A MOTHERS' DAY TO REMEMBER!!

Mothers' Day is one of the hardest days when you are away from your children, which is what happens to all of the mothers serving missions.  During the week leading up to it we sang lots of songs in our Correlation Meetings about Love at Home and Mother, I Love You.  

On one of those mornings we sang I Often Go Walking, which talks about remembering your mother when you walk through meadows of flowers, and as we sang it Sister Paulsen, who had chosen that song and was leading it, grabbed my hand and made me stand up.  I had been sitting on the front row, but as I stood up and turned around I saw that every elder in the chapel was standing and had flowers in his hand.  As we continued to sing the song she had me walk along the aisle and each elder handed me his flowers.  By the time I had walked all the way through the chapel, I had “armfuls of flowers.”  It was SO sweet!!  I went up to the microphone and thanked “all my children” for such a thoughtful Mothers’ Day gift, and told them how much my own mother loved flowers and how we had sung that very song at her funeral.  What a touching thing for them to do! 

Later that day I received a wonderful Mothers' Day gift from my family - a darling picture of all 19 of our grandchildren!  By the time we return home from our mission our oldest grandson will already be out serving on his own mission, so I don't know when we'll have all of them together again.

I had been planning my own Mothers' Day gift for all the sisters, and I made little handcart earrings for the new sisters and gave each of the second year sisters a trek necklace to wear.  Many have asked about them, so I hope they will enjoy this little memento from serving at MHHS.
On Mothers' Day we awoke to a dreary snowy morning.  It wasn't snowing hard, and it wasn't accumulating on the roads, but it was windy and cold.  We had our regular three hour block of church meetings and afterward shared a delicious Pot Luck dinner made especially for all the mothers by their husbands. 

Then we all returned to the Trek Center for a fireside with Jolene Allphin, author of Tell My Story, Too.  She brought beautiful banners showing maps of the trail that all the pioneers followed, and talked about events in the lives of the handcart pioneers as they came along that same trail. 

Towards the end of her presentation she talked about Joseph A. Young, the oldest son of Brigham Young who went out from Salt Lake as a rescuer.  Many pioneer journals describe how he rode a white horse down a snowy hill and into their camp while wearing a blue military coat.  Several pioneers had received dreams where they saw a rescuer dressed exactly like that, and it happened just the way they had seen it in their dreams.  

Jolene had some of the elders come up and model a blue wool soldier's coat she made to look like the one Joseph A. Young might have worn would have worn as he rode in to rescue the beleaguered handcart pioneers.

It was a wonderful fireside, and afterward Jolene stayed to visit with the missionaries about their own personal pioneer ancestors and to sign their copies of her book, which we refer to constantly in our efforts to come to know and tell those pioneer stories.

But then we got some disturbing news.  We knew it had been snowing all day long, but nothing had really accumulated on the roads, so we were shocked to learn that all the highways had been closed heading back to Sixth Crossing. (When snow falls in Wyoming, they just put the snow arms down and close the roads.  If someone drives around those snow arms they incur a $750 fine and/or jail.)  

The 20 missionary couples from Sixth Crossing could not return to their homes!

So we decided to do just what Brigham Young did when the handcart pioneers finally arrived in the Salt Lake Valley - we made certain that each couple from Sixth Crossing got to stay in the trailer or mobile home of one of the couples at Ranch 66, which is the Missionary Village for the couples serving at Martin's Cove.  Elder Bigler found out who had extra bedrooms, and he assigned everyone out.

Elder Moench and I visited as many people as we could before it got dark - just to see how they were all doing.  We took them some peanut butter candy made by Elder Bushman or some popcorn. 

Everywhere we went they were already settled in, playing games with each other, visiting and getting to know each other better, making the best of it all.  

We were concerned about some of our missionaries who (since they had not planned to stay overnight anywhere) did not have the medications they needed, but most were able to borrow something here and there from other missionaries. 

It's supposed to continue to snow tomorrow, and we have no idea how long it will be until the roads open, but until they do, our Sixth Crossing missionaries are being really good sports about being displaced, and our Martin's Cove missionaries are being excellent hosts. 

As you can see, they're actually having a lot of fun being together and making lemonade out of a lemon!

The next morning looked dreary again, but at least the snow had stopped.  Multiple times we checked WDOT to see if highway 789 was open yet.  One by one other highways had been opened, but the one to Sixth Crossing was still closed.  At 8:30 everyone met together at the Pavilion for a quick Correlation Meeting, and E Moench asked them to share some of their experiences and thoughts about the previous night and what they had learned from it all.

There were lots of funny answers like, "I learned I need to keep a toothbrush in my car," and "I learned I could actually brush my teeth with toothpaste and my finger" and more serious observations like "I will always carry some of my medications in the car."  But there were also many expressions of love and appreciation to those who took in "new friends" for the night.  We would never have intentionally planned a joint sleepover like this, but nature did it for us, and missionaries from both sites got to know each other one on one that evening.  

That said, we all celebrated when the word finally came that the road was finally open and our dear missionaries from Sixth Crossing could finally return home!      

This was truly a Mothers' Day like no other!!