A Summit, Gardens, Retreat, and Pioneers Make for a Busy July

Wow, it's been a busy month! I've literally had something going on outside of work every day. This, unfortunately, has left me less time for blogging. I'll just quickly sum up some of the major events.

July 8-11 was the Summer Summit for the stake. It was really quite good in a number of ways. On the Thursday, we had stake temple night. I have never seen a temple so busy as Timp was that night! There was a line of about 10 sisters for the name booth when I got there, and I was still 30 minutes early for the 7:00 session I'd come for.



When I got upstairs, I found that the chapel was full and that the line to get into the chapel wrapped all the way down and around the lengthy side hall, with a good 100 people waiting. It was clear I wasn't making the established 7:00 session, but fortunately there were a number of others, including quite a few from my ward and one of the stake family history reps I work with, who also didn't make it in. I guess our stake night on top of the fact that the Provo temple was closed made for a crazy busy night. I did finally get in for the 8:00 session, which was very nice of course, and had to hurry to bed when I eventually got home.

That Saturday, they did a seminar-style meeting with a number of speakers including Elaine S. Dalton. The whole meeting was really great, but what particularly stuck with me was the prompting that I need to seek and trust the Spirit more fully. There was stuff about marriage, of course, and Sister Dalton talked about how heavily she needed daily revelation both now and as General Young Women's President and how it took her many years to learn how to receive those promptings properly.

Probably most impressive to me, however, was a former seminary teacher who talked in depth about how he was prompted to quit his CES job he loved with no plan in place and then how he desperately struggled to find employment for years before finally having doors open that lead him to a really prosperous new career where he's been able to do a lot of good. Being a pertty highly reason-oriented person, I think it would be hard for me to follow promptings like giving up my financial security on faith. I realized that while that may not be asked of me, I do need to exercise greater trust in all of the promptings I go receive, career-related or not. My habit it to have thoughts for things I should do which I often just reason away and realize later I probably shouldn't have. My resolution is to act more promptly on those inspirations even when there are good reasons, to my mind, that I shouldn't.

I also got to attend the Steel Days garden show again this year, only this time my friend Amy from the ward came with me. I love this tour, even though it isn't as good as the Virginia Garden Week. A big part of the charm of it is getting to talk to the very lovely owners. Most of them are older retired folks who have spent some good time caring for their yard. The large majority are LDS from the conversations I've had with them, and it's fun to learn about their missions, hobbies, families, etc. All are super nice people, which only adds to the appeal of seeing the beautiful fruits of their labors.

This year, I actually met a lady on the tour who was from Moreland originally and knew some of my family to some extent or another. She even knew Dad, though he was apparently a few years younger than him. She and her husband run a carriage business that rents out and drives all kinds of historic carriages. They also do a lot of plays and movies apparently. They supplied all the handcarts for 17 Miracles, in fact. It was really interesting to see the large collection of vehicles they have, from an ornate hearse from the early 1900's to a gypsy caravan wagon and a large selection of sleighs.

The next weekend, Our RS went to an amazing cabin up in the mountains for a retreat. It was really fun, of course, and I had the chance to get to know a number of sisters better and to spend time with some others I know well and really admire. We did typical RS things like make a craft and play some games, and on Saturday, we had the chance to hear from the wives of our bishopbric and our bishop too. It was nice to hear from the wives since we don't see them so often, and Bishop Lemon always has good things to say. The overall theme focused on trusting the Lord and living up to our responsibilities as women of God in a tumultuous world.

For Pioneer Day yesterday, I hiked some of the Mormon Trail with the ward. We did a bit more than 5 miles in Emigration Canyon, cresting at the point where Brigham Young actually said, "This is the right place" upon seeing the Salt Lake Valley for the first time. While that was the most notable sighting, it was the same place that each pioneer coming to Salt Lake would have seen the valley.

For me, this trail has special meaning because I have been learning much more about my pioneer ancestors over the last few years. I've come to understand and know them more fully. I've also been reading the book Readings in LDS Church History and had just finished going through the collection of first-hand accounts of people who were in the Brigham Young company. Most of the reports came from William Clayton, but there were also entries from Matthias Cowley and Wilford Woodruff among some others. Having just read those accounts of seeing the valley and traveling through Emigration Canyon really changed the experience of going along that trail for me.

One of the things I found most interesting in those accounts is that there was consensus among the chroniclers that those last 30 miles through the canyon were by quite a measure the most difficult of the entire trek. I didn't really expect that, since you hear so much about the hardships in Wyoming, However, going there after reading the accounts made clear why that was the case. It is a pretty densely wooded area, especially in comparison to the plains they would have been traveling.

The Donner-Reed party had blazed the trail the year before the pioneers came through, but it wasn't in good shape when the Mormons came through, so they had to spend a significant amount of extra time improving it, not just for themselves, but to ease the way of the other pioneers to travel it later. Incidentally, it was the major delays the Donner party encountered in Emigration Canyon that delayed them such that they got caught in the storm in the Sierra Nevadas and had to resort to cannibalism. One of the major problems for both groups was that after cutting a path through the small trees, the cattle would get lamed on the sharp remaining stumps. This mean trees had to be entirely pulled out, roots and all in many sections.

I was thinking about many of these difficulties as I trekked along myself. Because I took time to read a few of the markers on the trail, I originally ended up in the back of the initial procession. Still, the drivers were in the process of driving to the top and being shuttled back to the bottom, so they were starting about half an hour behind the rest of us. My little delay resulted in me ending up behind the hikers who would struggle the most and were taking it very slow even in the first mile or so I was behind them. I didn't really mind, however, as I was happy to help those folks out as I could. Still, there were a number of others also there to provide support who were much more qualified to lend it in various ways than I was. So eventually, when the opportunity to pass came up eventually, after a moment of thought, I decided to take it. I felt pretty strongly compelled to see the top view of the valley before it got dark, which was a feat that was certainly in question as we only started hiking about 6:15 PM and had 5 miles to do.

After I started pulling ahead, I ran into a few other little groups and checked as I passed that they were doing ok before pressing on in hopes of making better time. Before long, I found myself on my own just going at my natural pace. Since I was alone, I decided to do a reasonable amount of trail running in the safer parts so that I could make up for some lost time and have a hope of hitting the top before dusk. Along the way, I kept hearing a lot of rustling in the brush which kind of freaked me out, especially since I kept thinking of how the pioneer accounts had noted that there were a lot of rattlesnakes along the Emigration Canyon route. Eventually, I saw a little mouse resting on the trail and convinced myself that it was probably just his friends that were freaking me out, and that if I were in danger of rattlers that I couldn't see, I would most likely hear the warning rattle before I had to worry about a strike!


After I got through this nerve-wracking section, I came to a marker that designated a trail campsite. Not sure if this was a place where any of my ancestors personally camped, but I could envision a small group of wagons camped there in preparation for the more steep ascent up the mountain.

Though I know many of my progenitors doubtless walked this trail, it was Francis Boggs who was most on my mind as I traversed it myself. He would have been traveling across it almost exactly 168 years before I was there myself, likely in much the same conditions, though the trail certainly would have been more wild in his day. I guess part of why he was so much in my thoughts was because I didn't know anything about him not that long ago. It was only a few years ago that I learned that we had an ancestor in Brigham Young's Company, which is pretty illustrious. I discovered that one of his summer coats is in possession of the Church History Library, so Mom, Dad, and I went to see it a while back.

As I came up the last rise, which was by far the steepest, most difficult part of the trail, It was Grandpa Francis who was running through my thoughts. As the sun was disappearing behind the Oquirrh range I got moment to see the valley in the last light of the day and reflect upon what Francis, Brigham, and all the others saw and how things have changed since. We know that Brigham saw a vision of the future in that place, but I wondered how many others would have seen or imagined that one day there would be hundreds of thousands of Mormons living in that valley, and that many beautiful temples would grace it. There was also a certain charm to thinking that in some small way, on my mission I helped to add to the beauty of that vision of what would be. That my small efforts built on the labors of those who first began to transform that valley. It was quite sublime.

After a while, I went back to where the rest of the people who'd already made it to the top were waiting around. The original idea had been that once everyone made it to the top, Bishop Lemon would say a few words and we'd each receive our booklets to help us prepare for our trek in Wyoming coming up in Oct. I knew a lot would be required of us each in prep for that, so I was eager to see what I need to do. But the folks in the very front had already been waiting around for about 20 minutes and people were starting to get more restless.

After talking to some people for a bit, I ended up hearing from one of the organizers of the event that the last group was reportedly still a good 30-45 minutes behind. It was already dusk, and we were worried that the people at the end might not have appropriate lighting for the journey, so we rounded up what flashlights we could and started back down the trail as fast as we safely could. A quarter mile down, we met Bro. McDonald, our first counselor, coming up with his family. They told us the rest of the group was a good 10 behind them. After talking things through a bit, it was decided that Bro McDonald would come back down to the back with us while his wife and daughter kept going forward where Sis. McDonald could take hold of the reins of those who had finished.

After travelling back for about 10 more minutes, we finally reached the last group. Fortunately, they did already have a few lights, which we were able to add to a bit. One of the girls had gotten a charley horse in both legs and was definitely struggling. For her sake, the pace on the way up had to stay pretty easy, so going up the final hill the second time was much easier for me than the first. The regular breaks we needed to take also gave some good opportunity to regroup and stargaze a bit.

It was a pretty merry party for climb up. All of the bishopric were there along with a few of their wives. A couple of the elders ended up coming back down shortly after our rescue party left, so we had a pretty good-sized group. I felt like I wasn't as useful as I would have liked to have been, but hopefully having us all there helped to keep the atmosphere light and encouraging, especially since we were better able to relate how much ground was left to cover. In the end, we all made it to the top a bit after 10:30.

This is the right place. The valley can vaguely be seen here just right of the center

Because of the lateness of the final arrival, most of the early group had ended up leaving before we arrived. Still, there were a few who remained and cheered the final couple of people as they came up. Everyone made it, even those who struggled, so it all turned out okay, despite the fact that we weren't able to have the closing devotional that had been planned.

In the end, it was a very satisfying Pioneer Day for me. I had some good time for personal reflection and also got to spend some quality time with people that I really admire. All in all, the experience was one that helped me to understand the pioneers better and appreciate their lives more. It's been a very busy July, but a highly satisfying one, overall.