August 5, 2018
Hi Jon!
Last week was Pioneer Day and we spent the evening at Ashleigh and Nate Baldwin's house watching fireworks in their neighborhood which was pretty fun. Nate recorded some cool drone video footage of the fireworks from above and below.
The next day mom and I attended a Foreigner Concert at Usana Ampitheater with Whitesnake as the opening band. I knew Foreigner as a teenager but to be honest they peaked when I was in grade school. Whitesnake, on the other hand, peaked when I was in high school so I knew them better. I didn't care so much about either band but I got tickets just to have a cool date night with mom. And it was really cool. I loved sitting out on the lawn watching the sun go down and just relaxing and talking. I have been travelling a lot this summer so having a night to just hang out and relax with mom and chill to some cool music was exactly what I needed.
The next day I left for Jackson Hole for a crazy kayaking trip. I snagged a great camping spot in the Snake River Canyon and spent the night by myself as Chris Carr and Skylar Thorton (Sara Carr's husband) had to work until Friday night. When they arrived we took the kayaks to the top of Hoback river near the Kozy Campground and floated 10 miles down to the Hoback campground. On Saturday we started our main route at Jackson Lake Dam and floated down to Moose. The last 10 miles of this leg was the place where the majority of people die - mainly because they get caught in strainers and drown. I didn't think it was all that difficult so maybe the people who die are drunk or maybe they just don't know anything about boating on rivers with trees or something. There was this one place where the river goes through a forest - with trees everywhere in the middle of the river - and we had to get out and pull our kayaks to another river channel because the one we were on was blocked by a fallen tree. No big deal though.
On Sunday we went to church in Jackson, WY and then we wanted to continue our trek. But instead of picking up where we left off in Moose, WY there was this one 3 mile stretch of the Gros Ventre (pronounced Grovont) River that somebody had told me was really fun so we decided to do that first. Bad idea. The Gros Ventre river was raging and it was a huge boulder field. Boulders everywhere with water flowing between them. And not old boulders polished smooth by the river over millenia, but boulders from a "recent geologic event" that were really sharp. Within 1/2 mile Chris hit a boulder and flipped over. The rock actually ripped a 6 inch hole in the bottom of his kayak which he didn't even notice until I hit a boulder and flipped over. Unfortunately, I lost my paddle and my kayak ended up stuck on the opposite side of this raging river from me and there was no bridge. Worse, when I flipped over the current was so strong it pulled me downstream a long distance and I smacked into a dozen more boulders along the way, bruising my body everywhere. It sucked. Chris started proposing a bunch of ways we could get to my kayak by jumping into the crazy strong current and trying to swim to it but my brain said what is the value of the kayak vs a major hospital bill or worse, death? So I decided to leave my kayak for the river gods. Then we had to figure out how to get back to civilization. We were in this deep river gorge with steep mountains on both sides and no trails so we bushwhacked up the side of the canyon, carrying Chris' kayak, and hiked 3 miles to get back to civilization. That sucked.
With Chris' kayak severely damaged and my kayak gone, it looked like our 100 mile kayaking trek was over. We briefly looked into renting kayaks but my heart wasn't in it and they were really expensive. Also when we told the kayak shop what had just happened to us and where we wanted to kayak the next day (Moose to Wilson) they said no way they even rent kayaks for that part of the river. So we camped Sunday night and made plans to do a hike on Monday before driving home. Actually not a short hike - it was a 15 mile hike to lower and upper Palisades lakes. It was a cool hike - not too much elevation gain - but was still hard for me because my body was so bruised up. Anyway, after our hike I was in Idaho Falls eating dinner at Costa Vida about to return to Provo when I receive this text message from a guy (the same guy I talked to trying to rent a kayak) who had kayaked the Gros Ventre river and had found my kayak. He said I could come get my kayak from him and all it would cost me was a case of Wyoming IPA beer. At first I didn't want to drive back all the way to Jackson when we were already on our way home (and I didn't know how damaged my kayak would be) but Chris really had his heart set on finishing 100 miles and talked me into it. So we spent Monday night in Rexburg, patched up Chris' kayak, and returned to Jackson early Tuesday morning to get my kayak.
We got back on the snake river on Tuesday and kayaked from Moose to Austoria which was 38.5 miles - a long day on the river! On Wednesday we kayaked from Hoback campground to Alpine and finished at 8pm with 105 miles completed! What a journey. 105 kayaking miles is brutal but we also did a 15 mile hike in the middle of it! We drove back to Provo Wednesday night and got there at 2am completely exhausted.
I was scheduled to hike Timp with Chance and Javier on Friday but I was so bruised still and not interested at all in hiking so I gave them the choice of hiking Timp or going to Lagoon. They chose Lagoon. We went to Lagoon on Friday just the 4 of us (including mom) and had a great time. It was a long day too - with us eating dinner at in-and-out at midnight.
On Saturday Aimar arrived! We cleaned the house and got his room ready and then picked him up from the airport. He seems pretty chill and I hope he will be a good fit with our family.
I had a spiritual experience last Sunday attending church in Jackson. Elder Hammond from the Seventy spoke in church and talked about how much the church is growing where he is serving in Africa. He said 3 years ago his first job was to organize the 33rd stake in Africa and last week he organized the 59th stake in Africa. So the church has almost doubled in size in only 3 years. And they went from having just one temple in Johannesburg to now having 4 more temples under construction.
When I was a missionary in Madrid, there were a lot of African refugees there. Some were homeless and unemployed. They were humble and wanted to learn about the gospel at a time when most Spaniards were rejecting religion of any kind. A lot of our missionaries taught Africans and for a while we baptized more Africans than native Spaniards. The wards started looking like African wards not Spanish wards. I felt weird/bad about it - like we were called to Spain and should have been teaching Spaniards not Africans. But I did baptize a couple of Africans myself. They were great people and I really loved them.
A lot of the Africans in Spain were there because of political turmoil in their home countries. Elder Hammond said that a lot of Africans who had been baptized in Europe in the 90s were now returning to their home countries and bringing the gospel with them which is why the church is growing so quickly in Africa. It brought tears to my eyes because 25 years later I finally caught the vision that life is long and a child of God is a child of God no matter where he lives or what is the color of his skin. Just because I taught refugees didn't mean they were less valuable than Spaniards. Heavenly Father's plan moves on in ways we don't understand and I just feel honored to have been a small part of it.
Love ya,
Dad
Last week was Pioneer Day and we spent the evening at Ashleigh and Nate Baldwin's house watching fireworks in their neighborhood which was pretty fun. Nate recorded some cool drone video footage of the fireworks from above and below.
The next day mom and I attended a Foreigner Concert at Usana Ampitheater with Whitesnake as the opening band. I knew Foreigner as a teenager but to be honest they peaked when I was in grade school. Whitesnake, on the other hand, peaked when I was in high school so I knew them better. I didn't care so much about either band but I got tickets just to have a cool date night with mom. And it was really cool. I loved sitting out on the lawn watching the sun go down and just relaxing and talking. I have been travelling a lot this summer so having a night to just hang out and relax with mom and chill to some cool music was exactly what I needed.
The next day I left for Jackson Hole for a crazy kayaking trip. I snagged a great camping spot in the Snake River Canyon and spent the night by myself as Chris Carr and Skylar Thorton (Sara Carr's husband) had to work until Friday night. When they arrived we took the kayaks to the top of Hoback river near the Kozy Campground and floated 10 miles down to the Hoback campground. On Saturday we started our main route at Jackson Lake Dam and floated down to Moose. The last 10 miles of this leg was the place where the majority of people die - mainly because they get caught in strainers and drown. I didn't think it was all that difficult so maybe the people who die are drunk or maybe they just don't know anything about boating on rivers with trees or something. There was this one place where the river goes through a forest - with trees everywhere in the middle of the river - and we had to get out and pull our kayaks to another river channel because the one we were on was blocked by a fallen tree. No big deal though.
On Sunday we went to church in Jackson, WY and then we wanted to continue our trek. But instead of picking up where we left off in Moose, WY there was this one 3 mile stretch of the Gros Ventre (pronounced Grovont) River that somebody had told me was really fun so we decided to do that first. Bad idea. The Gros Ventre river was raging and it was a huge boulder field. Boulders everywhere with water flowing between them. And not old boulders polished smooth by the river over millenia, but boulders from a "recent geologic event" that were really sharp. Within 1/2 mile Chris hit a boulder and flipped over. The rock actually ripped a 6 inch hole in the bottom of his kayak which he didn't even notice until I hit a boulder and flipped over. Unfortunately, I lost my paddle and my kayak ended up stuck on the opposite side of this raging river from me and there was no bridge. Worse, when I flipped over the current was so strong it pulled me downstream a long distance and I smacked into a dozen more boulders along the way, bruising my body everywhere. It sucked. Chris started proposing a bunch of ways we could get to my kayak by jumping into the crazy strong current and trying to swim to it but my brain said what is the value of the kayak vs a major hospital bill or worse, death? So I decided to leave my kayak for the river gods. Then we had to figure out how to get back to civilization. We were in this deep river gorge with steep mountains on both sides and no trails so we bushwhacked up the side of the canyon, carrying Chris' kayak, and hiked 3 miles to get back to civilization. That sucked.
With Chris' kayak severely damaged and my kayak gone, it looked like our 100 mile kayaking trek was over. We briefly looked into renting kayaks but my heart wasn't in it and they were really expensive. Also when we told the kayak shop what had just happened to us and where we wanted to kayak the next day (Moose to Wilson) they said no way they even rent kayaks for that part of the river. So we camped Sunday night and made plans to do a hike on Monday before driving home. Actually not a short hike - it was a 15 mile hike to lower and upper Palisades lakes. It was a cool hike - not too much elevation gain - but was still hard for me because my body was so bruised up. Anyway, after our hike I was in Idaho Falls eating dinner at Costa Vida about to return to Provo when I receive this text message from a guy (the same guy I talked to trying to rent a kayak) who had kayaked the Gros Ventre river and had found my kayak. He said I could come get my kayak from him and all it would cost me was a case of Wyoming IPA beer. At first I didn't want to drive back all the way to Jackson when we were already on our way home (and I didn't know how damaged my kayak would be) but Chris really had his heart set on finishing 100 miles and talked me into it. So we spent Monday night in Rexburg, patched up Chris' kayak, and returned to Jackson early Tuesday morning to get my kayak.
We got back on the snake river on Tuesday and kayaked from Moose to Austoria which was 38.5 miles - a long day on the river! On Wednesday we kayaked from Hoback campground to Alpine and finished at 8pm with 105 miles completed! What a journey. 105 kayaking miles is brutal but we also did a 15 mile hike in the middle of it! We drove back to Provo Wednesday night and got there at 2am completely exhausted.
I was scheduled to hike Timp with Chance and Javier on Friday but I was so bruised still and not interested at all in hiking so I gave them the choice of hiking Timp or going to Lagoon. They chose Lagoon. We went to Lagoon on Friday just the 4 of us (including mom) and had a great time. It was a long day too - with us eating dinner at in-and-out at midnight.
On Saturday Aimar arrived! We cleaned the house and got his room ready and then picked him up from the airport. He seems pretty chill and I hope he will be a good fit with our family.
I had a spiritual experience last Sunday attending church in Jackson. Elder Hammond from the Seventy spoke in church and talked about how much the church is growing where he is serving in Africa. He said 3 years ago his first job was to organize the 33rd stake in Africa and last week he organized the 59th stake in Africa. So the church has almost doubled in size in only 3 years. And they went from having just one temple in Johannesburg to now having 4 more temples under construction.
When I was a missionary in Madrid, there were a lot of African refugees there. Some were homeless and unemployed. They were humble and wanted to learn about the gospel at a time when most Spaniards were rejecting religion of any kind. A lot of our missionaries taught Africans and for a while we baptized more Africans than native Spaniards. The wards started looking like African wards not Spanish wards. I felt weird/bad about it - like we were called to Spain and should have been teaching Spaniards not Africans. But I did baptize a couple of Africans myself. They were great people and I really loved them.
A lot of the Africans in Spain were there because of political turmoil in their home countries. Elder Hammond said that a lot of Africans who had been baptized in Europe in the 90s were now returning to their home countries and bringing the gospel with them which is why the church is growing so quickly in Africa. It brought tears to my eyes because 25 years later I finally caught the vision that life is long and a child of God is a child of God no matter where he lives or what is the color of his skin. Just because I taught refugees didn't mean they were less valuable than Spaniards. Heavenly Father's plan moves on in ways we don't understand and I just feel honored to have been a small part of it.
Love ya,
Dad
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