Visitors Galore

Craig and Gail Larsen from our River Ridge 9th ward stopped by the Fort and I was able to take them on a tour. Their son is the bishop of Carol and Merle Allen's ward in Gilbert. Gail has attended Relief Society where she and Carol became acquainted.


The day before the Larsen's visit, the Porters came to visit the Allens. Elder Allen was ready to take them on tour as I passed by. Sister Porter turned out to be Jane Ball from the Mesa 20th ward who is now married to a Porter! They have their papers in to go on a mission. We were able to visit for a couple of minutes. Her oldest daughter, Jennifer, lives in Highland and has two small children.

Sister Allen called tonight and asked if we knew some Redhairs from Page. She had just taken them on a tour. We hurried up to the Fort to visit with them for a few minutes. Brother Redhair is a counselor in the New Mexico Albequerque Mission presidency. They had some children and grandchildren with them. OJ lives in Lehi and he is married to a red headed belagona (white) who has a doctrate in Special Education. They have two children.

George's Five Tours

Today has been a special day in many ways.  On an average day, giving three tours is the usual.  Rarely are we blessed with the opportunity to give four tours.  But, today I gave five!  Not only that but these tours were some of the most spiritual I have been involved in.

The first tour I conducted was with a Catholic man who had a “mild” interest in antiques.  He was from Ohio.  After going through two rooms, he exclaimed, “My wife has got to see this!”  I assumed his wife was somewhere else, but in fact, she was resting in their van.  We hurried back to get her and began the tour again.  Her love of antiques was even greater than his.  By the third room they were feeling the Spirit of the Fort and wanted to know more about why the Hinkleys were willing to work so hard and yet were so happy.  I explained as carefully as I could that they were called by Christ, through the prophet Brigham Young.  They seemed to understand.

As we continued through Fort, they were more and more impressed.  Their questions came in rapid-fire order.  When we finally got to the display of Books of Mormon, she said she wanted one.  You see, she was a Buddhist from Thailand.  I agreed to have one sent to her in the Ti language.

As we walked back to their van, the questions kept coming.  I virtually gave them the First Discussion.  Will anything come of our meeting?  I can’t say, but we all felt the Spirit and at least a very important seed was planted.

All of my other tours today had special meaning to me and my guests.  I met a father and son; the son was soon to depart on a mission to Lansing, Michigan.  I met three history teachers who gained a strong and personal testimony of the faith and sacrifice of the pioneers.  I met a sweet family with three daughters.  They all loved the spirit of the Fort and before we concluded the parents were (almost) ready to sign up as missionaries when retired.

Being a missionary at Cove Fort is so much more than being a mere tour guide.  Mom and I have become tools in the hands of the Holy Ghost as we talk about the lives, sacrifices, dedication, joy, and accomplishments of the Hinkleys and other pioneers.

We and our guests are blessed every day.

July 24th

       

Today we dressed in period costumes to celebrate the 24th. Many people came on their way to other celebrations, a few to celebrate their pioneer heritage and their ties to the Hinckley family, others just happened by like the four people came to look at the Fort who spoke only Italian. In the interest of time, they took a couple of pictures of the Fort and of us and went on their way to Las Vegas. Elder Ross did a great job communicating with them through gestures, Spanish, etc.

Carriage

President and Sister Hinckley rode down the road to the dedication of Cove Fort in 1994 in this carriage.

Cove Fort Cinder Cone

The areas to the west of the freeway from Fillmore to Manderfield is known as the Black Rock Desert. It is covered in dark red, brown, and black basaltic lava flows, the oldest being around one million years old, and the youngest being 600-800 years old (the Ice Springs lava flow, youngest in Utah). The prominent hill east of I-15 near Cove Fort is a basaltic cinder cone, less than 12,000 years old, known as the Cove Fort Cinder Cone. Basalt is an iron-rich volcanic rock, which can erupt in lava flows (as in Hawaii) or spatter out of a vent and create a cinder cone. Basaltic rock often has numerous rough edges that look like popped bubbles. These "bubbles: were created when small pockets of gases were trapped while the rock was cooling from a liquid (lava) to a solid (the basalt as you see today).
Thanks, Keryn, for this information!

Lava rock is all along the highway that was used to build the Fort.

Fruits from Haiti

My last tour of the day was an elderly couple from Delta (who had been on a couple of missions before adopting four Haitian children) with two of their adopted children. They have two boys, 13 and 14 who are at scout camp. The boys are siblings with one of the girls. The darling girls were about 15-16.  The girls had been to Cove Fort a couple of times a few years ago. They were going to give me the tour, but after the first room they were caught up in the spirit of the Fort and asked me lots of questions. I was able to bear my testimony of tithing, reading the scriptures, the Book of Mormon, etc. It was so fun. They loved the sharing toy. We went to the out building and on the way we looked at each of the vegetables in the garden. They knew many of them. The parents didn’t say much and let me interact with the girls. We covered the blacksmith shop, the ox lift, the Jackson rake, the barn and the bunk house. In the bunk house we talked about being born in the era we belonged and the challenges for them in theirs. They didn’t seem to want to leave. We ended with the prairie schooner and I walked them back toward their car. We then had to name all the flowers in the beds. Sister Ayers cut them some flowers to smell and play with like the snapdragon and the lavender. We talked about making dolls out of the hollyhocks. They just may come to Cove Fort days.

An Old Friend

We met Bill Duckett an old friend of ours from Page at the Canyon Breeze golf course in Beaver at 10:30am for a round of golf. His eye sight isn’t what it used to be so George had to watch the flight of his ball for him because he is developing macular degeneration. Bill is about 10 years older than we are. We took him to the Crazy Cow for lunch. He then followed us back to Cove Fort for a quick tour. It was fun to share the Fort with an old friend.

Friday the 13th

The 13^th has always been my lucky number and add a Friday, awesome! The day started a little slow at the MPR. We were there at 8am and finally got a tour at 10am. The tour was a combo family of 14 on their way to a family reunion. We split them in half and took them on the tour. They were delightful!

About 11:30 the Ogden family arrived. Michelle and Dan are good friends with Kim and Steve. Michelle is also in the quilt group I attend. Dan’s brother and his wife, Julie (who used to cut and color my hair before we went to the West Indies) and their children were all on their way to Duck Creek for their family reunion. We kept them as a group to see the video and tour the Fort. It was a super fun tour.

Brad and his family arrived about 3:30pm while it was pouring rain. We talked for a half hour while the weather cleared and then took a tour of the Fort. They were on their way to a Tobler family reunion at Marysvale.

The day ended with a fish fry put on by the Baileys. Elder Bailey’s three brothers and their wives came and did the cooking of the salmon and trout. The salmon was deep fried and it was excellent. We also had Dutch oven potatoes, salad and rolls. We said our farewells to the Johnsons who need to return home for medical reasons.

4 Wheeling in a Toyota

A trip to Beaver to drop off cleaning, pick up some videos at the library and have lunch ended up in a 4 wheeling in a Toyota Camry adventure. The Toyota preformed like a hummer, not. We took the Sulphurdale exit and drove through the abandoned sulphur mining town. Instead of returning to the road at the entrance of the town (which we didn’t even think of) we headed on a dirt road toward I 70 to find another road that connected to an entrance to the road to Cove Fort. We wandered around on rutted, rocky, grassy, dirt roads at crawling speeds much of the time trying to find our way to I 70. We saw and heard the interstate many times but couldn’t get to it. I walked one half mile to see if the car could traverse a road that looked promising. After panicking George (who was certain I had been attacked by wild animals)  during the 20 minutes I was gone, we retraced our tracks up and down the gulleys and hills back to Sulfurdale. Taking the correct road, we were at Cove Fort in 5 minutes.

Two diverse tours

My first tour was a woman, Miranna, from Poland who now lives in California. She was traveling alone to see some of the sites in Utah and Arizona. She is Catholic. The tour was different from the beginning.  I was able to talk about prophets, tithing, missions, families, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon and prayer. She had tears streaming down her face as I did the sharing toy. She kept saying how wonderful it all was. I know it was the spirit she was feeling that she was referring to and not the artifacts in the fort even though they provided the tools to talk about the gospel. She didn’t want to have the missionaries but I still gave her a card. I talked about prayer and the Savior. On the way back to the MPR we talked about no coincidences. I challenged her to pray about the things we had talked about and to send the card in.

My second tour was also a group of members of another faith. Two vehicles came in with 10 German people and a driver. Someone else took half of the people to make the tours more manageable. I had the driver. At the end of the tour I found out he was a missionary in Germany several years ago. These people were members of a family he had kept in contact with since his mission. They have visited the US six times and he and his companion, who live in Centerville and Farmington, respectively, have hosted them each time. It was these kids’ grandparents who had been kind to him on his mission by having them over for dinner. These people never joined the church but love feeding the missionaries. The tradition of feeding missionaries has continued even though none of them have joined the church. They are not interested in religion.

Special Visitors

Friday, July 6, 2012

 Nicole, Bowen, Corbin and Rex arrived about 4:30pm. We took them on a tour through the Fort and the out buildings. We had dinner and went for a walk. The boys hiked to the top of the hill across from the hollar.

The boys slept in a tent on our lawn.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

After pancakes, eggs and bacon for breakfast they headed for Page to visit friends and family. It was great to visit with them for a few hours.

July Fourth, 2012

Today is the Fourth of July, 2012, a special day in so many ways.  It is the birthday of our wonderful nation.  So many great men and women have recognized the important truth that the United States of America came into being in order to fulfill prophesy.  Without America and our inspired constitution, the restoration of the Gospel and the preparation of the Earth for the Second Coming of the Savior would have been thwarted. 

To us here at the Cove Fort Historic Site, the day was appropriately honored by all of the missionaries as well as some special guests and friends.  It began with the raising of the flag.  All of the men who had served in the military were called upon to take part by passing the flag up the Rampart to the flagpole and then rendering a military hand salute as it was raised.  I had not known before but in 2008 Congress passed a law which authorizes all veterans to render a hand salute in honor of the flag or the National Anthem.  Prior to this law, a hand salute could only be given while in full uniform.  The new law is good and appropriate.  Over half of the men in our mission were veterans. 

As the flag was raised, and my personal salute was rendered, I could not contain the quiet tears as I thought of my country and all of the brave men and women who had given the greatest and final sacrifice so that I and my loved ones could remain free.

Today I am proud to be an American, proud to have served in the United States Navy, proud of my wonderful family, proud to be part of the Savior’s Church, and proud to be here at Cove Fort serving a mission.