2-October-2022-Sunday
A new week is upon us, time has passed very quickly. Dede and I have been very busy both working at the site as scheduled, putting up Christmas lights, and working on the videos. Still we have time to sight-see. This mission is surely a blessing. Everyday, a guest will remind me just how blessed I am to serve here. There are other wonderful missions, but for the next two years, this is the best mission in the world for Sister and Elder Hegsted.
The mission is not without its challenges. Many of our fellow missionaries have health issues. Our Monday meeting has been cancelled due to the illnesses in the Ewer household. They are very cautious and considerate of others when they are sick and when I talk with President on the phone he is coughing so badly he struggles to communicate. Dede and I will work a longer shift Monday, so Buswells, who have family in town, can take off at noon and spend quality time with them Monday afternoon and Tuesday their P-Day.
Today we went in at noon to be available as it was another busy day during leaf season. A total of 75 people came. The Buswells handled people until 2, so I was able to watch conference and Dede was able to watch most of it. We then went to work, missing most of the second session, but catching the prophet's closing remarks. He was wonderful in both sessions on Sunday, but I really wondered if he was saying goodbye at the end of his remarks. He closed with "Til We Meet Again" and then the choir sang the same hymn and there were many moist eyes and runny noises. President Oaks looks strong, but President Eyring continues to look fragile behind is magnificent smile. Elder Ballard and Elder Holland also look rough. A wonderful era of leadership is winding up. So glad the Lord is in charge and that new leaders are ready to step up and lead the church.
A couple came in just as President Nelson started speaking. We all watched him in the theatre before giving them a late tour. That was a blessing to not miss President Nelson and still fill the need of this couple. Arriving home late, we were treated to dinner from Sister Berger our neighbor. How kind of them as they have not been feeling well.
I cannot help but share some what surrounds us every day. Wish I could get everything we see. I wish the pictures did justice to what we see.
Local pictures of the colors.
3-October-2022-Monday
It has been very interesting. We replaced the Holmans when we came in August. Since arriving, I have continuously heard about Elder Holman. He did everything he was supposed to do at the site and then found more to do. He put up Christmas lights, he mowed the lawns at Camp Joseph, he served in the Boston Temple on a monthly basis and was always helping the FM missionaries with weeding and so forth. The expectations are high for me, (at least that is my feeling) trying to replace this faithful Elder and I am not doing that as well as I should be.
We arrived at the site at noon to give the Buswells a break to be with family who have come to visit. We had a busy day with 51 total people. I had the opportunity to take two people through from England, although one has moved to Vermont recently. Both were nonmembers who are searching for something. They wanted to know about Joseph so we spent time at the restoration wall explaining about the church. The restoration wall is a history of Joseph's life and makes it so easy to teach his history and the gospel. One took a BoM after reading Moroni 10:3-5. It is so delightful to share the gospel.
We stayed late for a family with four children. I took them down in the golf court, but mostly sat during the tour listening to Dede interact with these four children. She is so powerful with children. The mom left, thanking Dede for making the experience so great for her children. Again our prayers are answered to touch a life. As I sat and watched Dede, I realized how much of a laggard I am. I was tired and just wanted to go home. She was focused on the needs of the family and just wanted to serve. How can I possibly change my attitude so that I am also looking outward to people and not looking out for my selfish desires?
Dede also took an Area Authority through on a tour. He told me how spiritual it was and what a bright testimony Dede has. Could not agree more. Dede was impressed with their testimonies and it was delightful for her to get to share with them.
Fun, last week we had a number of Idahoans. One posted about the tour and Danielle's friend read it and asked if it were the Hegsted's who led the tour which she thought was full of the Spirit and testimony of Christ. The friend sent our pictures and she confirmed to the friend it was us. It is a small world and nice to hear that we helped someone in their life.
The fall colors continue to improve and I am so grateful to be here at this time of year.
4-October-2022-Tuesday
What an impressively busy day at the site. We had the morning shift and had well over 50 people (without a bus or a large group) through the site during our shift. Needless to say, we did not do tours together but were always separated and often during the day we were adding people into the an already started tour and would just tell them to drop off when we returned to something they had already seen and heard. We then circle back and finish the tour for those who joined later.
Against my better judgment, but then why does it matter, President and Sister Ewer chose to work their afternoon shift despite the colds they have been suffering from. I hope it went well for them. President Ewer still seemed very slow and sounds sick. However, if it were my shift, I would be working it, so what can I say? I need to let others have agency as well.
With the afternoon off, Dede and I ate a bite and headed south to Willington, Vt. the birthplace of Brigham Young. It is nearly two hours from the site and the road construction up the hill to his birthplace definitely added to the length of the trip. The Young family has placed a nice monument above a ball field at the top of the hill where the village stood at his time. They had since moved the village down the hill. The monument is somewhat underwhelming, unlike Brigham himself. However the trees and vistas were stunning so it was well worth the trip even though we came home late. I am so glad Dede thought about it and that we did it. The monument is not at Brigham's home but in the park, actually above center field of the town's baseball field.
On the way home we saw two more covered bridges, which is always a highlight. We saw many beautiful vistas of trees as we drive along the back roads. We arrived at the last bridge which was quite long, Unfortunately it was getting dark when we arrived.
5-October-2022-Wednesday:
Another P-Day and another day to work on the videos. Although I have rough videos completed for all the scenes, there is so much clean up to do and I am going through now and reading the script so that those who see it can understand how the words and the video fit together. I will remove my voice in the future so the missionaries can present it to people as we share the site with the video, not as a canned program. There is so much to be said for a canned, voiced-over video as it matches exactly the picture and the voices. Others will speak faster or slower than me, so I have put in blanks for pauses to help people keep up.
In the afternoon we chose to go back to a waterfall outside of Strafford called Upper City Falls. We had gone there one evening after work, but Dede was not dressed to hike and I missed the falls not seeing the higher falls (see below) due to the thick trees and thus stopped short of the goal). This time with more time, we hiked in further to see all the falls (there are numerous around one large fall.). This area was settled so people could harness the water for mills, but the mills are long gone (along with the people) and not even the dams remain, thus it is probably similar to what the people found years ago when they first arrived. The area is now a nature preserve and I took way too many pictures as we climbed up and down the stream and the falls.
After hiking the falls area we chose not to return as we had come but pointed the car in the opposite direction and followed dirt roads (back roads past stunning vistas and beautiful farms.). We came out above Chelsea and since we were near Barre, we decided to hike back up the grand view and see the backs of the quarries. First pictures of the ride over. I did not enhance the pictures so they would look like what we saw.
The hike up the quarries was so fun for the second time. We had time to read the signs and complete the hike to the end of the trail, where we had a beautiful view. The quarries have water in them and you could easily see the bottom 100's of feet down and the reflections were amazing. Since it is a quarry there are tidbits of sculptures and a path they call the roller coaster where they have put wood over the rocks to make it easier to hike. I wish we would have had several hours. There are so many trails and so many quarries. Unfortunately we needed to grab a bite to eat and get back to the site for a late meetings. In the next 4 days we have 6 (changed to 7) busses (3 on Sunday) and we needed to coordinate this and begin thinking about the Christmas lighting season when we will be opened from 11 to 9 every day. ENJOY THE PICTURES:
Just a note. We do work, but we also are taking advantage of the season for pictures. If we have an hour we go and enjoy. We have had more people in the last few days during leaf-peeping season than we have ever seen. We will work extra hours Thursday and Sunday to care for busses. It will be a great time.
6-October-2022-Thursday:
Today was a bit more busy for us. We arrived at the site at 10:30 to help as a bus that was to come in at 11:00. The bus did not show up until 11:45, but we stayed busy with other visitors until then. We did not have much pro\iror information about this bus and the desires of its leaders. We thought they would be in a rush to leave, but apparently not as they were still here well after Dede and I returned to do our 2:00 shift, the bus finally left about 3:30 after eating and then going down to the foundations. Crazy! Dede spent much of the early portion of the shift running people up and down to the foundations in the golf cart, while I took people not from the tour bus through the site, sometimes rather large groups. Luckily when it got really busy, Dede was back and we had a good afternoon, and were kept busy until 6:30. People just kept coming and coming.
In between coming for the first bus and our shift, we ran home and ate lunch and returned to ride the lift being used to hang Christmas lights. We went up 80 feet to get pictures. That was interesting and I will include a few. Different perspective of the site.
The most beautiful thing at the site.
At one point in the tour, Dede yelled "Judy!" and ran over and hugged a friend from Pocatello who had sat up vacations for us including our river cruise on the Danube. We also met Lynn Jensen's brother from our stake in Pocatello.
Again, it looks like all we do is take pictures. So why am I so tired at the end of the day?
7-October-2022-Friday
What an interesting day. We had the early shift with a bus scheduled to come in at 9:30, so a little before 9:00 we picked up Sister Buswell so we would have another person to take care of the bus since the Ewers have friends in town (town in this case means township) and had left with them and Elder Buswell had an appointment to get his car repaired. As we drove up, I looked down at the pond below the site and had to stop and take more reflection pictures. I thought these were stunning.
As we came up the hill, right at 9:00 am the bus was just turning into the site, so we buzzed around it and beat them to the site so that it was open when they arrived. I met the bus before the parking lot while they were taking pictures and we directed them to the top of the monument, where we gathered then for a group picture and a short introduction by myself and then by the leader Kay Godfrey who with his wife had been missionaries at the site.
What a wonderful experience to have busses and then to have others coming to the site as well. I do not think that Dede and I were able to write down everyone that actually came, we just never got to slow down long enough to write. We need a counter or something we can carry with us. For the first time this month, I had some non-members as well as a group with inactive members who wanted short tours, but still wanted to know what they could experience. We also had families, which for this time of the year is unusual. Dede and I both had that experience and it is always fun to have children and today, they were so well behaved. On the bus I met a couple and she was a former Aberdeen resident named Duffin, so that was fun. My grandparents were friends with Roland Duffin when I was growing up.
Dede and I were both impressed with a man who came in alone as his wife did not want to drive down from Montreal and who wanted to take a great deal of time after driving nearly four hours to come to the site. We both worked with him. The bus had 43 people and I believe we had nearly 50 others during and after the bus before we left. The site is still beautiful with the fall leaves, although I think the peak was Wednesday and so I feel the trees around the monument are beginning to dull although leaves in other nearby areas are still gorgeous.
I am writing this Saturday morning with a little more insight after prayer and want to share this experience. Twice this week, we have had people come into the site at the 6 pm closing time. I have watched Dede as she has given these people the same, if not longer tour she would give at the start of a shift. The only pressure with late people is from my desire to eat and not from the press of other visitors. In my admiration to Dede, I have realized that I need to improve in this area and thus have been praying for the charity and love she has when we have a chance to work with people after hours. I have made this part of my daily prayers.
At the end of our shift Friday, a man came into the site and was showing Sister Buswell boxes of church books that he had and wanted to give to someone who might use them. It was an interesting library that he had collected and we took them and put them in the back room of the VC and will need to figure out what we might do with them. Possibly, many will end up in the trash. Note, I have read many myself and many I have already donated to the DI. However, it is always nice to have books to read so perhaps we will spread them out to the missionaries.
Since Sister Buswell needed to take care of visitors, I sat and visited with the man for 1.5 hours. He is a former member who now lives in Woodstock, VT. He was a successful businessman and went through some trying experiences with church leaders which caused him to desire to leave the church. At the same time his wife wanted to go home to SLC and family (and he felt tied down to work elsewhere) and so they went through a divorce. Long story short, he left the church. He told me his story of conversion, serving a mission, and serving in the church. He was very proud of his service and let me know he was probably the hardest working church member ever known. Then he felt like the church let him fall through the cracks when he most needed the church. Hard for me to judge, but it is a sad tale. He says he has no animosity to the church and feels proud of how he handled it with such a humble spirit. He has been able to visit with two apostles and other members of the church. The word proud (pride) came up often usually in conjunction of how proud he was for the humility he showed during his entire life.
Bottom line, I left the conversation with at least three prevalent thoughts in my mind. 1). I was glad that when I was called upon to serve after hours, that God had blessed me with the charity to do so. (Note, I did not think of that yesterday, but this morning during prayer, God reminded me I had not thanked Him, for answering my prayer about being willing to serve after my shift, so quickly and so I am repenting both in prayer and in my journal.). 2). It has led me to ponder a great deal on the trials that God allows people to have in their lives. I think about Joseph and the trial of his leg surgery, of the loneliness of the position of the prophet, of the many who at best shunned him and at worse tried and then successfully killed him. My life has been so easy in comparison with my new friend and the prophet that I am left in amazement. 3). And finally, I am once again struck by my pride. Most of my issues with the gospel and those who are doing their very best to live the gospel are a reflection of my pride. Try as I might to give this pride to the Savior, he is still letting me learn from my pride, since he has allowed me to focus on it. I would like to be rid of it, but I suppose, this pride is probably my affliction (like Paul had) that I am to learn from.
We are looking forward to another bus on our shift today (late shift) and then three busses on Sunday. Then leaf season will be over and I would expect that things will slow down. We actually ended up with two bus tours.
8-October-2022-Saturday:
Awoke to another beautiful morning. However, I was not feeling very good. I think the rich food we ate late night, did not agree with me and so I was awake a great deal last night. Regardless after finishing the voice over narration on the last video scenes, Dede and I went up to a place over the mountains called Silver Lake. Our neighbor told us to go there and suggest to go over Howe Hill Road, which we did and were amply rewarded as it was a stunning drive and the lake was stunning. I will probably show the last of the fall foliage in the pictures from this drive. (Unless we see something else that is stunning). Fat chance, the colors never end, if one just moves around. Thus more pictures next week.
We then took the afternoon shift at the site, where we enjoyed a rather calm (for this month) afternoon as far as normal walk in traffic is concerned. However we had two busses come in to the site and so we ended the day with a huge number of visitors. I was so impressed with both of the tour busses we had today.
In the evening, we drove over to White River Junction to see Lynne Lockhart who is on tour with her uncle and will visit the site on Sunday. It is always so wonderful to see Lynne even late at night as they did not arrive until after 9 pm.
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