Blessed, Honored Pioneers

 

Trek - where do I begin??!! What an AMAZING experience. It is just too hard to sum it up in words, but I'll do my best. Chris and I didn't have the Pioneer Trek experience growing up so when we had the opportunity to be a Ma & Pa on our Stake Youth Trek, we jumped at it. We were able to go along with both Tyler and Lauren. The trek was for youth 14 and older but if your parents were coming, you could come if you were 12 or 13, so Lauren was able to come too. 

We all had to dress in pioneer clothing, pack everything we'd need for 3 days (except bedding) into a 5 gallon bucket that weighed no more than 17 pounds, and walk around the wilderness pushing a handcart for nearly 20 miles. Sounds like fun, right? It was. 

Our Stake decided that they wanted the youth to have a more spiritual experience rather than focusing on the harsh physical conditions. Not to say that it was easy by any means, but it was easier than a lot of groups that go.

 

I heard of one group who actually had to catch their own wildlife for dinner! We were spoiled and the Stake cooked most of our meals for us or provided us meals to cook that were mostly done. We ate fantastic! They also had trucks that hauled all of our tents, bedding and cooking stuff from site to site so we didn't have to lug that around in our handcarts.

The weather was brutal, over 100 degrees most of the time or right around there. There was no shade or trees to be found anywhere and everything was covered in dust. The only shade to be had was under the handcart. There was so much dirt! I had visions of sleeping on nice, soft grassy park-like areas each night, but nope, literally dust bowls! We had so many great devotionals, talks, music and a fantastic fireside given by Brad Wilcox.

 

Each day we trekked anywhere from 4 to 8 miles, set up camp, tore down camp, had our meals, had devotionals and vignettes along the way, a hoe down, camp games, lots of visiting, shared pioneer stories and more.

 

 

 

Two of the highlights were the women's pull where all the men "left with the Mormon battalion" and the women were left to pull the handcarts on their own.

 

 

We had to pull them a 1/2 a mile in ankle deep dirt which was like flour. It was so hard. The conditions were so dusty that you couldn't see the group in front of you. We ate a ton of dust being kicked up by the carts. As we neared the end we could hear the men singing softly and it was so beautiful. We couldn't see them through the dust until we were right there but it was very touching to hear them singing. 

 

It was so hard on them to see us struggle so much. We were so relieved when it was over and our strong boys could take over pulling the handcarts again. The other highlight was the river crossing. We had to cross the river in thigh-high water. The boys could carry the girls across but ours didn't because all of our girls wanted to get wet since it was so hot. I think they were kind of disappointed. Again, it was a very spiritual experience.

 

 

 

 I feel very blessed to have been able to participate and hope the kids enjoyed it as much as we did. Tyler and Lauren both had a great time and did fantastic. Tyler was assigned a different family as they mixed up all the kids so that each family group had a variety of ages, wards and about 1/2 girls and 1/2 boys. Lauren was in our family because she was too young. I suspect they did that so that if they struggled or whined that their parents could deal with them. However, she did amazing and would have been fine anywhere. Oh, and on the 2nd day of the trek each family "lost" loved ones, just like during the real Treks. Our family lost Lauren. They got to ride ahead up to our next campsite and hang out, play games and have treats while we all trekked some more. Later that day they got to come back. It was just such a great experience and we totally want to go again next time.

Our Trek Family

 Our Trek Family - the Girls

Our ward kids

 

(L-R: Back - Spencer Miller, Rachel Albach, Tyler, Lauren, Bro. Crismon Lewis, Front - Constanza Cuello, Ryde Casper)

Tyler's Trek Family

 Tyler and his friends

(L-R: Landon Lawrence, Treadon Casper, Ryde Casper, Josh Buss, Spencer Miller & Tyler)

Lauren in her BFF - Kaylee Dial

Girls Camp!

I recently got a new calling at church, Assistant Camp Director! A big change from Primary. It was a bittersweet change as I really did love primary but I had been there for 4 years. Young Women's has been a lot of fun though and I was very excited to go to camp. I hadn't been since I was 12/13 years old. I only went for two years and then after we moved to Hawaii, I didn't go anymore, so this was pretty foreign to me. We had so much fun!

So there are too many pictures to put in order so I will just caption all of them.

 This was the lake which the girls could canoe on. I didn't venture out there. Lauren is in the middle in Orange.

 This is the view from our campsite, overlooking the lake. It was really pretty up there.

 Just some pretty flowers

 These were called "Pot Guts"...basically a ground squirrel without the bushy tail. They were EVERYWHERE! And pretty brave too. They came right up to you and ran all over camp.

 Deer walked through our campsite every morning.

 We did a few camp crafts. Above, the girls made cute washer necklaces that said "STAND" since our theme was "Stand Ye in Holy Places". This is Melissa with a picture of the finished product. They turned out cute. Below, we painted wooden plaques and then modge podged temple pictures onto the wood. The girls were all so creative.

 Every day we would have some sort of spa treatment that went with our overall theme. The first day was Standing in Holy places with our thoughts and dress. We talked about having clean thoughts and dressing modestly. Then we did facials and made cute headbands out of fabric.

 

 Another day we talked about Standing in Holy Places through Service and had manicures and hand massages. In the true spirit of service, the girls, on there own, decided to wash everyone's hair. It was such a nice treat.

The third day we talked about "Standing in Holy Places" and had pedicures and foot rubs. I draw the line at feet but the girls sure were sweet to wash one anothers feet.

 This was our campsite.

On Friday night the Bishop and 1st Counselor came up and spent the evening with us. We played some rousing games of "Big Booty" and "Ninja". That was a lot of fun.

 

 We also had a Testimony meeting that was awesome!

 

 This was just a panoramic of our area, the lake, ampitheater, etc. 

On the 4th day we woke up really early to do a sunrise hike. It was beautiful. 

Just before the sunrise

 

 It's up!

Everyone all bright eyed and bushy tailed.

 Then we divided up by year and headed back to camp. I went with the 1st years and we had to hike 2 miles back down to camp.

This is the ridge surrounding the campgrounds. That white line is snow. The 2nd year girls had to hike 5 miles, the furthest of all the girls, which took them all the way to the top of the ridge and around the bowl before hiking back down into camp. 

This is the zoomed in shot of the top of the ridge. Lauren is up there somewhere.

 

 Ninja chipmunk.

 These girls tried tirelessly to catch one of those pot guts but didn't succeed. They're clever little buggers...the pot guts.

The girls all sat around the fire pit and had a massage train going. Don't know how I missed out on that.

And lastly, this is Mustang. For posterity.

What a fun week!