Tristan's Mission Letters: MOUNT SNOWDON

Hi, Hello, and happy mothers day!!!

We all know what day it was yesterday so in honour of such a wonderful day I
thought I would start off this E-mail with a bit of wisdom from Sister Packer.
She said that one of her sons was disagreeing with a request that she had made
of him and his bigger brother hearing this disagreement walked over, smacked his
brother in the back of the head and said ‘don’t you know yer suppose to mind the
one that born ya!’ How true it is and with the tradition that comes from an
extraordinary day like mothers day I would like to apologize, to me mum, for all
the dumb things that I have done over the years to cause you grief and hope that
you will forgive me for the many more to come :); I guess I just want to say
that I LOVE YA MUM!

Now with all that mushy stuff aside lets discuss the action going on back home…
The St. George McKenna’s continue to fight for the win in the football
tournament with Meghan up against two teams in one day! The *^&(*!”’s continue
to live the good life as Madisyn continues to excel in gymnastics DOING ROUND
OFF BACK HAND SPRINGS! And Aidan has finally forgiven his mother for not
allowing him to get ‘Nana’ a monster truck which he was just certain would bring
joy to her very soul :). Chelsey is living in an upscale black community (with
Lawyers, bankers, Etc.) and is enjoying some of the most delicious, scrumptious,
and finger licken good fried chicken, though the wait for a portion is about 45
minutes :) [By the way that was from Mom not me]. Overall, life is good, and
the Lord continues to watch over our family, giving us joy and happiness in
these times of trial in the world.

Let’s see, I have been pondering on how all of you get to go to Disneyland like
every other week (which makes me a little jealous) and so I have decided that
for this E-mail I’m going to fire back by making you ‘green’ with envy by
showing you just how amazingly beautiful Wales really is so that you can see
were I get to live and work every day (so take that you Disneyland goers :P).
But I also want to share with you an experience that I will not soon forget.
Last Monday the Rhyl Distcrict (Elder Phillips, Driscoll, Hyde, Forward,
Stanger, Tonks) and ourselves decided that we were going to hike the biggest
mountain in Wales called Mount Snowdon. Now, there is just no way that I can
describe to you the amount of pain and suffering that happened on that mountain
but I will attempt to explain it in 4 scenarios: The start, The Journey, The
Climb, and the Top…

The start: it was a nice beautiful sunny day in Wales, we had arrived at Mount
Snowdon at around 0730; I was wearing about 4 shirts and 3 trousers as were some
of the other elders but Elder Driscoll and Elder Phillips came wearing nothing
but some shorts and a sweatshirt. They made fun of the rest of us because it
was hot and talked about how we were all going to melt on the hike, we talked
and laughed as we found the trailhead and started on our Journey.

The Journey: It was a fairly tall climb in the beginning but nothing to serious,
as we journeyed we would chase after sheep and talk about how out of shape all
of us ‘old’ missionaries are getting. We started to notice that it was getting
a bit cloudy and a bit chilly but we took no thought, and laughed and played as
we continued on the Journey until we got to a place called the halfway house, we
spent about 5-10 minutes there enjoying some liquid refreshment and preparing
for the next part of our hike.

The Climb: this is when things started to get a bit different on our journey,
the rocks started to become more jagged and the climb a bit steeper, it was
starting to rain pretty bad, the clouds had now moved over the mountain and fog
was thick all around us, the hot sunny day had quickly turned into cold and
rainy, and though a sense of cold was prevailing upon us all (especially on
Elder Driscoll and Phillips) we still had a determination to make it to the top.

The top: Our clothes were drenched, the wind cut through our bones like a hot
knife through butter, Elder Driscoll had snot frozen on his face but no one took
any notice, Elder Phillips hair had turned white and was beginning to freeze,
tears were running freely as the freezing wind continued to stab at our eyes.
In these conditions we held a council at about a (unknown to us) 10 minute hike
from the top there were many nominations to go back and a few to press forward,
Elder Forward in his determination to keep us moving began to climb onwards
quickly disappearing into the fog, and in a moment of desperation Elder Phillips
(epitomizing our pain and suffering) screamed, with spit spewing from his mouth,
‘Elder Forward it’s not worth it’ and began to sob. With those words lingering
in all of our minds we pressed forward having to now follow Elder Forward into
what seemed like eternity but was in reality about 15 minute. We eventually
reached the top and descended back down to safety… Truly a moment that will
never be forgotten.

Now, the pictures are just a bunch of different locations on Mount Snowdon and
one of me on a pier at the beach in a place called Llangollen.