haigler creek fire department

Here's the new fire truck. Dale is the new fire chief and I am his assistant. This 1962 International started it's career in Oregon, migrated to Phoenix, then to Young and now is parked at Porter Place on Lofgreen Acres at Haigler Creek. Come on over and we'll spray ya down!!

Life at Haigler Creek Hideaway

Fall is finally here, we think, and we are preparing for the winter by stacking up the wood, canning and freezing veggies from the garden and planting the garlic. It has been a wonderfully busy summer and we are enjoying the cool evenings and glad to see the garden slowing down. It has been very productive and we are a little tired of squash and green beans. We just harvested the potatoes and they are really good this year. The tomatoes are mostly still green but we'll just pick the whole plant and store it in the garage and hope they ripen a little at a time so we can enjoy them throughout the winter. If not, we'll have great salsa.
The missionary work is going well. We are still teaching our investigator, Paul Anderson, who has set a date for baptism on Dec. 12. We are fellowshipping several couples in the branch who are less active and have nonmember spouses. Getting involved in several activities in the town (ie the Gila County Fair and the Pleasant Valley Singers) has enabled us to make new nonmember friends. Helping to build a greenhouse for the school is the latest project that has kept Grampa busy.
We have a new grandbaby boy born in Shanghai, China on 10-10-10! His name is Jackson Platte Lyman and he is the son of Bekki and Tyler Lyman. President Ellsworth, our mission president has given us permission to visit them and the new baby next month, so we will spend Thanksgiving in Suzhou, China.
Hope you all have a Happy Halloween!!

Young Missionary Experience

June 13, 2010
We still have not received the corrected mission call. If it doesn’t come by Fri., Pres. Brenay said to call Pres. Whipple (the stake president). However, we have been called as branch missionaries and as such we were given a referral that we made an appointment for today at 2:00. After church we were about to drive away from the parking lot, when Brother Williams of our branch came up and said we should go with him to talk with this lady who was across the road and down a ways. She was yelling, "shame on you for going to that bad church." We did. Bother Williams was already talking with her when we arrived. The lady was a lesbian (she advertised it with her shirt) who was obviously full of anger and hate for the world. She was telling us how terrible we were for going to a church that discriminated against her. We tried talking for awhile but we could feel such a bad spirit that we didn't even want to talk with her. Dale asked her several questions to see if she was open to finding new truth, however she just wanted everything to be proved. She just wanted to argue and accuse and judge everyone. There was such a terrible spirit there. We finally excused ourselves saying we had an appointment to go to, which we did. We left and started out for our appointment with this referral that was given to us last week. It took about 45 mins to get there but when we arrived, there was such a difference! This man has been prepared by the Lord and has humbled himself. He agreed with everything we told him about prophets, the need for them, Joseph Smith, etc. It is true that he has had a very hard life and made some serious mistakes, but he has been humbled by them and has submitted himself to the Lord and is earnestly seeking truth and the true church. He is very grateful for God in his life and acknowledges Him in all things. The full time elders came also, although they were an hour late and we had already taught him about the Gospel, the Book of Mormon and the need for a restoration before they arrived. He took the challenge to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and he offered a very nice prayer at the end. He is anxious to come to church as he agrees with everything we taught him. Wow, what a different in attitude! It was like night and day. There could not have been two more opposite extremes than was exhibited in the example of these two people. They had both been through difficult experiences in their lives but each had come out with such opposite thinking and attitudes. It was an amazing experience to feel the spirit of the Lord so strongly and working so effectively in this man's life and to see such a proud woman who had so much anger and hatred and had allowed Satan to rule her life. We are grateful to have had both experiences to see the difference and to confirm to us that there is a God and there is a Satan and they are in direct opposition with one another. It could not be clearer than that.

Everything good comes from the Lord and everything bad is from Satan (Moroni 7: 15-16). We hope we will always choose the good but know that being mortal with weaknesses, we will sometimes fall short and perhaps choose unwisely. We do know, however, that as the years go by we are becoming better and stronger as we choose well and follow the Lord's plan and commandments. That's all we can do, but those small steps bring us closer to Him. A testimony is fragile and so it is necessary to nourish it with the good word of God daily and pray for the guidance of the Holy Ghost in our lives each day.

It’s been a great Sabbath day.

Jordan, Israel &Egypt

Haigler House Sphynx in Cairo, Egypt

Typical scene from a Greco-Roman Temple

The Garden Tomb

The sea of Galilee from Mt. Carmel

Hi everyone,

We just returned from a wonderful trip to the Holy Lands. It was so inspiring to actually see and walk in the same places that the Savior walked and performed many miracles. We were especially touched at the Garden Tomb to think about the Atonement and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As our guide so appropriately put it, the best thing about the tomb is that it is EMPTY! We all repeated the resounding AMEN!

Egypt was awesome with all it's amazing old Greco-Roman Egyptian Temples. Many date back to 3000BC. The Pyramids are even bigger and more amazing than they seem in pictures. We loved everything but it is good to be home and back to our house building project at Haigler Creek. The dreams are becoming reality and that is very exciting. Enjoy the pictures!

Love to all, Jana & Dale

Oct. General Conference Weekend 2009

The back of the house with Dale meditating. This is the garden entrance to our new home

Success! Julie finally caught a crawdad.

What a surprise to be awakened at 1:30 in the morning with a knocking on the window outside and a light shining through the window at Haigler. I awoke and wondered who was there. It was a little scary but it was the Smiths just arriving. What a fun time we have all had watching conference and enjoying a turkey dinner that Bob and Peggy cooked for us on Sunday. The talks were awesome and inspiring. The weather was wonderful and we were thankful that it didn't rain and get our house under construction wet again. The woodens, Peggy & Bob with Kevin and April and their families, the Smiths, Cord and Gayla and kids, Art & Jacque and Ashley and friend were all here with Dale and I.

Between conference sessions the Smiths and dale and I went walking up the creek to explore and they also had the grand tour of our house in its framed in stage. It has been a lovely weekend.

The beginning of our House at haigler Creek

Hi everyone,

Here are a few pictures of our new house, at least the foundation. We are pretty excited to see a little action after waiting for four months to get the much longed for building permit. Finally!! While we waited we kept ourselves busy building a fence and planting a garden. The animals have pretty much been kept out except for a few problems with the racoons getting into the corn. They go right up the posts and over the fence. Well, that problem is now solved with the electric wire we ran across the top. It seems to be working and we have now harvested afew ears of delicious corn. The squash is prolific and the carrots are ready now. Cucumbers are awesome and the tomatoes will be ready in a few weeks. It is really fun to harvest the fruits of our labors. We'll keep you posted on the progress of our house if we can find the lost camera cord!

The chain saw

Here is a little video clip that was supposed to be a still picture, but it provides the real sounds of the Dale's daily activities. The cedars around the lodge look great now thanks to Dale and his chain saw.