Camp Opening- Flag Ceremony

Saturday dawned bright and clear! Last year was cold and stormy, so we were all very excited!  The Maintenance team is in charge of the flag poles and flags, so we showed up at 7:00 am to attach the flags and raise the flag poles.

Last year they installed new poles that are hinged, and the flags can rotate on them.
 This helps with wind problems.

The flags are attached to the poles, 

and then gathered to the top and tied with a rope

The pole is attached to the large skidster...

and then raised to an upright position

The flags are ready for the ceremony

Our safety and security team ready to roll

Ready for the ceremony.
All of the missionaries gather at the point
 to watch the flags come down.

"High on a Mountain Top, A banner is unfurled"...
the YW banner comes down first

The value flags are lowered as the YW Theme is read...
each flag as the value is stated

I got to drop the "Virtue" (gold) flag!
Some of the flags didn't cooperate very well

The flags are ready for the open house.
We had close to 500 cars come with YW leaders, prospective missionaries
 and others coming to check out the camp.

The camp is now officially open.  We will have our first campers this weekend!

What Doesn't Kill You.......

Last week was a very hard week.  The camp had very strong winds this winter that felled many trees.  They have also cut down many that posed a danger in the camp.  It is our job to get the trees off the challenge courses and out of the camps in time for the open house this Saturday.  We worked long and hard several days in a row.  Luckily the Challenge Course missionaries pitched in and saved our bacon.  We have 5 missionary couples on our team, they have 20. 

This huge pine tree came down in Camp Esther

It took out the roof of the Honey Bucket

The tree came down on several quakies and a snow bank.  It was a tangled mess to trim all of the branches off the trunk

Elder Adams standing behind the tree

Elder Oliekan taking a much needed break.
I had to help him get up!
Using a chainsaw all day is back-breaking.

All of the branches that are cut off and the slash are hand carried- by us- off the mountain and fed into the chipper.

Sharpening the saw!

The big trunks are blocked into sections, carried to the trucks and saved to be split into firewood.  

"The Ants go marching one by one...."
(missionaries hauling logs to the chipper)

"The Ants go marching two by two..."

The chips from the chipper are spread throughout the challenge courses to provide a safety cushion for the activities, and along some of the hiking trails.

Saturday, we got smarter and formed a "bucket brigade" of sorts, to pass the wood down the mountain.  We didn't have to climb up and down the mountain, running into each other and tripping over all of the underbrush.

Elders Oliekan, Elswood, and Adams,
taking a break at the end of a long day

 We all worked very hard.  I don't remember ever being so tired. They say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  I don't think I'm dead yet, so, I must be getting stronger.  Sister Elswood told me it takes 3 weeks to start feeling the "stronger"... only two weeks to go :-).  
Luckily, today we had a much slower paced day and our tasks were not so tiring.  Maybe we will survive!

Also last week, we celebrated Mother's Day.  Elder Oliekan is the High Priest Group Leader.  He was in charge of getting the Mother's Day gifts for the sisters. (We got Mrs. Cavannah's Truffle bars). He also got to speak in church along with the Relief Society President and our managing director, Brother Hatch.  It was a wonderful meeting.  The talks were all very well done.  

We were invited to Dayna's for dinner, so we went down to Saratoga Springs for the afternoon and evening.  We had a yummy steak dinner cooked and served by Greg and Hunter.  Robyn's family joined us for dessert- (candy cane brownies made by Hunter).We enjoyed our time together, and I love the whirly-gig garden sculpture that they gave me.  Later I was able to talk to Travis, and e-mail with Taryn.  It was a great day.  

HVC Open House

The semi-annual Heber Valley Camp open house will be help this Saturday-May 14th- from 1-4.  If anyone is interested in seeing the camp, learning about what we do, or opportunities for staying at the camp, they are welcome to come up and visit. If you come up, have any missionary call us on the radio, we would love to see you! 

On The Job

We have now completed our first real week of work.  We meet each morning with the entire maintenance team for a devotional.  Then we break into our individual teams for training and our day's assignments.  

Maintenance Building-
this is where we meet each morning.

Moe and Bosephus-
two of our dump trucks

Me and Moe

Elder Oliekan -in training

 Our first priority is to clean up the camp.  There are many trees down.  We have been working on the parkway, the main road into camp, so things look nice for the open house in two weeks.

Elder Oliekan and his trusty chainsaw

This is Elder Oliekan's new "ride"

Some of the wood is cut, loaded into the trucks and taken to the burn pit. 

My first truckful

Here we go...

TADA!!!!!! Sucess

These logs have to be pulled off the hill, down to the road.  I actually did that with the dump truck!

 The wood is divided into three groups.  The big logs are blocked and will be put into the splitter and used for firewood in the camp.  The second group is the smaller stuff and will be fed into the chipper.  The chipped wood is spread in the camps and on the trails.
The rest is "slash" and is hauled to the burn pit and burned.  

Elder Oliekan- blocking logs

Right now we are leaving the majority of the clean up for the girls and volunteers that come to camp.  They will do a lot of the work for their service projects.  We are trying to take care of the most essential areas that affect the safety of the campers, and the running of the camp- for instance, some of the challenge courses have trees down where they need to set up their equipment.

We have a great team! We are enjoying getting to know them.