Wines Park Ward

We have been so blessed to be Missionaries here at Mutual Dell Camp.  Besides being able to live in one of the most beautiful places on the planet, we are able to work with the Young Women and their leaders.  They bring such a sweet spirit with them to the camp.  Even the animals see it.  We first noticed it at Heber Valley Girls Camp.  When ever the girls are in camp, the animals were always in camp.  When the girls left and the boy scouts and families with boys came into camp the animals backed off and often even left the camp.  I have to admit that I have seen on several occasions boys throwing rocks, screaming at the top of their lungs and even one time running with a stick that they had one end on fire running through the camp.  If I was a Animal, I would hide too.  

Every once in a while, you really connect with a special ward family.  Wines park was one of those special connections.  It started when two of the leader came up a few weeks earlier to check out the camp.  They happened to hook up with Carol for the tour and loved the camp.  They booked it and brought their Young Women up.  When they got here it happened to be our P-day. (Day off)  All the Missionaries rotate on the schedule each week.  This week we happened to be assigned the camp that Wines Park had so we were their Camp Host.  The next day we went by their camp and told them that we were their assigned Camp Hosts.  From that point on, their just a special feeling when were were around them.  We ended up being able to take them through our Confidence Courses.  One of our very favorite of the courses is called "Life Line".  It is by far the most spiritual of the five games or experiences we have.  Life Line simulates a journey through life.  You are blind folded and muted.  You are led to a spot where your right hand is placed onto a line.  You are told that just like in life you will have obstacles in your path.  You will need to protect yourself by putting you left arm and hand in front of you.  As they travel up the course holding the line, they come to logs that they run into and have to step over.and tree branches that they have to go around.  They come to places in the line that branch off into different paths.  They must make choices weather to go left, right or maybe even under the line.

These pictures give you an idea of the course.

Wines Park was going to have a "Faith Walk" that evening and wanted to use the Life Line course to do it.  Since it would take away some of the effect if you did the course twice, we opted to not do Life Line during their Confidence Course time and instead, assist them that evening with their Faith Walk. The evening started out like any other night.  We helped set up some of the glass jars with battery operated candles in them along the trail.  Sever of the girls parents came up that evening to assist and watch the girls.

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As their girls came up the trail, leaders, parents and even myself tried talk them into letting go of the line, making a wrong choice on the line that would get them into trouble.  If they fell for it, they were taken to Spirit Prison and detained. Not many fell for it but a hand full did.  At the same time, each girl had a guardian Angel walking with them to help guide them to safety.   

As they finished the course, they were led to the "Celestial Kingdom" where they still remained blind folded and muted until all of the girls finished the course. 

More and more finished the course.

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The hand full of girls that were in Spirit Prison were given a chance to run the course again.  This time, all girls made it home.  They then were able to remove the blind folds and were no longer muted.  The leaders then gave each girl a letter that was written to them by their parents.  The Bishop then spoke to the girls.  It was a very spiritual experience and we were blessed to have been a part of it.  The girls then went back to camp after it was over and we went back to our motorhome.  As we started down the trail, we herd thunder.  It started to increase more and more as we got closer to our motorhome.  By the time we got home, the sky was a light show.  I have never seen anything like it before.  The lightening was above the cloud cover so all you saw was the clouds lighting up.  It was practically constant.  Then it began to rain and you could see lightening coming out of the clouds  as well.  It rained harder and harder.  Then it started to hail.  Then torrential rain.  I was so worried about all the girls we had in all the camps. I began to pray for their safety.  I went into my motorhome and looked at my weather station.  It showed that we had received over a half of an inch of rain by this time.   I was the assigned "Camp Host" for the camp that day.  This assignment rotates each day.  

There is a radio box on the back of the cabin office that I had installed so that someone could get a hold of the Camp Host Missionary any time of day or night. As the rain just kept pounding I kept observing my weather station.  Just after 10 PM, my Camp Host radio came alive with the Wine Park Ward Leader asking for help.  She said that the camp was completely flooded and that the girls were going to have to be evacuated.  One of here girls was a paraplegic and in a wheel chair.  The water was up their knees at times and there was no way they could push a wheel chair down the trails and out to safety.  She was asking if I could bring up an ATV and carry her out on it.  I  put on my rain coat and jumped on my ATV.  I stopped by the shop and attached a trailer onto my ATV to haul the wheel chair out.  I started up the trail to their camp.  Their camp is the furthest camp away and has the longest and steepest trails to get to it.  As I started up the hill on the trail, it was still raining so hard it was very difficult to even see.  There was so much water coming down the trail it seemed like I was driving up a river instead of a trail.  When I finely got to the camp, I observed all of the girls and their leaders huddled under a large awning.  They all cheered as I pulled up in front of them.  One of their leaders then came up to me and said that Gidget, (The handicapped girl.) did not have enough upper body strength to hold on to my ATV.  She asked if she could ride in the back of the trailer.  The trailer was not designed to haul people.  It had a solid axle without springs or shocks.  It rides very rough bouncing along the trail.  Under the circumstances, I saw no other options.  Their was a river coming down the trail into their camp.  It was obvious that everyone was going to have to evacuate the camp.  I had Becky,(One of the leaders.) sit in the trailer and hold Gidget in her lap with her arms wrapped around her. We traveled very slowly down the trails, stopping at several other camps along the way to make sure everyone else was OK. By the time I got home and looked at my weather station, it showed that we had an inch and a quarter of rain come down in a one hour period. I was amazed that we only had to evacuate just the the one camp.  All of the girls and their leaders decided to just go home and leave all of their stuff at camp for the night.  Lucky for them they just lived about 30 minutes away.  The next day they came back to camp and made the best of the situation.  They began to brake down their camp.  They were scheduled at the lake for canoes that morning so they paused to do that.  They then finished braking down the camp and went home to have their testimony meeting at their Church building.    The following day, we were called on the radio and asked to come to the office.  When we arrived we were greeted with the Young Women and their leaders bringing us three signs covered with assorted candy boxes.

                                                 What a joy it was to see their smiling faces.

Carol told them some animal stories.

Two weeks later, we were invited to the Wine Park Ward for to hear their girls and leaders talk during Sacrament meeting about their experience at Mutual Dell Girls Camp.  Before Church, we were treated to lunch at Katie's home with all of the girls.  It was an amazing experience.  We will never forget the Wines Park Ward and their love and generosity.  It is the people like them that make this Mission the great Mission it is.  It is a honor and a privilege to serve these Young Women.  

                              Here are more pictures taken at Mutual Dell Camp this year.

We used to have a large vinyl mat that we used for a slip and slide for the girls.  It was very heavy and took us about 20 minutes to put up and another 30 minutes to put away.  The "Risk Management"  section of the Church recommended we do away with it because of the risk of injury. 

We have a very large lawn with sprinklers that we opted to turn on instead of using the slip and slide.  I really believe that the girls had just as much or more fun running through the sprinklers as they would have had on the slip and slide anyway.  This way we have no set up time and our lawn gets watered.

We have a very large blow up movie screen and sound system that we set up for the girls on one evening.  It is kind of like going to a drive in movie without you car.  You can set up chairs or a blanket and lay on the lawn and watch the move.  They love it.  One time we did it on a Monday night and forgot to turn off the automatic sprinklers.  That did not go over very well.

This picture shows the cabin with the Value Flags.

This is a picture of a youth group on the Confidence Course playing Spider Web.  Here she is being passed through the web with the help of her friends.

They have to get everyone through the web.

Wheel borrowing through the web.

This group is playing the Wall on the Confidence Course.

Navigating their way through Life Line.

Elder Timothy getting ready to reflect with a group that just finished Life Line.

Girls in canoes on Tibble Fork Lake

We love serving at Mutual Dell Camp.  It is a very beautiful place as you can see as well. It's hard to believe we only have two more weeks of Girls Camp.  After that, it will be all families, family reunions, youth groups and just plain campers.  Our Mission is set to end on October 1, 2015