Taking Down Challenge Course 1

Today was an emotional day.  We had our last session with a youth group.  What a great bunch of young men and women.  Elder Duerden asked them to sing primary songs while they waited to go on the zip line.  They were so beautiful, they brought tears to our eyes.  After we got done, it was time to take the course down for the season.  Wow! Where did the time go?  We will never forget the experiences we had this year on this very special mountain.  We will never forget the wonderful people we have worked with!  We love them so!  Hopefully one of the 3 couples from this year will be running CC1 next year.  We have had such a strong team, we know we can't all be on this course next year.

Elder Duerden loves to play rope tricks with the youth

Elder and Sister Simonsen

Elder and Sister Winterton

Sister Polson - Elder Polson hurt his back and wasn't with us today

Getting ready to send Sister Polson to the nest 

Duerden's on beautiful CC1

Elder Duerden taking the trolley off the zip line

Open House

Saturday, September 12, 2015 was the day for our Fall Open House.  We were on Challenge Course 1 and gave tours to anyone interested in bringing their youth to HVC.  Steve's sister Joyce and brother-in-law Blane came up and we were able to take them on the Challenge Course.  Then we grilled hamburgers before they went back home.  It was a fun day.  (I took these pictures from the nest.)

Joyce and Blane relaxing as we work on the course

Blane crossing the wire

Joyce climbing the swinging pole

Joyce getting up on the wire

Flag Retirement

Tonight we had a flag retirement ceremony.  It was pretty interesting with all the previous military, fire and police taking part.  They read the essay about the representation of the 13 folds.  Then burned several flags, I'm guessing about 12 to 15.  It was a great experience!

Retired military, police and fire men lined up with flags to retire.

This flag was very large

Demonstrating to the essay of the 13 folds of the flag

Charlie Jenkins

Monday night we had a really fun evening.  We were treated with a catered dinner from BYU. Yum!! Then we went to our own personal concert by Charlie Jenkins.  He is from Vernal and has been the opening act for many famous country western singers like Charlie Daniels.  

Charlie Jenkins

Charlie dancing with Sister Jensen, the end of a dip!

Some of the missionaries dancing

Cabin Staining

The season is coming to a close and we are only working on the challenge course on Fridays and Saturdays.  We have a lot of family reunions and had the BYU girl's swim team on Friday.  The last few weeks we have been staining 1/4th of the cabins here in camp.  They need to be done every 4 years which saves the church over $40,000.  We were able to complete 36 cabins last week.  We would get up very early and start by 6:30 am.  The logs get too hot to paint by about 10:00 am.  The good thing is that we were done by noon or on many mornings even earlier.  Many hands make the work light.

Elder Duerden - sprayer, Elder Ashworth - mixer

The brushing crew ready to go! Sister Anderson, Balls, Terry, Taylor and Dameron

The taping crew, necessary before spraying

Elder Terry and Elder Duerden, ready to spray

Challenge Course 1

It has been an unbelievable year working with the missionaries on Challenge Course 1.  We were told that we would love all of these people by the end of the season, and they were right!  

Elder Moretti came to take our pictures for the history book, and we had a lot of fun doing it. There are several pictures, here are just a few.

Elder and Sister Duerden, Elder and Sister Polson, Elder and Sister Winterton, Elder and Sister Simonsen

Class Ropes Girls

On Thursday, we had the last of the young women on the mountain for the season.  As as result, we no longer get the class ropes girls here to help us.  They are trained young women that help us on each of the challenge courses.  So we said good bye for the year with a party.  We drove up to Moose Meadows and had dinner with these young ladies.  Hopefully some of them will be back next year, but i'm sure some will not.  

Most of the missionaries that work the challenge courses with the class ropes girls

Kayla, Julie, Elder Philips, Kaitlyn, Morgan and Jamie

Last week of Young Women

Last week was our last week of having young women in HVC.  All week was hard, most of the missionaries were emotional every time we talked to the young women.  We took several pictures on Thursday, August 13, 2015.  This is typical of what we do on the Challenge Course each day.

Elder Simonsen and Class Ropes girl, Kaitlyn

Elder Duerden and Elder Simonsen doing the belaying

Sister Duerden in the angel nest waiting for a young woman to start her zip

Sister Simonsen as the black roper

Sister Duerden and Sister Winterton helping the girls put on the harness

Young Women waiting for their turn on the high course, the zip line

Beautiful Grand Daughter

The most excitement this week was the birth of our grand daughter, Elisyn "Elie" Jo Turner.  Her dad wanted her to be born on his birthday, August 6th, but she wanted her own birthday and was born 59 minutes after midnight. It was a very long delivery taking almost 29 hours.  But she sure is worth it!  Mom and baby are doing well.  We are so happy to have Elie in our family!

Happenings of the week

We had an awesome week!  The young women were wonderful, we had a youth group on the weekend and some great families. 

 A couple of funny things happened; we had a code 3 in camp which means there has been a bear sighting.  We were excited to see a bear, but in talking to the young lady who reported it, it was Toby, the large wooden bear that they move all over the camp. 

 I had a young women climb the pole and come over the wire who was scared to death and crying, which wasn't funny, but when she got to me in the nest, she said she just couldn't do it, and would I please get the fire truck and get her down!  Sorry, that was not an option!

 It was fun to have Mike and Kai come up to camp on Saturday night.  They were able to do the Challenge Course and zip line, and we were all able to go Legacy Lake.  We are so proud of Kai climbing up the pole and across the wire.  When he got to me in the nest, he wasn't sure he wanted to go down the zip line.  I sort of had to help him.  But he had fun.

Grandpa and Kai decided to have a water fight, which ended up getting grandma wet!

Fun! Fun! Fun!

The weeks are going by so fast!  We are trying to savor each moment.  We love having the young women come to our course, they bring such a beautiful spirit!  The last couple of weeks, Steve has asked them if they would sing Primary songs as they are waiting to go up the zip line.  That really brings the spirit to the course!  A few of the girls have testified how the singing calmed them down and made it easier to accomplish the challenge.

Elder Duerden having a little fun!  When a family came on the weekend, a young lady had a mustache and gave it to Steve.

These are some of the young women we had earlier on Challenge Course 1.  We had a parade on the 23rd of July and threw candy and squirted the girls with water guns.  They loved it!  In camp Hinckley they were very prepared.  They had buckets, water pitchers, and cups.  They soaked most of the missionaries!

This is the ATV of the Bridges.  Remembering the handcarts and covered wagons of the pioneers!

Hailey

Time is flying by this summer and on our mission.  We have had 7 weeks of girls camp with only 4 more to go.  We enjoy the Young Women coming each week.  They bring a beautiful spirit to the mountain and we learn from them every day.

We have had many afraid, and many that are just adventurous.  A week ago we had a beautiful little 12 year old name Hailey.  Hailey has had many challenges in her life and has the mentality of a 3 year old.  She only speaks single words, not sentences.  She wanted to do the zip line, but her mother didn't think she could climb the pole.  But miracles happen here on the mountain and there are angels all around us.  Sister Duerden was in the nest and Elder Duerden was belaying Hailey.  Somehow he was able to talk Hailey all the way up the pole and on to the wire.  Just then, there was lightning and they called us off course.  We needed to get Hailey off the wire.  I did everything I could to talk Hailey over to me, but without success.  So, I had to do a rescue.  When that happens, you don't really think about it, it's pretty much automatic and you know there is a lot of help from above.  When I reached Hailey, I went to take the belay rope to pull her over, and she said "I want you to hold me."  So I did, and away we went.  Hailey was able to go down the zip line quickly, and I belayed off the wire quickly.

Her mother was in tears.  She was so excited with the success Hailey had that day.  Each day is a blessing with Hailey as she has seizures and they never know how long she will be here on earth.  She bore her testimony that evening and all the words she spoke were from the Young Women's theme.  Heavenly Father loves every one of His children.

We thank our Heavenly Father each day for the wonderful experiences we are having on our mission.  Neither one of us had any idea what a blessing this mission would be for us!

Beauty on the mountain

Hailey

Helping Hailey across the cable

All Hailey wanted to do was zip!  Hooking her up to the zip line