Our first visitor and weekly news

We arrived at our camp site on Friday, April 22nd.  The weather was pretty good.  When we walked around to see where everyone was park, we spotted a wild turkey on the ground allowing several people to pet her.  I figured there must be something wrong with her. But when we all had a turn petting her, she got up, pecked around a little, and ran off.

We have named her Talula

We went to the temple on Tuesday.  It was a beautiful day!  We enjoyed lunch at the Joseph Smith memorial building.

 It snowed almost every day last week.  We woke up to about 12 inches on Wednesday morning.  

This is looking out our front window

As a result, we spent the entire week indoors learning many things, including knots.

Elder Button, Sister Forester, Elder Simonsen and Sister Button

Welcome Back Heber Valley Missionaries

The second half of our mission has begun.  On Tuesday, April 12, we made our way to cowboy village to join the other missionaries.  The rest of the week was relaxed, getting to know the new missionaries, with a few projects up at camp.

Cowboy Village the night before we moved up to Heber Valley Camp

The second week we had our mini MTC.  We were given a huge amount of information!  Elder Duerden and I were asked to teach a reflection class.  That was Monday all day, for 5 different sessions.  On our spiritual day, I was asked to bear my testimony.  

We have been called to serve on the Challenge Course again this year.  It looks like we have some awesome missionaries!  I'm sure it's going to be a great year!

The weather was nice as we got parked in our camp area, Sunrise, which is the RV spots for the senior missionaries.  We are parked in the exact spot we had last year.

Here is Elder Duerden checking out the power on our spot before we get the trailer moved in.
Notice all the snow!

Now it is snowing and I bet the weather will be like this for a while.  Winter isn't over in Heber Valley Camp.

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