Spring Is Here!!

Hello to All,

Spring has arrived in St. George with all the beautiful trees starting to bloom and the weather turning to the perfect temperature - - -78 degrees, along with all the tourists, French, German, Danish, Korean and Chinese.  And then there are all the families escaping for Spring Break.  I told you in an earlier post that St. George is the center of the Universe.  We are seeing more guests each day at the Historical Sites and Visitor Center.  Today at the VC we had 3 buses - 2 French and 1 German. One French group took 12 Books of Mormon and the German bus took 3. 

We are very busy at the sites and need to eat our Wheaties each day to climb those "Steep Historical Steps" over and over again. On Saturday at Brigham Young's in a four hour period we gave 20 tours, so I climbed those steps 20 times.  You would think I would have buns of steel, but no that hasn't happened, but I can climb them without feeling like I'm sucking air from a plugged straw. This is one memory of our mission I won't forget soon.

Along with all the visitors and beautiful blossoms that have arrived, our allergies are in full bloom as well. Usually, Bruce is the one suffering, but something in St. George isn't agreeing with me. We are sneezing, wheezing and wiping runny noses all day long.  We are not the only ones, about every Sr. Couple is carrying around a box of Kleenex and complaining about the pollen.  I guess beautiful green trees, bushes, grass and flowers come with a price.----ALLERGIES  (yuck)

The past two weeks have had there ups and downs.  Our wonderful friends, The Watts, lost their daughter to a battle of melanoma on Wednesday, March 11th.  We were able to attend the funeral on Friday.  The service was beautiful and the flowers were unbelievable.  Andi had her own flower and event business and just had the artist touch for beautiful arrangements and her employees did not disappoint her with their works of art for the service.  Andi and Kati were the same age and born 1 month apart in Logan. When Kati was 8 weeks old and Andi 4 weeks old they both contracted pneumonia.  They were in the same hospital room under oxygen tents.  For 10 days, Marilyn and I watched these little girls struggle to take a breath.  I cannot imagine how hard it was for Marilyn and Dave to again, watch their baby girl struggle for life.  We love the Watts family and pray they will find peace and comfort knowing their girl is in the arms of Heavenly Father. How grateful I am for the Plan of Salvation, God's plan of happiness for each of us.

Well---Bruce couldn't wait any longer for a toy he has wanted since we arrived in St. George. This past p-day he finally went and bought an ATV or 4-wheeler or UTV or whatever they call them.  His friend Roger had just bought a new Kawasaki thingy and told Bruce about it so Bruce got busy and went and picked one out and brought it home.  He's very excited to start riding the trails and spends hours on the computer looking at Google Earth for his new playground.  We are taking it for its maiden voyage tomorrow morning and then taking the Clark's on our p-day this Wednesday for our first day trip.  We are probably crazy, but he's as happy as a kid in a candy store.  Now I really do need to go out and buy camouflage and then we can go to Duck Days and fit right in. (Duck Creek here we come)

I had the best surprise on Friday.  I received a text from two wonderful friends from Mesa.  Leila Scurr and Bonny Drain stopped by for a quick hike in Snow Canyon.  I love it when friends stop by and I get to hear all about what is happening back home while hiking in one of the most beautiful spots on earth.  Oh What a Beautiful Morning!!

On that note, we miss you all.  We think of you each day and pray all is well.  Remember - be safe.

Love,

Bruce and Dawna

Elder and Sister

PS Happy Birthday to our spunky, adorable Lilly who turned 8. 

Happy Halloween

Dear Friends and Family,

It's Halloween, WHAT?  How did that happen?  I love Halloween and I'm starting a little withdrawal thinking I won't do a Halloween dinner for the grand kids or go to the ward Party or have spooky little goblins and witches at my front door.  Buttttttt - the Sr. Missionaries are getting together tomorrow night to put together goody bags for the Sisters so "all is not lost."  Just send all your wonderful pictures of the great costumes and fun ghoulish food.  I really want to see them, pleeeeeease.  "Happy Halloween" to everyone.

This week was exciting for the fact we have a new Art Exhibit.  I'm not sure I ever wrote about our last exhibit.  It was titled "Sacred Places" by Al Rounds.  So beautiful, Google it and enjoy a real treat.  He spent several hundred hours researching and visiting each site.  But our new exhibit is titled Hawn's Mill.  There are several contributing artists, Julie Rogers, David Bedard, Kirt Hamson and a couple of others, but Glenn Rawson put together these artists interpretations of Hawn's Mill and included them in a new book entitled "Hawn's Mill. (and yes it is spelled HAWN'S per Glenn Rawson)  We then had a Fireside last Friday night by Glenn and he told the whole story.  What a moving experience.  I have included Julie Roger's interpretation of Amanda Barnes Smith praying in the corn filed after the mob took possession of Hawn's mill and forbade the survivors to pray.  Amanda would sneak off to the corn field to pray.  She was a true hero and a woman of incredible courage and strength.  Enjoy the picture.

Well my adventure for the week was a hike with Sister Collins up Snow Canyon on the Hidden Pinyon trail.  It was fantastic.  We hiked through slots, down rocks, up creek beds and finally ended up on top of an out crop of sand stone and lava rock with beautiful views.  What a high.  I still can't get over all the wonderful hiking and biking trails.  If I hiked every day I don't think I would get to all the trails in St. George.  So fun.  If you ever visit, go hiking!

So another week begins.  Our time is flying by and we are so grateful for all the experiences we are having.  We love the Sr. Couples we work with and adore all the Sister's at the Visitor Center.  What good people.  

We are blessed.  Be healthy and safe.

Love, Bruce and Dawna

(Elder and Sister)

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.