Biggest trek of the Year, most trekkers on the ranch this week

Sunday July 10, we sang in sacrament meeting in two different wards. Who would of ever thought we would be singing so much? The Pearts talked in one of the meetings and they did an excellent job. The second meeting at 1:00 I think a lot of the missionaries had a hard time keeping their eyes open for the whole meeting.

We had our good friend Paul Tucker and his daughter Megan and son-in-law Ben and their 3 children come up for the weekend. We took them on short 4 wheel ride, with their allergies it was short, but fun for the kids. They had a great time relaxing and watching videos, and playing games. and seeing the wildlife on the ranch.

Paul Tucker and Elder Call, friends for life

Monday night we had a wonderful family night with with the Stake Presidency from the Evanston Stake and, it was presented by the Dennis Family. They were here last Fathers Day when we came up to check out the ranch and serving a mission here. In 1985 Brother Dennis rode their horses over 576 miles from Chimney Rock to Fort Bridger. This took 31 days. He told of the different places on the trail where the pioneers came through and what happened at each place. They even made National Geographic magazine.

 This family was also involved with the "Second Rescue" in the Riverton Wyoming Stake of getting the names and doing all the Temple work for the Willy and Martin handcart members and doing their temple work. This is such an impressive story of miracles of how this all came about before the internet, that makes research so easy.

Brother Dennis did a lot of treks after that making handcarts out of the old electrical wire spools. We have come a long ways with treks since that time.

Brother Dennis, one of the first trekkers.

Jarem Dennis, sharing special experiences of trekking

7-11-16 Monday Slurpee Day. Stephanie Sabin had our 23rd grandchild.They live in Oklahoma. Proud parents Eric and Stephanie Sabin, and big brother Ethan. Little Mateo Paul Sabin arrived at 2:29 and was 7 lbs 10 ozs and 21 1/2 inches long. This is a special day, because it is Sister Call's mom's birthday and nine  year anniversary of Eric returning from his mission in the West Indies. Baby Mateo is doing well. Stephanie was diagnosed with post partum cardiomyopathy. She had a lot of specialist do many tests and will need to be watched very carefully for many months to come. They left the hospital on Saturday.

Mateo Paul Sabin, 7 lbs, 10 oz, 21 1/2/inches 

We had a rough week the last week on the handcarts and many repairs had to be done on them on Tuesday. We also call it port-a-john Tuesday now for the sisters as we get to sweep, spray them down with simple green, and wipe out as much dirt as possible. It is hard to keep anything very clean out here in the dirt. A lot of things about this mission are hard, but the rewards are so worth it. We just joke to the trekkers that dirt is the breakfast of champions.

Wednesday July 13, we had South Weber Stake come with 568 people and 47 handcarts. We were on trail 14 but did part of trail 29, so the first day was over 11 miles. We were with Elder and Sister Brinkerhoff, and Elder and Sister Higginson, Their theme was "Conquer Your Quest" They had 4 companies and one was the Young Single Adult Ward. It was good we had 6 missionaries since they spaced them out like 4 treks. They had two trail bosses for each company. They liked to do things on the trail and keep the youth out all day, instead of getting to camp and having their activities there. It was a challenge for the missionaries, but tried to accommodate their wishes.

The Call Clan, Elder and Sister Call and Tammy and Anson Bowen Call IV
his son was on the trek also and is Anson Bowen Call V.

Fireside, we had a lot of trekkers this week

Brother Welch, trail boss, Elder and Sister Brinkerhoff, Elder and Sister Call, Elder and Sister Higginson

This group had more blisters them all of our other ones put together. We think the doctors and medics put on yards and yards of moleskin. Every water stop which is about every 30 minutes of walking was 15 minutes with all the blister repair.

Elder  and Sister Snow who is the Church Historian was their guest speaker on Wednesday. We are so privileged to here some amazing firesides each week on these treks.

Elder and Sister Snow

There is a new 4 wheeler side by side that is a little bigger than the other ones and it really kicks up the dust and fills the inside with dust. We had it this week, and so the three sisters who drove it this week were covered with dirt, so we loved walking instead of having to drive it.

Thursday is usually the night for the hoedown and then a special devotional by a member of the Stake Presidency.

Hoedowns are always fun

Friday they had a really nice woman's pull and the young men sang at the top as the woman came up the hill. With this large of a group it was really loud and didn't get drowned out with the wind. It was all good and then they had their meeting afterwards with their own individual families. We trekked down the trail about two more miles and had lunch by families and solo time with letters after lunch in a meadow. One of the young men wanted to see cows so bad. They had moved them just a few days before and there were many cow pies as evidence in eating lunch and solo time.

Solo time at lunch on the trail. 

I walked a lot with the the trail bosses of Trudy and Dirk the blue company, and got to know them and there medic Keith. It was like my own little trek, since this stake really liked to keep the 4 groups separated.

At camp they had a lot of games of tug a war, cow pie frisbe toss, calf roping, kubb, a viking game. log sawing, board games of Chinese checkers and checkers. Also crafts of tic-tac-toe made with rocks and then making punch letters on washers to make necklaces. The biggest hit was the beauty salon, where they washed with conditioner and small bottles of water the youths hair and then braided it and also did foot washing with cold water. By the third day of trekking they loved any part of being able to be clean.

Beanbag toss

Team snowshowing

Cow pie frisby

lassoing

The food all week was excellent, as all our treks feed us so well. We tell them there is only one problem with it and that is they feed us too well.

Beautiful sunsets on the ranch

At the end of the trek as we were coming back into staging thy gave us each a white handkerchief.

In Pioneer times, a white handkerchief was often waved to welcome home those who had been away, show support to those leaving to serve the Lord, and a sign of love to family and friends. Today as you complete this Pioneer Trek, we give you a white handkerchief for the very same reasons. Families can be forever. So go forth, and Conquer you Quest.

The weeks gifts, of song book, handkerchief,neckerchief,and games made.