The beauty of Montana

Was cracking eggs and saw it had made a face!

Can’t believe it is June already.  May seemed to have gone by so fast.  This week was mainly two tasks for me - Name tags and DVR’s (Daily Vehicle Record).  I had been waiting to see if there were any additions to our arrivals for June 16 & 17.  Not any - so Monday I ordered name tags for the re-assigned missionaries.  Tuesday, we get notice there will be 5 more.  Of course!  To get free shipping, I have to order 18 tags or $75 worth.  Friday, I went over the files for the group coming July 17th.  About half were re-assigned to our mission from a foreign mission.  All of this group are coming straight out of the MTC (virtual one), but if their original assignment was a different language, they were sent name tags in that language.  So Friday, I ended up ordering $165 in name tags.  Each missionaries gets two tags and a clip.  Clips are pretty essential in missions where it gets cold.  All the tags should come in plenty of time to give them out when the missionaries get here.

My other task for the week was DVR’s.  That is something I do to help Walt.  It’s mostly just paperwork, verifying charges and contacting (sometimes harassing) ones that need additional information or didn’t sent theirs in.  I am getting a bit more aggressive with the ones turning it in late.  We’ll see if all 17 of the ones I didn’t have are in my in box tomorrow.  I finally have a good system down for doing them and we’ll be leaving just before they are due next month.  I will try my best to coerce them into getting them in by July 3rd.  

On Monday, lots of missionaries came to the Mission Office to wash their cars 

Elder Pierce and Elder Sorenson

Walt spent a lot of time qualifying drivers and getting the missionaries to get their oil changed.  They get notified when they are due and then Walt gets to remind them.  There were two accidents this week, so he gets to deal with that.  There are so many times I think how grateful I am that I don’t have his job.  He gets plenty of calls from missionaries with car issues.  I hope they are learning how to get these things done so they can do them when they get home.  Another issue Walt had to deal with was where cars were actually located.  It is the job of the AP’s to assign the cars.  I’m not really sure why that is; seems like that would be Walt’s job.  They don’t write the changes down, they just have them in their head.  Not surprisingly, the information doesn’t always make it to Walt.  So there was a little stress over that this week.

We had some thunderstorms this week.  One rolled in just before it was time to leave work for the day.  I hurried Walt out and were able to make it inside before the bottom fell out.  It was a doozie.  Then after an hour, the sun came out.  We got our nightly walk in and then about 9 pm another one hit.  As hard as it rained, we really expected to see a bit of hail, but nothing.  Hail damage is the number cause of repairs to mission cars.  Beth sent out a video with their hail storm.  Emma wore her winter coat with a hood to help get things brought in from the rain and hail.  I shared that it looked like Wyoming/Montana weather.  She said we could keep it.  She’s no fun!

We saw this on one of our walks.  I call it the antler Christmas tree.

Friday was super quiet at the office.  The Wild’ were off to Missoula to set up a new apartment for the Sister missionaries there.  He had a trailer full of things from the storage unit here.  President Larson didn’t come in that day.  We had just gotten news that one of the brand new trucks assigned out just the week before had been in an accident.  Things like that just start to wear on him after a while.  There are plenty of others things to deal with.  We pray for him everyday.  It’s just a really stressful and unprecedented time all around.  

I was thinking today how many unique experiences people are having through this pandemic.  Hospital workers, teachers, students, parents with children at home and having to do school work with them, leaders of communities, missionaries etc.  Tons of books could be written about people’s lives and the changes, hardship, and sometimes blessings that have come through this.

I think we were grateful for Friday to come.  When we were MLS missionaries in Newcastle, there weren’t really “week-ends”.  P-Day was when we could get one in; unlike the young missionaries.  Sunday was the only day specialized in that way.  Now it’s definitely “It’s the Week-end!” For us.  We had some great plans for Saturday with the Smith family.  We were going to meet them at Leigh Creek Campground near the Big Horns and spend the day fishing and day camping.  We were so looking forward to seeing them after not seeing them for 2 1/2 months.  We were both keeping an eye on the weather, but of course, it seemed to change from day to day.  Saturday morning arrived, and I see that it is supposed to thunder storm from 1 - 5 pm.  Pretty much the whole time we would be at the campground.  Sadly, we decided it just wasn’t going to work.  It is so hard to make plans around weather here.  I was really bummed and feeling like it would be a wasted Saturday.  Walt ended up finding a place we had been before on our first Saturday adventure in Billings.  

Walt noticed this beautiful moth was hanging out on the office door frame.  

It’s a place called Natural Bridge and is about an hour and a half away.  It wasn’t supposed to rain there until 5 pm.  It was cloudy the whole time, but we didn’t run into rain until we got back to Billings.  Walt looked at the radar for Wyoming while we were driving to Natural Bridge and they were about to get slammed at the campground we would have been at.  

Natural Bridge turned to be pretty amazing.  The last time we went there in early April, there was still quite a bit of snow there and weren’t able to go farther than the bridge built as an overlook of the Boulder River.  The rivers here are pretty high right now, probably from all the snow melting in the mountains.  There are plenty of mountains that still have snow on them right now.  Some have snow almost all year long.  

All the following pictures are all wild flowers we saw along our hike

There is a paved trail that goes to the left of the river, where overlook have been built.  It’s nice that this is wheel chair accessible.  A good amount of trails and such are not.  We did that path first.  The second trail is not paved (I call it a real trail) and goes to the right.  You cross the man made bridge and hike up and down the mountain to get to the other side.  The river runs under the limestone at this particular place and then gushes out the other side.  Thus the name “Natural Bridge”.  With the river being so high, that water was really moving.  We hiked the trail, which was pretty steep in some places.  We took the path that went down to the bottom of the fall first, then climbed back up and then up some more to the top.  There are sometimes when my short little legs have a very difficult time reaching the step up.  Thank goodness we use hiking poles. 

The trail

A view from one of the overlooks

Walt took this one from the top where I didn't go

The river just before it goes under ground

Another good picture from the top view

This is the trail at the top that Walt went on.

The views we see here never cease to amaze us.  I love taking time to just sit and soak it all in.  There was a part near the top, where I was all to happy to sit, rest and enjoy, while Walt went on up.  It works out well for both of us.  There was one part at the top where you had a straight view at the falls.  The places where there were holes in the rocks made it look like a face with the mouth open and shooting out the water.  

This where it looks like a face with the mouth spewing water

We had planned on eating lunch (cooking out hotdogs on a fire) at Natural Bridge because there was a picnic area.  Unfortunately, this one only had picnic tables and no fire pits.  When we were finished with the hike, we went on down the road hoping to find an appropriate spot.  The road just passed Natural Bridge, turns into a dirt road.  It was well kept (at that point).  Not sure how far down we went when we started to spot some camping areas.  We found one that only had one campsite occupied; leaving us a choice of sites.  This camp ground was situated right beside the river.  So we were able to cook our lunch and enjoy the river.  Walt is pretty sure when the river isn’t so high, the camp grounds are full.  This would have been a pretty sweet place to camp.  You’d be able to kayak or float down the river.  There were some kayakers out that day.  Guess you have to really love the adventure.  That kind of white water rafting doesn’t interest me at all.  Walt think it looks great.  

Selfie at our lunch camp site.

Great picture of the Boulder River and the white water

Love all the ever greens on the mountain

We drove and drove down that dirt road.  We had no idea where it would lead us and couldn’t really look it up since there is no cell service there.  When the road got too rough and deep with puddles, we decided to finally turn around.  There were a couple of big church camps there, and lots campers.  We understand now why there are so many camping trailers going down the road all summer long.  We think it would be pretty awesome to do something like that.  It turned out to be a fun day after all; even though seeing the Smiths would have topped it.  I was telling Walt as we drove home, how much I will miss seeing the beauty here.  It is definitely a nature/outdoors’s men paradise.  I think if we could move our whole family here, it would be perfect.  I keep thinking how much the grandchildren would love seeing all of this.  I wish I could work out a way to bring them out here next summer.  

                                             Pictures along our drive down the dirt road. 

Today is a beautiful sunny day; not even too hot.  I am sitting out on our porch while  I write this.  We had sacrament with the missionaries in our district again; we were even on time.  Some of the Wyoming Stakes started back to church today.  They each had to make a plan on how they would follow social distancing guidelines and present it to the Stake President, who in turn gets approval from the Area Authority.  It was so sad to think of all our Newcastle friends meeting together and not being there with them.  Of course, it would have been super hard to not hug them or at least shake hands.  We’re not sure if Montana will get to that point before we leave.  At least we will be able to meet with the Newcastle ward for church service on our way home in July.  Maybe we’ll be able to hug them by that time.

Our meeting with our District

It’s hard to imagine being at home, but we think about it more and more as the time gets closer.  We are not looking forward to the drive home but will be so excited to see our family again.  Abe, Anya and the kids moved into their newly remodeled house last week-end.  They are so excited to have it finished.  Now they just need to put our house back together.  It should be done in plenty of time.  

We hope you all had a good week.  Things seem to be loosening up in a lot of places and we’re sure that makes life a bit easier.  All the kids are finally done with school.  Maybe it will finally feel like summer vacation.