Almost There and There

Only a few more days 'til we report to Martin's.  Our mission president has indicated that we are "assigned" to serve in the Martin's Cove Visitors Center. All seems in order, so what could go wrong?

Our car -- Found out on Friday, 21 April, that our car needs a new engine.  Wow!  Fortunately they had a spare in the local warehouse, so it is supposed to be done on Monday evening (we hope so, since we're supposed to leave on Wednesday.

Illness -- Paul has come down with a good cold. Here's hoping that it will be gone by Wednesday.  It wasn't.

Loaded

Well, we took off Wednesday, as instructed by our mission president.  We were loaded to the hilt!  Had no mishaps on the way.  Stopped in Rawlins and got gas and milk.  Guess I should say we stopped, once we found it.  It was snowing so bad and our windows were frosting up, we actually missed Rawlins and had to turn around once we realized that we missed it.

Missionary Village

About 45 miles north of Rawlins we almost did it again.  A small sign on the left of the road points out Missionary Village or Ranch 66 as it is sometimes called.  After a short 1 mile, dirt road drive, we came upon our destination.  We pulled in to mobile home #1 and discovered our home for the next 6 months.  Our neighbors across the street were soon in our yard, helping us unload.  Their name is Elder and Sister Schow from Alberta, Canada.  They are also our district leaders.  They served here last year and seem like really nice people.

Before we had got too far along in our settling, we were told of a pot luck dinner in the pavilion right next to us.  That came in handy.  We didn’t have to prepare a meal and we got to meet a bunch of the missionaries serving here. One of the couples we met is the Harris’s from Melborne, Florida.  They were Bryson and DK Shreeve’s home teachers.  We met couples from all over the country.

Our New Home

It Got Worse

Thursday morning we went to a daily orientation and then took off to Casper, about 60 miles away.  We particularly wanted phone service so we bought a new phone along with some internet time.  Our Sprint and Verizon phones have no service around here.  We splurged and ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant. We also did some shopping for the next week.  On the way back home we experienced a Wyoming blizzard.  We were very happy to be in the car rather than pulling handcarts.  We thought it was nice of the schedulers to give us a P-day on the day after our arrival.

Friday was “stay in” day.  Roads were closed.  Lots of snow fell.  We continued to put things away and make our home comfortable. Someone decided that we should get together in the afternoon at the pavilion and watch a movie.  Later we finally got our computer set up so we could watch an occasional DVD.

The next day turned out to be our first real missionary day.  We dressed in our official trek garb and arrived at 8.  For the first hour we cleaned and got ready for visitors.  Then from 9 to 2 we took groups and families through the 7 room center.  It was fun and faith promoting.  It was also emotional as we told the stories of the ranch, the restoration of the gospel, the trail across the plains, the handcart experience, the rescuers, and finally ended with videos, testimonies and hopes for referrals.  All in all it was great experience.

Visitor Center Couple

Sunday, our first one, was a unique day.  We started out at 9:15.  We had to get to the building called the “barn” so we could set up for a pot luck following Church.  Our block of meetings was from 10 to 1.  Potluck followed the meetings.  Then we had a half an hour of district meeting.  We learned who our district consisted of – four couples – Schow’s from Canada, Taylor’s from Soda Springs, ID, Hysell’s and us.

We love those we have left behind, but have testimonies of this wonderful work and of our Savior. 

New Missionary Couple

  

The Devil's Gate

Our Neighborhood Friend

Preface to Our Mission

This all started with Annie making a call to the Church Offices and inquiring about serving another mission, this time to a Church History visitor's center.  We thought that we might like serving at Nauvoo or Kirtland or Palmyra.  In each case Annie was informed that service at one of these sights would require applying at least a year before hand.  Before the phone call was over, the person on the other end of the phone said, "would you consider serving in Martin's Cove?"  "We need people now, for this year.  We normally have some 60 missionary couples, but this year we have less than 40."  

We hadn't even considered this.  It was now early February and they wanted us by the end of April. Wow!  Short notice.   She asked about our health - we only had fair health, especially Paul with his bad knees.

We felt that we should call and visit with the mission president. He then told us that we needed to get our paper work in right away -- immediately if not sooner. He suggested that we get hold of our Bishop immediately.  Get the paper work underway.  Get our RV ready to go. RV? We didn't have one. He tried to put our fears at rest.  RV - he said they had a couple that were available for renting.  Knees - he said they'd make it work. We believe that they must be in desperate need. We prayed about it and felt we ought to move ahead.

Annie had just had a physical.  Paul already had one scheduled the next week.  We visited with our Bishop the following Sunday and he was kind and immediately opened us an account to fill out our paper work.  Everything seemed to be falling in place.  Within two weeks our paper work was ready to go.  Another interview took place with our stake president.  He immediately pushed the button to send our paper work to the Church.

About a month later, 24 March, our call came.  We had wondered if it would be Martin's Cove.  Even though we were being heavily recruited to serve there, Our thoughts often went back to our first mission which was supposed to be a temple mission and turned out to be a family history records preservation mission.  The call actually said, "You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  You are assigned to labor in the Wyoming Mormon Trail Mission.  Your primary assignment is to labor in the Mormon Handcart Historic Site as a visitors' center missionary.  It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 6 months."  It then went on to say that we should report directly to the mission on 5 May and that we would not be attending the MTC (Missionary Training Center).  We had previously been to the MTC twice in the last four years. Guess we'll not get all the great training as well as BYU ice cream on Wednesdays.

Pioneer Annie

Those extending the call were kind and said that our mission would start on May 5th.  On Saturday, the day following receipt of our call letter, our mission president called and asked if we could be there on the 3rd.  Before we were through talking the date had been changed to April 26th.

We are to come with four sets of clothes.  One will be a Sunday suit and dress.  During most of the week we will wear pioneer garb, not western, but pioneer, nicer pioneer for the visitors center and more rugged pioneer for the outdoor trek and campfire story telling.  A fourth set of clothing will be for working around the site and will consist of Levi's and other work attire.  For this last set of attire we are to have light blue monogrammed shirts which will be embroidered with the letters WMTM or Wyoming Mormon Trail Mission.

Since originally receiving our call we have been specifically assigned to the Martin's Cove Visitors' Center -- there are a total of three visitors' centers.  We have been assigned a specific trailer and spot. We are informed that our trailer is located about 10 miles each way from the visitors' center at a location referred to as Missionary Village or Ranch 66 and that there a public campgrounds nearby. We have received reading material consisting of nearly 275 pages of material.  We need to be familiar with all material and will probably be asked to share it with visitors. We have been busy buying and making clothes and have been trying to make arrangement for our home and personal affairs.

We are cautiously excited about serving and sincerely hope that we are up to the tasks and opportunities to serve that await us.