Preparation Day For The Fishers

Today, we went on our "P" day up north to a place called Stowe, VT. It is a little like Park City, UT. Some beautiful scenery and we went up in the tram there. It was so cloudy that I couldn't take any pictures so we bought these post card.
Yesterday we were running all shift. We had over 40 people come through our shift alone. I had an older couple from Czechoslovakia who were not LDS and had a hundred questions about the martyrdom, the initial organization, why some of Joseph's family didn't go with Brigham to Utah. Were the members of the mob marshalls or sherrifs? Were they punished for their crimes. It sure kept me on my toes and I loved every minute of it. I wish I had a picture of them, but can't really take their pictures when they are in a tour. I threw in one that showed me doing what I do.

Not many folks around for tours today and we were looking at the local newspaper and found these photos of folks dealing with the aftermath of Irene. The lady is climbing a ladder to get up to the road where she has left a bicycle. Another bicycle is left here at the base of the abutment for use when she gets home. The other picture is of a family that gets driven on a tractor to go to school rather than go on the road that is available and would take a much longer time for them to go. People make do!!!
If I can I will throw in a picture of the monument at sunset. Hope they all come through.

This picture should go with the prose created for the last post...the one below this one.

Yesterday, Sister Fisher and I went shopping and on the way home we stopped to take a picture of South Royalton from the freeway above the little village. This is a wonderful place just for the beauty alone, but when you take into account the great people that live here, it is phenomenal. There are a couple of views because like all villages here in Vermont they seem to spread out a little more than at home. And then I threw in just for fun a little flower the has decided to set up house keeping right in the doorway of a little chipmunk friend of ours...Chippie

I don't have any new pictures to show you today, but we had Elder C. Scott Grow, one of the seventy come to teach us. He is fantastic. President Wilkey started the meeting and gave a little instruction about learning the fundamentals. He asked the 100 plus missionaries there if any of them played high school basketball. Myself and one other person raised our hands. He looked straight at me and said, "Elder Fisher, could you tell us how tall you are?" I knew he wanted me to say 5'24" so I said it and the place just roared with laughter...all but me because I thought he was going to ask me to come up and help him demonstrate something about fundamentals. He didn't and I have never been so relieved. I just knew I would get up there, lose my balance and fall on him and hurt us both. He asked the young elder to come up and told him to pretend to take a shot over him and miss the imaginary shot to show them what he would do when he missed. The elder shot and just stood there. Pres. Wilkey said "You were supposed to get your rebound." The elder said, "I hit the shot." The crowd went wild and Pres. was so funny in the way he instructed the elder to "MISS THE NEXT ONE!" and then taught us some 'fundamentals' on how to block out the shooter from getting the rebound. He went on to teach us some basics of missionary work. It was very good. I loved every minute of the part we could stay for. We had to go relieve the ones that were there for the first half of the meetings. Great day...and I got a referral from one of the tours I had!!!:)

It's Monday 9/19/11. We started the day out with a bang. There were people waiting for a tour when we got there this morning. We had some very spiritual tours, but the best thing was when Elder Craig told us about when he was blessing the sacrament and the deacons ran out of water. The elders filled the trays with the sacrament cups and with a small glass of water that had been blessed started to pour the water into the cups. He knew that there wasn't going to be enough water so he started to pray that there would be enough. He filled the cups and had plenty of water still in the glass...there were fifty cups to fill. A little miracle had happened.
Sister Scott was confirmed yesterday and she told us that the thing that convinced her it was the thing to do was from President Uchdorf's talk about the Road to Damascus. The man who spoke in sacrament later, who had not heard what Sister Scott had said, talked about the same talk from the Ensign. It was a very spiritual meeting. Why do we love it here? Not hard to tell is it!!!

It Sunday and we had a phenomenal meeting today. Sister Scott was confirmed and given the gift of the Holy Ghost by Elder Craig. I was honored to be able to stand in the confirmation. There were ten men in the circle and the only two in the whole thing who weren't missionaries was the Bishop and Sister Scott. It was a very spiritual time. After the meeting, we had to go right to the site and there were several tours that took place. It was a very good day. It went too fast. There was a bus tour from Utah and there were people on there from St. George, but I don't know their names.
We were invited out the the Dunkle's home for dinner along with several others. We had home grown chicken, home grown corn, potatoes, tomatos, and it was fantastic. We have been making some friends that will remain friends for life. It is so great. GREAT DAY!!!!!!:)

Great day today!! We had over 100 people come through and that is busy for us. It was on the go the whole time. Before our shift, we went to Woodstock Vermont to see the Billings Farm and museum. One of the Rockafellers had some interest in it at one time. They have a museum of how things were in Vermont in the olden days. I have a few pictures that I was going to put in the other blog and couldn't get them downloaded this morning to include them. Here they are. The lowest one is of an old time threshing machine. The next one is how it was run...a horse would walk on a treadmill and run the machine from a pully system. The next one is a man cutting ice to use for keeping things cool during the summer months. The last one is of a wood cutting machine. Tough way to go isn't it!!?

How about some comments!?

Last evening the elders called and asked if they could get a ride to the World's Fair in Tunbridge. To the folks here it seems like the world fair, and it is crowded. A lot of the ward members here are farmers and some of them had animals and other types of entries in the fair. We saw some of the largest animals we have ever seen. Today we went to the Billings Farm in Woodstock, Vermont. It is a fantastic place with a large museum of old farming equipment from the 1800's. I include with this blog some pictures from each if they will load. I couldn't get some of them to load. When I get that figured out I will post them.

Today was an exeptional day. We only had about three tours each, but they were fantastic tours. Mine were all members of the church, but they were the most spiritual events I have had in a while. A man and wife came in and the man introduced himself and said they were members of the church. He told me that they had joined the church about 10 years after they were married. They moved to a different town that didn't have a church in it that they had been going to. They got in touch with the LDS church and the missionaries came over to meet with he and his wife. After the first discussion he was upset because he felt that if there was a need for a prophet he would have known about it and his church would be where the prophet would be. He went on with the discussions though he didn't believe the first one. When the Elder asked him to pray, and then asked him to say "The Lord's Prayer", he started with "Our Father Who art in heaven", the Elder stopped him and asked him to start again. He was a little upset at someone stopping him in the middle of a prayer, but went along. He started again with "Our Father". The Elder stopped him again and he was a little upset by this time. The Elder asked him to start this time with "My Father Who art in heaven". He said he did and when he got that far with the prayer, he felt an overwhelming pouring out of the Spirit, that he knew the church was true and immediately wanted to be baptized. He has subsequently baptized 60 people himself to date. Be bold in doing the Lord's work!!!

Today, Sister Fisher and I went to Burlington, VT where we boarded the Ethan Allen III and went on an hour and a half lunch cruise. Other than the sweet soup we had to start with, it was fantastic. The wind almost blew us off the deck until we went to the front of the ship and the wind was coming from the rear, so we were protected and enjoyed a wonderful cruise out onto Lake Chamlain. These are a few of the pictures I took today. It was a fun, relaxing, rejuvinating day.
That first picture is of a very 'famous' rock formation. I don't know what it is famous for, but that is what the tour guide said. What do you think?
The next picture is of the Coast Guard building. I think they have to protect the lake from Canadians...I don't know!!!

It's late in the morning and we are going to Lake Champlain today for a cruise on the lake. I found these pictures in my photo gallery and decided they needed to be in our blog. These are the other half of the zanies that skyped us last night!! Weird or wierd huh?!!!:)

We just got to visit with some of the craziest people on the planet. Our family is definitely CRAZY INSANE GOOFBALLS!!! This is a picture of them as I remember them. And they haven't changed much! I am too tired to find any of rest of that motley crew. I'll try again later.

These pictures were sent to me by one of the other senior missionaries here at the Memorial. I'm going to post a few of the many I got.

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These are some shots taken as we walk from the parking lot to the office at the Memorial. They were taken today 9/11/11. Later in the month I will post some more as the leaves start to change. Today was a great day...Sister Fisher got a referral from a non-member couple from Quebec. She came into the office almost floating with excitement. These are getting to be a more frequent thing since she started asking for them...what a missionary!!!

Elder Craig is one of our young elders here serving in this area. He just found out a few days ago that he is a direct descendant of Hiram Smith. This also means he is related to Joseph the Prophet. Their ancestors came over on the Mayflower. As you will notice, he is very excited about this. He has a little different method of showing his emotions. He is happy though because he gets to confirm a convert he and Elder Barnes have been teaching. She asked me to give the opening prayer at her baptism where Elder Barnes will be the baptizing Elder. We are excited and have been trying to teach her all she needs to know to become a new member. She is awesome and she and Sister Fisher seem like they have known each other forever...they likely have!!!

I posted this blog a few days ago and then deleted it because we got new information that I needed to post to correct what was on the old blog. This is the house of the Feenie family. They attend the ward we attend here...the only one in many miles. They are temporarily living upstairs at our place. They are still not sure what they are going to do. We hear many rumors but nothing from them as of yet. The devastation here is vast. We have been participating in the clean up to a degree. We aren't in the trenches so to speak, but we provide food for the workers.

I wanted to edit the last blog and include these pictures and video of the river just a few miles upstream from the last one, but couldn't seem to get it to take the edit, so here goes with a new one. This is a bridge that has cut off some of the locals from their customary route to town. They now have to travel some distance over some pretty tough terrain to get there.

Today, because of the rain and the difficulty getting to the site from anywhere other than just down the road, we had no visitors in the afternoon at all. It was a day to study and catch up on our learning of the history and the gospel. This man has asked us to study the scriptures and I think it is a great idea. I read mine every day and hope you do too.

Elder McGregor is one of the FM missionaries standing in front of this steam powered tractor that is used to mow the lawns here on the site...Oh,I guess they use more modern ones most of the time.

The original "cottage" that was built at the same time as the monument was erected. It is no longer here. The new 'visitors center' consists of two mirror image buildings that contain the office and the living quarters and the displays in the other. They were built in 1960.

Granite usually doesn't come in long sections like this. Junius Wells looked for some time before finding this one. It is considered one of the longest spires in the world.

This is what the road looked like back in 1905. After the rains brought by Irene some of them look much worse than this. The men in this picture are trying to stabilize the granite that is being brought to the site for making the monument.

Today was a poor day. I didn't take one tour and Sister Fisher had only one. We keep busy by reading and studying. I am preparing to teach a High Priest lesson on Sunday. There are going to be three wards meeting together. It should be fun and a little challenging. Some of these guys are real scriptorians...like this one!!:)

Some of the pictures that I got from the computers at the office one site, won't download onto the blog...I don't know why. This is a picture of the crew that was surveying the site in 1905 to be sure they had the monument next to the exact spot where the original house used to be.

We got to thinking that you may not believe that we are here working as missionaries. We are and we even get time to study and learn more about the early history of the church, but also the scriptures and it is fantastic! This is Sister Fisher and Elder Fisher studying. Actually Sister Fisher is studying and I am posing!!:)

We are going to post some pictures of the site when it was being constructed back in 1905. The first picture is of the derick that had to be constructed on site to be able to lift the 40 ton spire into place. Take a close look and see how the cables are attached to it. There are no marks or even scratches on the monument!!
The next one is a picture of one of the wagons that were used to pull the large pieces of granite that were used to make the monument. There were five pieces in all. 22 horses and a yoke of oxen were used to pull it 2 miles from the river level up 850 feet...in other words it was a steep pull, on muddy ground, in a Vermont November. Lotsa fun huh!!! It took one day to get the granite from the quarry 40 miles away to South Royalton and 33 days to get it to the site!!