.  For three years I've 

watched this happen and I always smile when it happens again.

So getting old isn't all bad!

Elder Cowan and I love to put bones on posts.  It is our

signature on the ranch.  When we trek it is fun to 

tell the youth it is trekkers we lost along the way.  

A way for us to remember them.

I think I love Jeff best when he has a bone mask.  Ammon

loves to wear bone masks also.

This is a sign that we made the first year we were here.  I wrote

the words.  Today we were writing them again so you could read

them.  As I wrote I thought, this will be the last time.  

We took the time to cherish the moment and remember the

many adventures we have shared together here at DL & L.

Gross picture, right?  This is my head.  On Saturday we drove into

Evanston to buy supplies.  One of the items were several pieces

of angle iron for welding safety bars on the porta john's.  

The iron was longer than the truck bed and I kept worrying about

something running into it.  We got all the way home, to the gate.

I got out, unlocked the gate and Jeff drove the truck through.

I locked the lock and was walking back to my side of the

truck to get in, I WAS NOT LOOKING UP, BUT AT THE

KEYS IN MY HAND!  BIG MISTAKE! BIG MISTAKE!

I walked smack into the end of the iron, hard.  It

threw me down to the ground hard.  My head was bleeding, I was

totally down.  Jeff saw it in the side mirror.  He came running,

he thought my head would be scalped.  Luckily for me, no

a tender mercy for me from God, I was okay.  It sliced my head, 

and I had a dandy headache, and a sore body from the hard hit to the

ground.  I now have a war wound to remember 2016 at

the ranch.  The motto is the words of Pres Monson "It's better to

look up."  I will in the future.

Look at the mother's day gift in church I got this year.

The first time I've gotten chocolate in church, it is usually

a plant or a book.  This is the best, what says love

better than chocolate?

We are beginning to look like a water park here.

The rains are never going to quit.

 Every May I say, "Where is the sun?"

When it is dusty this summer I will be praying for the rain.

Our Sunday dinner today was great.  Because it is Mothers

Day the Elders waited to get food until after the Sisters

had gone first.  They all stood there in a row looking, and

watching us get our food.  We had to take a picture.  They

remind me of the sea gulls that line the camps waiting for

the trekkers to leave each morning.

After dinner they all did the dishes  What a fun thing 

for them to do.

After dinner we Sisters spent the time visiting.  It was so nice for

us. We should do this every week.

April 30, 2016

On Monday we decided to drive over to the main ranch office.  Jeff

wanted to drive the back roads, me, I wanted to go on the highway over

to Evanston then on to Woodruff, not on the wet dirt roads.

Jeff won and we drove the back roads over to the ranch.  It is a 

shorter drive, if the weather is good and the roads aren't wet and

greasy.  Well, it started to rain as we got closer so we were

glad our plan was to go back home on the highway.

The problem was there was a gate right as we got to the housing area of the

ranch.  It was LOCKED!  We have never seen that gate locked.

We have a new key that goes to padlocks on our regular gate,

we figured that would be the lock on this gate.  NOPE, it was

the old lock they told us to replace.  Because I am ME, I 

had already taken off the old key and replaced the new key on

the key ring.  Jeff said, "If you weren't so efficient the old

key would still be on this key ring."  He is right.

We knew we could not drive back to the Depot on the dirt roads

they had become very wet and greasy.  We had to get through the gate.

We had to park the truck and walk up to the main office.  It is

almost a mile from this gate,  It was raining, the road is sloppy mud,

I am in a dress with dress shoes because we planned to go into Evanston

to eat lunch.  It was funny, but not funny.  We get to the office, no one

is there.  It was just after 12:00 pm, we figured they were at lunch, the

building was open.  We went in where it was warm and dry.  At 1:20 no

one had returned.  WE had tried to call everyone we knew, no answers.

Finally Jeff texted Cay the secretary, told her briefly our problem and

ended with "HELP"  she called right back.  They were all in SLC for

meetings and not coming back.  She did tell us where to find a key and

we then walked back to the gate and were able to get out.  Our short

visit to the Ranch became a 3 hour trip.  Another adventure to add 

to our list of many.

This is Jody's,  Boy were we glad to get there.  We tried

to eat the leftover food someone else left behind on the

table, we were that hungry after our adventure.

The waitress was funny with us, she could tell how hungry

we were.  Luckily it wasn't as busy as it is sometimes,

I guess because it was 3:00 pm.

How many times have I posted pictures of us in the snow?

Far to many!!!!!

As the wind is howling and blowing today I said to Jeff,

"Why didn't we go to Hawaii on a mission?"  He

just laughed.

Today we were actually able to drive a few roads.  We came

upon this easy metal gate, but it would not open.  How many

Elders does it take to open a simple swinging gate?

Three and a shovel and a trailer hitch to bang against the chain.

We did lots of work indoors again.  We did feed about 15 cowboys

yesterday, that was good.  And, we have some wood ready to build a 

handcart.  The missionaries are so excited to build a handcart.

Of the missionaries serving this year only Elder Cowan and I have

ever built a cart.  We well remember the excitment of working and

building and seeing it loaded with equipment and out on the trail.

Oh, I guess, that is why we didn't go to Hawaii, no handcarts.

DL & L WE RETURN FOR 2016

It is time again to return to our favorite BIG PLAY GROUND.

We left on April 18, 2016.  Loading the trailer, hooking it all

all seemed easier and less stressful.  

Stella is our trailer.  She was way happy to be on the 

road again and not parked at the side of the garage.  

The trip up went great.  We stopped at our favorite Macy parking

lot and had a lunch with Ray and Georgia.  That is always a 

highlight to the journey.  Then up Provo Canyon and on to

the ranch.  We arrived about 4:00 pm.  The first to arrive. 

Elder and Sister Peart got there about 7:00 pm.

Morgan's family put pennies in our trailer so when we come upon

them we would think of them.  WE THINK OF THEM OFTEN!

We left some at our house for them to find, so they will think of us.

That is the hard part of the mission.  We miss our family.  Face Time

is a great way to stay connected.  We are actually closer to Gib and

Char.  We went to Park City on Tuesday night to visit with

them and take Gib for a birthday dinner.

Little bit of snow in front of our new building  We

were excited to see it was still standing, Evanston stake you

are the BEST.

We did find a bad thing.  Big RATS built nests in the 

engines of all our trucks!  BIG NESTS, full of rocks, twigs,

weeds, crap in general.  We had put moth balls in the cab of

each truck to keep them out and that worked.  They at least didn't

nest in the inside of the truck, (we had one last year that was 

that way, YUCK, Yuck, YUCK).

Our great missionaries go the nests cleaned out and all but

one truck started.  They were concerned about the rats

eating the electrical wires.  Heavenly Father helped us out, they

didn't.  We are going to have to figure a way to prevent

them from doing this each year.  They decided to park the

trucks inside the building and will have to have some

handcarts outside where the trucks are parked.  

Rats can't do as much damage to a handcart as they

can to a vehicle.

We have 11 couples with us this year.  In 2014 there was

8 couples, 2015, 10 couples and now 11.  We are growing

in numbers as we figure out what works best.  Last year was

a hard year, we had no open weeks and everyone was trekking every 

week.  If there was a illness, or problem we had no extra cushion to

work with.  Things will be much better this year.  Our missionaries

arrived on Thursday and they have had a busy few days getting

set up.  We were able on Saturday to drive the main roads and

get them confused.  The weather is bad this next week, Surprise, 

so getting out on the trails will be difficult.  So it will be indoor

training for them.  Probably a trip to the Payson Temple also.

Elder and Sister Yates from Virginia were with us last year, but

because of medical concerns could not serve again this year.  We

will miss them so much.  They got her sister to come in their place

and came to get them into the trailer they sold them.  Sister Yates

brought us some "Vitamins" to keep us healthy, "One a Day", well

it's only been four days since they left and the container is

empty, WE ARE SO HEALTHY!

So begins our next adventure.  Be sure to check out the journey with us.

September 9, 2015

I made a big error.  We got busy and I forgot to upload the

pictures from our best week at the DL  & L.  The visit we got

from the Greene's and the Cowans on the 3rd of July.

How good to see all their faces and hug them.  They were excited

to visit the ranch and chase the pot guts and rabbits.

We celebrated birthdays past by playing with the new bubble

toy we discovered this summer.

It makes the best bubbles EVER!  Life was fun when

they were there.

Sully had fun exploring everywhere.

And Oliver was his usual wild self.

On the 4th of July we got to have another TWO baptisms

at DL & L.  Ammon and Jackson were both baptized

by the depot in the small reservoir right by our trailers.

For the program before the baptism these five boys sang

a Baptism song.  How cute was that? Really!

Ammon went first.

Then Jackson.

This is the group that were there to celebrate their decision

to be baptized.

After the baptisms the kids changed their clothes and went back

to play in the water and mud, They had a great time doing that.

By the end they were covered in mud.  What a great memory

for them of a special day.  We are so lucky to have the

opportunity to be here and let Quinn, Ammon and Jackson

all be  baptized there.