Service Projects- Part 1- Benches

     One of the fun things we get to do this year is helping the Young Women with their service projects.  We are finding out that for every hour the girls serve, there are hours of preparation done by the missionaries.  

     The big push this year is to replace old benches in the campfire pits in the different camps.  The benches are old, rotted and full of big, black ants!  

     We started preparing before the girls arrived at camp- it was our "bad weather" activity when we couldn't cut wood.  A lot of the prep work was done at the bottom of the hill in a large storage garage.  

 The premilled logs were cut to size and  loaded on the trailer and transported down from the mountain.  

 Saw horses were set up and the logs were carried in so we could work on them.  

The 6  foot logs weren't too heavy, but the 8 and 10 foot logs get pretty cumbersome.

Each log is lifted onto the rollers, marked and then drilled with a drill press, and then drilled again.

                         Then they are moved again and drilled on the top side.  

                          Each log is sanded and routed, and then moved again.

 The logs are then brushed off and borated to kill the bugs that might be in the wood and to discourage bugs from getting in them in the future.  They are then moved again to dry, and then moved again to the trailer.  They are then moved back up the mountain.  

It gets very dusty in the shed, so we try to protect our radios and jackets.

No wonder no one could get hold of us on the radios!

The prepared logs are then stained- on the bottom, and then the next day on the top.

This happened right after we got one set of logs stained...

Sigh...... orange slush?

Needless to say, we have lifted and carried a lot of logs this summer.

 The benches set on cement pedestals.  Most of the ones we have used were made by the missionaries last year.  As we were running out, we had to set up a cement "plant" and make some new ones.

Elder Elswood- mixing cement

Granger, Elder and Sister Adams, and Sister Elswood- filling forms

screeting the blocks

Inspecting the blocks

Each pedestal weighs about 55 pounds

Look Who is On The Mountain This Week!

This is our niece, Shaylee Skiver.  She is a YCL for her stake.  They have been camping in Reeder all week.  It took us until today to find her!  She is having a great time, and it is obvious that she is well loved in her ward!  It was fun to chat with her for a few minutes.

Outside Our Window

This is what we saw outside of our bedroom window this morning!!!

Hump Day!!!

This cute treat was in our mailbox!

Believe it or not, July 11th was our official half way point for the summer!  It's hard to believe the time is going so quickly.  After this week, we only have 3 more weeks of girls, then we will be back to families and groups.  Then we will be getting the camp ready for the winter.  It's hard to believe this adventure is almost over!

Sons of Helaman Camp

   

   We had an awesome experience this weekend.  A "Sons of Helaman" group came up from the Highland Utah South Stake.  150 young men and their leaders were camped in Reeder.  These young men were Priest age with a few 15 year old boys thrown in.  According to one stake leader, 85 % of the young men in the stake participated.  They spent the majority of the week in white shirts, ties and blue jeans.
     On Friday it was our job to provide a service project for them.  They donned their camp shirts and reported to a hillside where our team had been diligently working to cut up trees for them to haul out.  

Before we can run a service project, the area has to be prepared.  Many hours are spent by the Elders, with chain saws, cutting up the downed trees and blocking them into manageable sections.

The boys arrived, walking down the trail 

As they came, they began picking up the wood and bringing  to the trucks

This is a pile of slash they are loading into the truck I am driving

Sometimes the most efficient way is to form a line and pass the wood from person to person

The boys literally "swept" the hillside.  They brought out old stuff and actually took down a few dead trees themselves

As the boys loaded the trucks it soon became evident that the safest place for us was in the cab.  They were pretty aggressive throwing the wood in!

Blocked wood truck

They brought wood out of the forest faster than we could dump the trucks and come back for more

They filled wheelbarrows and then just picked them up and dumped them on the back of the trucks

Breaking for lunch.  They fed us very well!

The burn pit before we dumped the wood

The burn pit after we dumped the wood

In about 2-2 1/2 hours, the boys filled more than 40 truck loads!!!

That night we were able to help some of the boys as they did the challenge course.  The next day they invited us to come to the end of their testimony meeting.  They all stood and sang a version of "Helaman's Army". They were amazing.  Afterward, the leaders lined up for a "hug-a-line".  They invited the missionaries to join in.  The boys walked down the line and hugged all of the leaders and the missionaries.  They all expressed their thanks to us for letting them come, and for our service.  We thanked THEM all for their service!  They were an amazing bunch of young men.  This was one of those days when we know why we are on this mountain, why the service we are doing is important.  This was a PAYDAY!!!

Building Stairs and Other Projects

     Between tired and poor internet service, I am a bit behind on these posts.  
We have been very busy with a variety of projects.  Granger has still been cutting a lot of wood with the chain saw.  There are so many trees down that have to be cut up before the Sons of Helaman camp comes up on Friday.  We will have 150 young men here to do a service project.  We have to be ready for them.  Also the Young women come next week and we will be doing service projects with them.  So, there is a lot to do.  It is hard work.
     In between cutting wood, we have been doing other projects:
Sometimes the stairs need to be replaced on the trails...

The old stairs have to be taken out

New logs are selected and measured

New logs are set in place

The dirt has to be leveled out so wood chips can be added

Elder Adams and Elder Oliekan with a new set of steps!

Another job that needed to be done was replacing the flag poles that had broken off...

The old pole has to be dug out of the ground

Setting the new pole

We burned slash in the burn pit.  It happened that we had an all camp evacuation drill while the fire was going- so the smoke added a bit of realism!

Sister Kuerth, Sister Palfryman and I sealed the new tool boxes that go in the back of the gators


We have some fun too... Rice Krispie treats made by Sister Migel

Sister Adams

Sister Elswood
Yum, Yum!