THE ARMY OF HELAMAN CAME TO MARTIN'S COVE !!

Yesterday we had a literal "army" of missionaries come to Martin's Cove to help us.  Our 200 handcarts are stored inside the largest buildings all winter long to protect them from the elements, and in case you didn't know, this winter has been a doozey!

They began taking the handcarts out of the Barn and up along the road towards the Staging Area.

Many of us have been walking all winter around the perimeter of those handcarts,

 and now it looks so empty in there!

Then they moved over to the Trek Center and emptied it.

They loved being outdoors and doing some physical labor,

and we loved them for doing it!

They posed for a group picture.

On the other side of the mountain behind them is Martin's Cove.

Elder Whitlock help "rover" them back and forth  . . .

. . . and took them to the Visitors' Center 

to learn more about the handcart pioneers.

Then we fed them lunch at the Gathering Room.

They ate everything in sight!

After lunch we took them out on the trail.

First they went to Martin's Cove, where they walked reverently and thoughtfully, 

remembering all that the handcart pioneers endured to bring their families to Zion.

At the top of Martin's Cove they listened to more pioneer stories, 

and marveled at their faith and their courage. 

Next they visited the Statues and heard the story of the young men

 from Utah - the "Valley Boys" - and their great sacrifice to carry many of

 the freezing, starving, exhausted pioneers across the icy Sweetwater River.

They wanted to know just how cold that river was, so some took off their shoes and socks and dangled their feet in the freezing water until they couldn't stand it anymore.  
Then they understood just a little of what the Martin Company and their rescuers had endured.

It was a marvelous day at Martin's Cove 
thanks to the "army" of missionaries who came to help us.  

Shall the youth of Zion falter?  The answer is a resounding "NO!"

They are awesome!

We had a devil of a time at DEVIL'S TOWER !!

Last Friday we took our last little "missionary field trip" and went to see Devil's Tower, 

located in the remote northeastern corner of Wyoming.  

The last part of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind was filmed there,  and I have always wanted to see it.  This was our first view of it along the road.

 

 It is truly spectacular! 

We hiked the trail all around its base, and from every angle the view is different.

In Indian legend tells how a huge bear clawed the side of a rock
trying to reach the Indian braves on top.

It's impossible to describe how steep the sides of the tower are as it rises straight up.

Elder Cherry and Elder Thomas found themselves in interesting positions trying to get that picture!

Devil's Tower stands 867 feet above its base, 

but Elder Moench said, "Hey, it's not so tall - I can put my hand right on the top!

Looking through a telescope we could see the remains of the wooden ladder the first climbers built 

in one of the crevices and used to ascend to the top on July 4, 1893.

Look closely - It just looks like a long stick laying against the rock, but it is actually a ladder.
You couldn't pay me to climb that! 

It was beautiful to see a jet airplane fly right over the top of it!

Devil's Tower is truly amazing - our country's first National Monument.

On the way home we had one more "Kodak Moment."  In 2008 a Japanese sculptor created this beautiful statue so that it would perfectly frame Devil's Tower.  It is named "Circle of Sacred Smoke" after the smoke rings created by the Lakota Sioux Indians. 

Oh, and one more thing . . . we passed two fields of critters on our way home:
Prairie Dog Town, and a herd of very large buffalo!

E Bushman and E Thomas bravely crossed the cattle guard in order to gather "buffalo chips!"

Knowing those two, we'll be roasting hot dogs over them soon!

What a great place to spend the day with our winter missionary family!

We love them SO much!

JUST ANOTHER BALMY DAY AT MARTIN'S COVE!

Many of you have been experiencing Spring-like weather lately, 

so I thought I would show you 

Spring in Wyoming.

Here is what our little weather station showed us at about 6:30 this morning:

I headed out to the Barn for my morning walk, and the snow from last night had drifted so high that I couldn't get into the Barn through the front door.  The snow was about 2' deep there, so I just went around to the back where there was no snow at all.  
Go figure!

When I got inside I was astonished to see that it had snowed inside the Barn as well as outside!
How can that be??

Thanks to a night of stiff winds, the snow had drifted through every little nook and cranny in the barn.

The snowdrift inside the door was about 14" tall!
Look how the snow piled up on the light switch and then through a tiny crack along the floor.

Inside the barn it snowed on both sides of the tables stacked against the walls . . .

 . . . and it snowed inside the large garage door.

As I was walking I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye - a mouse!
I chased him along the wall and you can see his tracks in the snow.

On the way home  I had to put something away at the Chapel,

and I could barely get the door open to get inside.
Note that it snowed both inside and outside the door!

How does it DO that??

This huge drift is right outside our apartment door.

Like I said, it's just another balmy day in Wyoming!

IN A RUT!

Serving a mission is never dull or boring, 

but now we can say that we have literally been . . .
"in a rut!"

Last week we took a little "missionary field trip" to see a few other important places that our pioneers would have passed along the Great Western Trail.

Several hours to the east of where we are serving, the Oregon/California/Mormon Trail passed through an area of very soft stone.  After years of travel over that rock, the 500,000 emigrants and their covered wagons and handcarts wore the rock down as much as 5 feet deep in places,

and those ruts are still visible today.

Sometimes the wagon and handcart wheels wore the stone down to look like just a deep road.

Elder Bushman brought his personal handcart with him on his mission 
and has taken it to every historic location he has visited.  
This was a perfect place to bring it and take a picture showing just how deep the ruts really are.

We're all smiles pulling the handcart through these ruts, 
but it would have been quite a challenge with a load in the back,
 plus they were pulling up the hill!

We took a group picture of all the winter missionaries:  

the Bushmans, the Martins, the Moenches, the Hutchinsons, the Cherries, and the Thomases.

 We're all in this rut together!

Look how deep some of those ruts are!

My feet are in a rut about 14" deep!

I couldn't resist the temptation to do a little handcart art in the dust on our back window!

We finally got "out of our rut" and headed east again to Fort Laramie,

a place of resupply for covered wagon trains as well as the handcarts companies.  

Unfortunately for the Willie and the Martin handcart companies, 

no one in Utah knew they were coming across the plains so late, 

and no supplies had been sent to Fort Laramie for them.

It was amazing to see this place in person, as it is huge!  It must have been a bustling outpost of civilization in those early days, full of soldiers and their horses, traders, stores and trading posts, as well as emigrants and their livestock just passing through.

We have told about it many times in our Visitors' Center.  

Note the rows of beds inside the barracks and the corn cob checkers game on the table.

Here we are standing on the long porch of the military barracks at Fort Laramie.

Out in the middle of the field at Fort Laramie there was an enormous tree all by itself.

We were intrigued with (and a little envious of) the futuristic "rover" that is visible between these two old restored buildings at  the fort.

After Fort Laramie we headed even further east to see Chimney Rock, an amazing rock formation, 

and one of the landmarks the pioneers encountered on the trail west.

This is a fascinating rock formation! 

It juts out high into the sky and you can see it for many miles before you get to it.  

Below on the upper left is a drawing that was made in a pioneer journal from the 1850's.  

You can see how different that looks from the current photograph in the middle.  

Lightning struck the top of Chimney Rock in the 1990's and broke off part of the tip. 

 On the right you can see how it looked in the 1930's (top) compared to a picture taken today (below.)  

A good portion of the tip is gone.

On the lower left side is the center panel of a quilt made using needle-turn applique. 

It is beautifully done! 

Visitors are no longer permitted to walk out to Chimney Rock because there are so many rattlesnakes in that area.  We saw "Beware of Rattlesnakes!" signs in numerous languages just in the area of the Visitors' Center.

Instead of walking out there, we settled for a picture pulling Elder Bushman's handcart.

The clerk in the Visitors' Center was really tickled when 12 Mormon missionaries came to visit and brought a real handcart!  He looks kind of like a pioneer himself with his long, white beard, 

and Elder Thomas lent him his hat so he could look the part even more for a picture.

Then he took multiple pictures of all of us.

This touching monument to "Wee Granny" was erected here by her ancestors in 2006.  Her name was Mary Murray Murdoch, and she was just 4' 7" tall and weighed about 90 pounds.  Her husband had died in Scotland trying to rescue a man from poisonous air in a mine shaft, but she still wanted to come to Zion and join her son John who was already there.  

At the age of 73 she joined the Martin Handcart Company and came by herself.  Near this spot her body gave out, and her last words were, "Tell John that I died with my face toward Zion."

She is just another one of countless amazing pioneer examples to each of us!

Traveling the Mormon Trail like this has added new dimension to our understanding of what all the pioneers experienced, especially our beloved Willie and Martin handcart pioneers.