Reflections- I Can Do Hard Things

     An important part of every service project is the "Reflection" process.  At camp we try to tie all thing to the spirit.  I am the one who gets to do this.  
     At the end of the hour, we gather the girls together and thank them for their service.  We often talk about paying service forward- for instance- the girls have enjoyed camp fires with wood they didn't split. Now they have split wood for the next group.
     I then ask a question such as what was hard about the project?  I then play off of their answers to begin a short discussion that leads to a gospel concept. Quite often we talk about teamwork and who in our lives are trusted members of our team as we deal with hard things.
   

One of my favorite reflections was with this cute group of girls.  They would each pick a huge log and then hold it while waiting for their turn at the log splitter.  The logs were really heavy.  As we reflected, I asked them what was hard.  One girl said it was holding the logs- so I asked her why she held it instead of setting it down while she waited.  She looked at me kind of funny and then you saw the light bulb turn on.  This led to a discussion about the heavy things we carry in our lives that we could choose to put down. Then we talked about how we can handle the hard things that we can't put down.  This ultimately led to the atonement and how Christ helps us carry our heavy burdens.  It was pretty cool.

When we split wood, one of my favorite reflections is talking about the "Core" that sometimes comes out of the wood whole.  The girls watch it pop out.  Our discussion centers around what makes a tree strong- the core. What can make a core weak?- bugs, desease, etc.  What happens to a tree when the core is weak?- it fails, falls over, dies. What is the core in our lives? What can we do to make it strong?  How can we repair our core if it cracks or is shattered because of life's trials?    

Reflection with the girls is one of the highlights of this mission.  Sometimes the spirit is so strong.  It is a great feeling when you see by the light in their eyes that they "get" the concept and it is something they will take home with them. 

Service Projects- Hauling and Splitting Wood

With all of the trees that have fallen down, and the dead trees that have been cut down, there is a lot of wood that needs to be hauled. This makes an excellent service project for the Young Women.   We have three categories of wood- Slash is the small stuff and junky stuff that we throw in the burn pit.  It takes the most space in the trucks.  Chipping wood is the smaller trees that we feed to the chipper and use the chips to line the trails (another service project for the girls).  Blocked wood is used to split for fire wood.

The girls can haul out some pretty big stuff.  Usually the Beehives pick the biggest logs!  These girls finally figured out that it is easier to "Chain" the wood up a steep hill rather than hiking up and down.

This is Sister Winterton.  When we are hauling wood, the dump trucks are essential.  That is where the sisters come in!

Splitting wood is actually one of the favorite projects.  

We have four splitters in the camp.  The missionaries run them and the girls get to help with the splitting and stacking the wood.

Here is our wood splitting set up at Camp Abish.  The girls load the wood in the trailer, and then take the wood to the wood boxes and stack it.

Elder Atwood

Elder Horrocks

Sister Horrocks is supervising

The Horrocks and the Atwoods are the Camp Hosts at Camp Abish.  We work very closley with them in planning the service projects.  Usually, after the service project is done, they invite us over for lunch so we can "evaluate" the project.  We have really enjoyed hanging out with them!!!

Service Project- Benches- Part 2

We have worked with several different Young Women's Groups this summer, installing the new benches.  The following pictures are a combination of the projects...

Old, log benches

Rotted and ant infested- HUGE ants!

Granger decided to make the bench map into an Excel spread sheet. It made the designing and inventory control of the logs a lot easier.  

The girls start by hauling out the old logs

Sometimes the logs are very heavy and the hills are very steep

The pedestals are brought in using specially designed carriers...

...or wheel barrows

The logs are carried in

Sister Parks (Camp Host) is very busy.  Benches are hard, hot work!

Placing the benches after the area is leveled and terraced

Sister Hyde-YW Committe
Sister Honroth- Esther Camp Host
Sister Elswood- Ground Maintenance

The girls work together to assemble the benches

Elder Oliekan has the girls survey their work and decide what needs to be done to make the project work better

Old benches

New benches!!!

Elder and Sister Adams with the Young Women

Finished bench project

This stake invited our crew to lunch- homemade tamales- Yum!!!

This fun ward took pity on us after we worked all afternoon and invited us to dinner. We visited with some darling Beehives!

Here are the newly completed benches being used for a dutch oven mixing station and footrests for the camp chairs in the rear. Hmmm, and WHY did we spend so much time on those benches ?!?!?!?

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