The Borcherts are Bikers???

Dear Friends and Family,

We hope you enjoyed a few facts about the Jacob Hamblin home, last blog.  This week we will highlight the Brigham Young Winter Home.

Brigham Young owned a number of properties in St. George and actually owned three homes.  The home he choose to winter in the last 7 winters of his life were in the home pictured below.  It really is a very charming New England-Victorian piece of architecture.  The colors are original and yes, Brigham had these saints learn to Faux Paint.  All the lumber in the home is pine and there are several different finishes on the wood.  The door/window casings are painted to resemble Oak.  There are several other pieces of furniture in the home that have been finished to resemble, Walnut, Mahogany, Marble and Birds Eye Maple.  Really quite remarkable since they had to use pine cones, feathers or any other choice little implement they could find to paint the grain they were trying to imitate.

OK, yes, one of the most asked questions is, "How many wives did Brigham Young have?"  Well, I think it will surprise some of you that he had 56 wives and 57 seven children.  Now-before some of you fall off your chairs, he shared a household with less than half of these women.  He had children with 16 of them.   He colonized hundreds of settlements and most of them still exist today. They run from Calgary Canada, to San Bernadino CA,including Las Vegas and Mesquite NV.  For a man who had 11 days of formal education, I would say he "Done Real Good!"  By the way, the three major Universities in Utah owe their beginning to Brigham Young.

As you can see in the pictures of his home, the Sisters were able to have a field trip to visit.  We actually trained the Sisters on giving a tour of the home.  Sometimes when we are swamped we call upon these very capable Missionaries to come bail us out.  This last Saturday we were short a Sr. Couple at Brigham's and we had 224 visitors.  The Sisters were unable to come, so we ran around like hamster's in their little wheels.  We just ran from one tour to the next and the funny thing is, Bruce and I will go all day without seeing each other.  He will have a tour in the house and I will have one out side or in the office.  It's bizarre.  (In a Good Way)

The last thing you need to know about this site, is Brigham had an office built adjacent to the home so he could do the business of the church.  This is where he, with a few of the Apostles, codified (wrote down) all of the Temple Ordinances for the first time.  Prior to this, they were given from memory. (Pretty impressive---heck yea!)

So p-day this week was an experiment in how young Bruce and I think we are.  We bought bikes and had rode along the Urban trails of St George going 15-20 miles each time.  So of course we think we can ride up Snow Canyon.  We load the bikes on the Jeep and take off.  We drive to the mouth of the canyon, unload the bikes and start up the canyon.  Wellllllll-not such a good idea.  We didn't realize how uphill this trail is.  We made it half way and could hardly stand up.  Usually, I'm like come on we can do this, but I was whipped.  My legs felt like rubber and I was wondering how I was going to get back to the Jeep.  Yep-we turned around and went back.  Down hill was heaven.  So we loaded up the bikes and went to the movie and had popcorn and Jr. Mints.

I'm not sure which storm to talk about.  AZ got hammered, UT got hammered and St. George was a virtual water fall.  As you can see by the pictures the Santa Clara and the Virgin Rivers were running fast and furious.  Sometimes I think "HE" just wants to remind us whose really in charge and who has the power. 

Our days are full and the weeks are flying by.  We are working hard, but happy for it.  When I stop to think of all of you, it makes me sad to think we don't see you everyday, but we are truly enjoying the time here and realize it will be over in a blink of an eye.  

Happy days to all of you and BE SAFE.

We love you,

Bruce and Dawna

Elder and Sister

PS.  I realized that I forgot to wish a Happy Birthday to our wonderful son-in-laws, Ryan (Sept 13th) and Eldon (Sept 27th), and our dear friend Karen Reeder (Sept 23rd)  At least I got their cards in the mail.