Week 33 Hegsted Mission

  5-March-2023-Sunday

After our large storm of yesterday, today was pleasant with sunshine.  I do not see another storm until a week passes.  I would not be surprised if winter is finally releasing its icy grip on Vermont and that we will soon be in mud season.  As I mentioned before, VT has many, many dirt roads.  They are not gravel roads like I am used to in Idaho and so when spring comes, the locals call it mud season as these roads become very hard to navigate.  Because we had a mild winter, we are partially prepared for such roads from our travel to covered bridges, but I am sure it will get worse.

No issues traveling to and from Rutland.  I played well enough, but really thought my SS lesson went well.  We had several visiting families and so class was large, but we had a great discussion including some of the visitors.

As we drove by Pico ski resort, it was obviously smashed with skiers.  Thus Dede requested we drive to the Killington ski resort to look at it.  Wow.  The parking lots were all marked full.  People were parked alongside the roads.  This is the second highest mountain in VT and there a multiple lifts,  All and all a great sight.  

We came home via Woodstock with good roads although Howe Road, the last segment was interesting as the plows had not opened the roads fully so it felt very narrow.

I will miss the snow and the shoveling at the site.  

Dede and I worked on the video again and I have saved a version that we will use for virtual tours and so I think we are ready to share.  However, I am sure that it will not be smooth until we do it a few times.  But we are looking for a few more volunteers and will be contacting those who have already volunteered.

6-March-2023-Monday

Today we enjoyed our monthly meeting with all missionaries present.  President and Sister Ewer presented information from training they attended in SLC.  We are now through with that training.  It was good.  We talked about Old Testament monuments including 1) the stone monument built by Joshua and his people when they crossed the Jordan River on dry ground to enter the Promised Land and 2) the stone monument named Ebenezer that Samuel had raised to celebrate a victory.  God has always used history to remind His children of miracles and special events in history and asks parents to teach their children about these events.  President Ewer then likened our monument to the Prophet Joseph Smith to the Ebenezer of Samuel's day.  He quoted someone who said the most heartfelt gratitude you will hear will be from parents who feel you have touched their children's lives with message of the site you represent.  We could bear testimony of that fact.

We made plans for Friday when two of the historical site directors will come to town to train us.  They plan to meet with all the missionaries in the morning and then again in the evening and take tours.  We look forward to their visit.  

We received our mail that Jon forwarded and I spent time working on my Medicare.  Because I was paid a going away bonus when I retired, my income was high and they want to charge me a lot for Medicare.  Thus I had to find the correct form to fill out to get this reduced. No wonder they give seniors a discount.  It is hard being a senior.  😁

We had a beautifully clear day.  Love it when there are no clouds and the air is so blue.  Vermont seems to have some of the cleanest air in the country and we love seeing it.  The only downside was the wind which was biting.  Tomorrow is supposed to be cold and windy, so we enjoyed the day.

We worked our shift after having our couple interview with President from 1-1:30.  We raked off the remaining snow from over the entry ways to the VC and residence buildings.  Over the entries they have installed stops in the roof that keeps the snow from sliding.  It is good in keeping large chunks from falling and hitting people.  However because it does not slide over these stops easily, we end up clearing these areas many times rather than getting them to come down in one big pile.  (I know whine, whine, whine.). We also dug out the lights around the monument.  President said the monument was almost black last night as the last snow had covered these lights.  I think it will be better tonight.

At 4:45 we had a single sister come into the site.  We were so happy she wanted a full tour and we obliged her.  She works for the FAA and had come up to Boston for work and then will learn to cross country ski for the next two days and so had a chance to check off an item from her bucket list today.  We were so grateful and she was so attentive.  One fun aside.  Her father had given each of his children an egg timer in the shape of a chicken.  He asked each to take pictures of the chicken wherever they go.  So we we took a few shots at the site that featured the chicken.  I thought the was fun and clever of the father to keep communication open with his children. What more can one ask but to end the day with a tour?

7-March-2023-Tuesday

For the sixth day in a row (6 of 7 days for March) we have had at least one visitor to the site.  It feels like the winter doldrums are ending and the work will again pick up.  Today we had a group of five people.  Two senior missionaries, two sister missionaries and a young man who is scheduled to be baptized toward the end of the month.  We had a delightful time doing the tour.  The young man seemed very sincere about his desire to learn about Joseph Smith and the gospel.  He told us he lived in Park City for a year as a ski instructor and was never invited to go to church.  He actually befriended the sisters on Facebook recognizing the badge of a missionary and has progressed to this point.  He would actually like to return to Utah as he felt like it was a great place to live.  The senior missionaries are worried he will be lost in the cracks.  I hope he does well.  The nice thing to me is one worries that he might be interested in the church because of two cute sister missionaries, but if that were the case he would be staying around.  

The senior couple were the Zollinger's.  Turns out that he joined the navy and was stationed at the site outside of IF, but lived in Pocatello.  When he told us he lived on S. Von Elm, we realized that he was in our ward shortly after we became the 53rd ward under Bishop Greg May.  We do not remember each other, but it was a treat to talk about this time.  His wife's story was a true miracle.  She grew up in England.  Her grandmother and father were members.  Dad was in jail and grandma forged the dad's  name and mom signed to have the granddaughter baptized.  She also took her to primary.  When dad was released he was furious and would not allow her to return to church.  At 14 she was taken out of the home by welfare and when she saw others attending church, she got permission to return to the LDS church.  Eventually she was taken in by friends in the ward and made it to the USA where they met.

What a tender mercy to see how God can move peoples lives.  We saw so many people whose lives have been blessed by God, which is the story we tell of Joseph Smith's family and how they were moved by God.

After our shift, we drove up to the site where Joseph Smith and Lucy lived in Tunbridge before moving onto the Mack farm.  Friday two directors from the Historical Department and they expressed a desire to go there.  I knew I could travel the dirt roads so I went up.  The roads are passable, but with all the snow it is hard to see much.  However, if they want to go, I think they should go and I would be willing to drive up again.

Another great day in the mission field.  I feel like we are living the dream.  Why is God so kind to Dede and I and why does He give us such great opportunities??????  Okay you already know the answer.  He does it for Dede despite me.  😍

8-March-2023-Wednesday-PDAY

Best driving day to the temple in quite some time.  Just one longish delay.  Yeah!!!  We enjoyed our normal duet of Endowment and Sealing Sessions.  In both sessions we had the Tomas's from Maine, Sister Bennett and Brother Kill from S. Royalton, whom we often see on Wednesdays.  In fact, I feel like I know many of the people I see on Wednesdays including the workers.  Many of whom work one or two weeks a month.  The sealer today drove down from Maine.  It is hard to run a temple when so many faithful people live so far away from the temple.  Our sealing session lastest 70 minutes as we had a lot of family names and we got through them all.  I really liked this sealer, whom we have not had before.  Not sure what has happened to our normal sealer.

After our sessions we drove into Boston and started the Freedom Trail tour on the audio tour app that Dede bought.  I really enjoy this app.  You can turn it on and off if you want to explore.  There is an option to go into more depth.  The only thing we did not anticipate was the phone running out of power.  We should have (and often have) carried a battery pack with us, but did not today.  As we were leaving the downtown area, the crowds were coming in for a Boston Celtics game.  That gummed up traffic a bit.  A few pictures that I liked:

This is the Old North Church.  One if by land and two if by sea with a statue of Paul Revere out front.  There were multiple riders that left to spread the news, but Paul had a poem written about him, I think by Wordsworth.  Everyone needs a good publicist.  

Paul Revere's home still stands.  Here is raised 16 kids.  (and no, he was not a polygamist).  He was an accomplished silver smith and also cast bells that are still used in a local church.  He also gilded the dome of the capital building in Boston.

The south church where crowds were stirred up to dump tea in the harbor.  At that point, this was not that far from the water.  Boston has the most land of any city in the USA that has been reclaimed from the sea.

Statehouse where the Boston Massacre occurred about 2 years before the tea party.  The patriots turned this into a propaganda nightmare for the British which caused them to not shoot at the colonists as they dumped tea into the harbor.

Faneuil Hall with a statue of Sam Adams in front.  Here the colonist met to plan for conflicts.  According to our virtual tour, Samuel Adams failed at everything he tried and finally found his calling as a revolutionary.  Sure glad he did.  Note, at the time of the revolutionary war, the Boston Harbor reached the point I was standing on.  Now it is nearly a mile away because of the reclaimed land.

Right behind Faneuil Hall is the Quincy Market where we stopped and ate.  I was starved and I found a great New England Claim Chodda in a bread bowl.  

The weather vein on Faneuil Hall is a grasshopper.  The colonists would ask people what was on top of Faneuil Hall.  If the person could not answer correctly, they assumed they were British spies.  Rather a clever trick.

We left Boston about 5:30.  Can I say traffic jam for the first 30 minutes???  Glad I do not fight that every day.

Tender Mercy.  We are allowed to attend the temple whenever we have time and do not need to seek permission although we always tell President Ewer.  Other missionaries are not allowed to leave their mission boundaries to attend.  I think this is a tender mercy for Dede and I.

9-March-2023-Thursday

Our landlord came over to see if he could fix the dish washer and not need to replace it.  I hope he succeeded.  It took about 90 minutes, but it never got through a full wash cycle so until we try it, we just will not know.  He did however give us good ideas on things to see in the area.  We found out that he owns a micro-brewery.  He grew up in Stratford and now lives on the border of Stratford and Tunbridge.  His little brewery is in Tunbridge, so I think he pays taxes to three towns.  I asked him about governance.  What is the role of the Town vs. the county.  Other than the county sheriff, he could not think of anything that a county did.  Everything seems to be run by the town.  They have town meetings which are still governed by popular vote, so a true democratic governance.  He was telling us that a man had bought land in Tunbridge and is suing the Town for not restricting bikers on old roads that run through his property.  From what I read, once a road is in place, technically it should always be accessible to traffic.  This man says foot traffic is okay, but not bikes and cars.  May I say that the disdain our landlord showed for this man was evident.  I guess if you are involved in town governance by attending town meetings and voting on everything then you are probably  much more involved than we are with a representative democracy.  Very interesting.  The towns around here are very small (population wise).  Wonder how this works in more populated areas. 

Despite having Ben, the landlord here, I was able to get the bathroom fan working (at least temporarily) and clean out the car.  I might get to take people up to the Azail Smith original homestead tomorrow and want it to be clean if it happens.  I want to hear what they know about the site, but I would be surprised if they invite me along.  This is normally time for the president.

Nice day at the site.  Right after 4 pm a family of six came in the site.  The oldest was 7 years old.  They had been in the car for 5 hours, so they were ready to move.  I thought they did well.  I think dad would have enjoyed more details, but we kept it moving for the kids and I thought it went well.  Obviously Dede saved the day again with her way with kids.  We have been so blessed with having people come in.

Tonight Dede is slaving away making food.  We have the people from the historical department tomorrow and Dede is making breakfast rolls as well as desert for tomorrow.  They are planning to have each of us give them a tour tomorrow.  I hope we are first.  I spent time today shoveling a walk to the birthplace home site and uncovered both the step stone that goes into the site as well as the rock that marks where the fireplace would have stood.  The snow is deep.  It is however warming up and so we are taking people outside and can take more time with them outside and I felt having the step stone uncovered would be good for everyone including our two guests for tomorrow.  

We have great sunsets in Sharon.  It helps the way our house faces.  Today Dede told me to come look as she could see this out the kitchen window and I was glad to get a picture to share.

Right now, the landlord is running his tractor with a snowblower attachment behind our apartment.  The snow was so deep (3 -4 feet) that it would have been impossible to get out the back door, which would be a fire hazard, so although I do not expect a fire, but better safe than sorry.  I doubt we will get another significant amount of snow this winter.  

10-March-2023-Friday

Today was a full day, especially for Dede.  She got up at 4am to pull out rolls to rise then returned to bed, kindly allowing me to sleep.  Then she was up by 6:30 to have cinnamon rolls and gluten free muffins  ready for our breakfast this morning.  With all she had to do we were still the first one at the site at 8 am to help get everything ready.  At 8:30 we ate and then had training from Aaron and Curtis from the Historic Department.  It was very good and we learned so much and Ewers were willing to share them with us rather than have our guests teach them alone.

At 10:00 we went over to the Visitors Center (VC) with the threat that they would come over for a tour.  To our great delight we had a younger man come in with his mother.  He had been to the site earlier this year and we had brought his girlfriend  on a tour and then he brought his mother back.  We were so blessed.  We gave them the tour with Curtis and Aaron following along.  It was so much easier to give a tour to real visitors rather than to people who know the site as well as we know it and are just having us give it so they will know how to help us.  I thought it went so well.  And may I say that we experienced another tender mercy in having God give us these people.  The mother walked out with a BoM.  Not sure she will read it, but she was very gracious in accepting it.  She also wanted to spend time at the revelation board soaking in all the information.  

I then had the opportunity to take Curtis and Aaron down to the Solomon Mack foundations.  The snow was deep and by the time we got back to the top of the hill, I was spent and sweaty.  Glad no one else came so I could recover.  Poor me.😢

Back home and Dede went back to cooking deserts for the evening meal.  She made cream puffs and a chocolate cookie to make sure everyone had something they could eat.  She should be dropping in exhaustion by now.  I do not know how she does it.  I laid down and then walked to the post office to check the mail before showering so I would not ruin the meal for everyone else.

We had a delightful dinner.  The great thing about senior missionaries is they can cook.  This was followed by training.  May I say that I admire the way Aaron can find something good to say about everyone so that everyone can feel good about themselves.  That was another tender mercy to witness.

Finally a major theme was how to bring the Savior into our messages to visitors.  I was so glad to hear this.  When we were called President Campbell challenged us to testify of Christ and not just Joseph the Prophet.  Then we arrived and felt that in our first training from SL, we were told not to testify of Christ.  (Hopefully we misunderstood what we were being told.).   Finally when the Ewers came back and gave us their training, it was clear that we could and should testify of Christ in our tours.  Wow, three tender mercies in one day.

Sister Ewer requested that the missionaries dress up in our suits which we rarely wear for our dinner last night so that we could take a picture of the 10 missionaries for the history.  The Bergers will leave us in June and the Wilcox's. in October.  Big changes are coming.

11-March-2023-Saturday

After yesterday, we awoke exhausted.  But we're able to clean the house so we would be ready for Sunday before taking a drive.  We have joined a club called Vermont 251.  There are 251 Townships in Vermont and the idea is to visit all 251 townships.  I chose the closest township we had not seen and drove up there before going into the site.

What a beautiful day at the site.  The sun was shining and finally at 4:15 we received visitors and what a treat.  There were three young men.  One had been at the site last week with the sister missionaries and a senior couple.  Today he returned with Ben Parker who will baptize him and a friend  who is not a member of the church.  It was fun.  We focused on the nonmember in the first room, but in the second room encouraged the other two to help teach this new young man.  We gave him a BoM and the pamphlet on the first vision and in general had a great discussion.  He came in our crutches having had an accident on is one wheeler.  He told us of the miracle of having the one surgeon who had done the required surgery be the only one of his group in town everyone else being at a conference.  After the surgery he told the young man that it had gone as well as he had hoped and that he did not need to insert a plate with extra screws.  He felt it was a miracle.  He told me some of the story as we walked in and gave Dede a longer version after I prompted him.  Dede then related her miracle with her ruptured Achilles tendon.  I think it was such a bonding moment and with such supporting friends we had a great tour.  I find it amazing that this "soon to be convert" brought his friend to the Joseph Smith Birthplace.  Whether or not anything transpires from the visit or not, the spirit was strong and it was a great ending to our shift.  The Lord blessed us with another tender mercy.  Two days in a row we have had a person come back whom we had already taught at the site.  This would be our highest goal is that people would want to return to the site to be taught.

We came home to a roast in the crock pot.  Dede is cooking mashed potatoes and we will soon eat our final meal before day-light savings time.  I have committed to get to bed early.  I doubt my ability to accomplish this goal and really doubt Dede will make it.  It will feel early when we get up tomorrow, but oh how I love that extra hour of daylight at the end of the day allowing us to do so much more.