Elder and Sister Stapley August 2015 - March 2017

   Mike and Jewell Stapley served at Camp Alpine from August 2015 through March of 2017.   We were living in Glendale, AZ, and were ready to retire.  Mike had spent 35 years working at Honeywell and Jewell had spent 35 years boarding and training dogs.  We had a house on 5 acres in Southern Oregon (Williams – near Grants Pass) where we were planning on retiring, but wanted to serve a mission prior to setting up house in Williams.  After checking out the need for senior missionaries on the church website, we contacted President Freeman regarding the possibility of serving at Camp Alpine.  The next thing we knew, we were  preparing to  serve a church service mission for 18 months.  We packed up our things, moved it all to Williams for storing and sold our home in Arizona. We were ready to go!   While awaiting the beginning of our mission, the camp missionaries contacted us to see if Mike could come up and help build a new ramp for the zip line over Rambo pond.  Elder Tolman and Mike dug the holes, placed the beams, adjusted the design, and completed the effort over a few days.  It was a huge undertaking. We lived in the house/office at Camp Alpine.  We were not alone.  We brought up Jewell’s service animal – a German Shepherd Dog named Magic.  She went everywhere with us – to church, to work, to the movies, out to eat…  as I said, everywhere. Getting to know Karen and Terry, then Janae and Val were only one of the blessings of serving at Camp Alpine. Much of our time was spent in revamping things that needed updating.  Safety rails were added.  A new set of stairs up to the dumpster was provided to replace the ‘dancing’ stairs that were there.  A lot of road work was done to keep the road passable, including the road above the camp going to the north end and on up to the neighbor’s gate.  Lots of electrical work was performed to improve Camp Alpine. Lighting inside and outside the Conex, lighting and fans were installed inside Sariah Shelter, additional outlets were installed inside and outside the kitchen in Helaman Hall. In the office, forms and computer programs were created to simplify the weekly, monthly, and usage reports. Programs were also created to better manage the financial reports. For Jewell, the monthly Director’s meeting were the highlight of each month, and is what she misses the most.  For Mike, he misses coming up with and doing all the tasks we had at Camp Alpine.  Fortunately for him, there is more than enough to keep us busy here in Williams.  We enjoyed our time at Camp Alpine and will not soon forget our experiences.