Week 66 - Hegsted's Mission
29-October-2023-Sunday
Where has this month flown to? Enjoyed two great talks on faith in Sacrament Meeting. Both sisters were so prepared and brought a great spirit into the meeting. The fifth Sunday lesson was on tithing. There is such a conviction in this branch that if they will just faithfully pay their tithing, a temple will be built locally. Good for them. Shame on my doubting attitude. I have focused so much on not thinking of God as a cosmic vending machine that gives out blessings if we put in the right amount of "change" that I fail on the other side of the coin in expecting miracles.
We took a longer way home, but arrived early enough for me to complete the slide show about building the monument with speaker's notes that can be sent to the Historical Society for either approval or banning. I would miss using the pictures, but I need to be obedient. I also mentioned in the slide show, I think we should have a similar presentation for the foundations to be used in the winter when we cannot take guests below. What we are doing is similar to the virtual tour I worked on with one large difference. In the virtual tour they wanted a video which makes timing so much harder. With still pictures you can move to pictures and skip them if desired to pace the discussion to meet the needs of the audience.
We took a little longer way home and there are still beauties of nature to be seen. Also, one sees so many more houses with many of the leaves having fallen. When the leaves are full, a house 50 feet away is invisible until the leaves begin to fall. I once thought no one lived in VT. That seems so obvious when the leaves hide all the homes. It is also interesting to see the impact of this year's flooding. So much has been repaired, but there is still much to be repaired. "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature" (as it said in an old margarine commercial from my younger days.)
Sara got almost a foot of snow today in Denver. Her kids are excited to sled in the snow. Sam is such a sledding enthusiast that naturally his kids love it. Sara also told us that they had a Sacrament Meeting where one could go up and tell a favorite hymn (and why) and then the congregation would sing it. Naturally our Emma went up and asked for "I Like to Look for Rainbows." She is such a brave one.
A shoutout to Hailey. As a sophomore, she will be swimming in state in three events, the 200 Free, 100 Free and a Relay. She does not particularly love the longer races, but she is good at them and so she swam the 100 and 200 free in districts. Her times keep improving as well as her turns. Go girl. Lyndee's choir had their concert and I could pick out her voice. Such talent in my grandchildren. (Hopefully you noted my pride and boasting.)
With the slide show done and the blog updated, I will go back to work on the document and corresponding maps. Life is so good. I am just glad that my testimony and joy in life are not related to the sports teams I follow. It was a bad bad day yesterday for ISU, BYU, Utah and the Jazz. Luckily USU did not play and add to my misery. 😂 I remember sitting in Sacrament Meeting when a counselor said "the church just seems truer when BYU wins on Saturday night." While this may feel good when they win, I am glad I can still have joy when they lose also.
30-October-2023-Monday
Our delightful "Indian" Summer (I looked this up and will now use Second Summer to be politically correct), appears to have ended. We saw highs in the 60's and 70's, but now will change to the 40's and low 50's with freezing on its way for November. It has been delightful, but it is time. Everything deserves a break. We could get 1 inch of snow on Wednesday. (did not happen). Hopefully the roads stay clear as we plan to go to Boston to the temple.
Delightful meeting this morning. Discussed the word provoke. It is usually a negative word, but is used in our site guide in the thought of "provoke someone to think afresh". I am way too good at provoking on the negative side, so I fear to push this too far. This week I need to focus on positive provocation.
Removed our last air conditioner and found out why it quit working and resolved that issue. Now we can open the window of the bedroom and let in cool air so we can sleep better. Spent some time on the document and then went into the site.
The day was slow with just one couple (delightful however) coming in until 4:20, when we had three groups (7 total) come in. The first couple were from Iceland and Denmark. Very surprised they stopped but enjoyed our 15 minute visit. They were very open to learning. We then had 2 groups of members. Both were delightful and I am grateful we had them.
I have an hour to work on the document. I am preparing what I hope is my last map. It is just tedious work, but I am close to being finished with it. Then I can begin final edits and picture placements, although I am truly hopeful to receive a few more pictures from Ralph Eddy. Not sure when he will be able to deliver as I requested so many photos.
Last night we delivered goodies to missionaries. Sister Buswell was so excited as she has found a connection between the Deweys who owned the farm next to the birthplace home and the Mack's who owned the birthplace home. I then found on the Internet that Solomon's brother and a Dewey were in the same regiment out of Gilsum. What a great find by Sister Buswell. I hope she gets it documented. I will place it in a footnote of my document, so it is written somewhere.
31-October-2023-Tuesday
Say hello to Halloween and goodbye to October. Today was a gorgeous day. It was sunny and colder, with a high of 45 degrees, but so nice to have the sun come out. We did not have visitors for the first 90 minutes, so we put up Christmas lights. The missionaries in the FM group were not here last year, so we suggested a few places to put up Christmas lights around the drive where people drive and walk during the season to finish the experience and volunteered to put them up. I was feeling left out. We stayed after for 4 hours to work on the lights and made great progress. There are still a few lights left and so we will probably do a few more areas. Such fun. I think Bob wants the lights to be done and his FM missionaries to focus on other important tasks, so I get a chance to put up lights.
Dede and I made a video of us doing the monument presentation with our slides. I was able to get this on a shared drive to be provided to SLC. It will be interesting to see what happens. I must admit, that after thinking about, I am fine with any direction they want us to go. I was surprised after the many times I have given the presentation without any thought of being nervous that doing it for a camera made me nervous. How dumb is that?
Tomorrow the temple. We could see our first snow tomorrow, but it should be less than an inch and with the roads still warm, it should melt quickly. It will be so good to be at the temple.
1-November-2023-Wednesday
We left early for the temple. Today we did much better getting there in 2:20 (time) instead of 2:40 like last week. When we arrived, we met Dave and Staci McDowell. They are great peoply that we have come to love. He is the CES director for upper New England and we went through the session with them.
They have a new movie for the endowment session, which is based on the first movie from the set of movies that came out some 10 years earlier. No changes to script, but I think it helps to have different pictures and actors.
We went to the sealing session and had Brother C., who we always love. He is nearly deaf and is known for speaking loudly and going off on tangents. Regardless we always feel the Spirit when he leads a session. Today was truly interesting. Sister (will not name her) was in the session with us. She is a stately and lovely lady, but Brother C., was absolutely gushing over her and her family the entire session. He loves her grandfather and all the good he has done for the world and the church. She was obviously embarrassed to be singled out, but is such a lady of charm and composure, that I could only sit and admire her. I worry though that she did not have the spiritual session she had hoped for. I have always thought of wearing white as making us peons equal to the noble and great ones. I had never considered that the famous want to be humble and enjoy the Spirit by dressing the same and being treated as equals.
About midway through the session, Emily Loveland walked into the session. Dede loves her. She is living in Arlington (Boston) near the temple and she had come to the site a month or so in the past. It was so great to see her again and feel of her spirit and remember how much we love her parents and grandparents. One of the last sealing sessions we attended in Pocatello was conducted by her father, Kevin and it was fun to remember that session. Also to remember Pocatello and the people we love back in Pocatello. It was a tender mercy for us and we took her to lunch and were able to catch up on her family and just visit with her. May I say I admire Emily and so many like her who bravely come to new and strange places and make a difference there while still remaining close to family. Kind of reminds me of our Anna.
God is so kind! Not only does He allow us to attend His temple and do work for His children, but today He decided to send beloved friends to be with us and share the experience with us. After the session we also had a chance to visit with the Temple President and his wonderful wife whom we have come to love since coming here. There are also a number of workers at the temple whom we have come to know and look forward to seeing.
On the way home we drove around Sunapee Lake in NH. Still hard to see through the trees, but we drove around the lake and got some great views. It is so beautiful. We also drove through our first snow of the season, but it was brief.
The church announced an increase of missionaries and thus plans to add more missions again. Some of these are re-openings of missions created after the first surge of missionaries when the age was lowered, but it will be a record number of missions for the church. I read through the comments after reading a positive article and was saddened by the negative responses. It seemed obvious many were from former missionaries who had become inactive after their missions and blamed their missions for the inactivity. Another group thought it a waste of money. (Everyone seems to know how to handle church finances better than the church.). I could not help but think that even if too many missionaries fall away after their missions (and who knows if they would be active today if they had not gone on a mission to begin with), I know so many former missionaries who come home, marry in the temple, raise families and serve the Lord with zeal. My life was changed by the opportunity to serve a mission. My life is being changed today by the opportunity to serve with the world's best companion. (Did I mention cutest also? What about the best cook?). What a blessing it has been to serve with wonderful missionaries, serving both members and nonmembers here in Vermont. I cannot think of a time in my educational years or work years, which have brought more growth and joy than the years spent on a mission have. Having said that, I also realize that the blessings that have been in my life for implementing the knowledge, experience and testimony gained on my first mission (and it will be the same after this mission) made my non-mission life incredibly more enriching than it would have been without that wonderful experience base.
2-November-2023-Thursday
Spent the morning working on the document. I think everything is written and placed and I am about 50% through an initial reading. I now need to export it to Google Docs so I can use a grammar editor on it. I hope it does not blow up everything I have been doing.
We had the late shift and enjoyed two groups with 9 people total. We also put up Christmas lights. Both were good. The second group were a mother and 3 sisters and two granddaughters. They were from all over and it was great to have them.
On the way home we looked for Button's Bog. This is the famous place where the monument would have gotten stuck if the temperature had not dropped so quickly to freeze the bog. Ralph Eddy told us it was near VT-14 in a place where Dairy Hill used to go. He told us it was south of two homes. We found a likely place for the road and then using the E9-1-1 map, I could see an old road part way toward VT-14 and it crosses a stream twice. The stream makes a 90 degree turn and so the bog probably sat in the inside corner of this brooklet. According to Ralph Eddy, they would throw rocks from the rock walls into the bog to get the school (vehicle) through during wet seasons. I took two pictures of the spot on the map and circled them below. Always fun to find out things.
One of the sisters from our visiting group pointed out that Emma and Joseph only had 10 children, while we list 11 at the site. (This is a chart under Emma's and Jospeh's picture of the twins.). I plan to look this up. Found that some thought she had 12 children, due to a misreading of a journal which said Emma sick had another chill, but read child. I think the sister remembered this incorrectly. Most sources say 11 today including authorized church sites.
3-November-2023-Firday
Yeah for the morning shift. We had three groups come into the site. The first couple were checking off states and realized that Jospeh was born here. They were in a hurry to catch their flight, but we got 25 minutes with them. We then had a husband and wife bring in his mother. It was kind of them and the mother loved it so much. She came in and said "we really do have a prophet!" So fun to see her testimony shine through. We also had six missionaries stop for pictures. During the slow times, I continued to put up Christmas lights. There were about 6 boxes left and I have gone through about half so far. It is a little harder as we need to find places to put the lights. However I have more lights than I did at this time last year and so I can cover the areas I am covering better than I did last year. This year the focus seemed to be on the trees and not making sure there were lights all around the circle drive to light the entire way.
After our shift we hiked My Walden Place trail. Dede found it and it was only 10 minutes from the apartment. We decided to purchase all-trails app and were glad as there were many trails in the area and it would tell you when you were off the trail, which it did twice. Both times we had chosen to leave the trail, but it is nice to have that feature. The area was a preserve. At one time there must have been many farms and homes in this area based on walls and foundations. Right at the start was a great foundation and all along the roads and trails were rock walls and other foundations. Although I have documented this in the church's property, I am still always amazed when I walk through the woods and see the walls and the old foundations and realize how many people struggled to live by farming in Vermont. The trail also included a pond and most impressive a monument to a young woman who was killed while skiing. They wanted something that fit into the nature she loved. I will show the foundation below along with other pictures from our hike.
4-October-2023-Saturday
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