We're Home!

I would have written earlier, but I am SOOO tired! Trek was fun and tiring! I learned so much about the pioneers and myself. First lesson--entertaining/distracting youth from the work, walking, and weather wears me out! The first day we had a word riddle that worked well and we played Ninja Tag on water breaks. The second day our "uncle" (who played the harmonica, sang, and was just plain silly) made up a kind of pig latin that distracted the kids. Do you know what this says? "Hong-ee wong-a-song fong-uu nong-nong yong". The third day was our "Sunday" so we didn't trek, but we did play lots of fun games. Vince and I were a little competitive during the tug-of-war and earned our family a pom-pom award. On account of our cheering. But hey, our side won 8 of 10 pulls. We had a great time! The last day we were too tired to think of anything to distract the kids with, but they distracted themselves by RUNNING their cart up every hill. There were several hills the last day, some bigger than others, and they would spend all the flat parts kind of regrouping and then run up the hills. I had to jog uphill to keep up with them. It was pretty impressive!

I have decided that pioneer clothing is genius, which was a surprise to me. The long-sleeve dress kept me cool and warm (I think you have to test this to truly understand it's true), kept my arms and legs from getting any scrapes/scratches, kept the bugs off (YAY!) and the bonnet kept the sun and rain out of my face. I'm not sure what we wear now is progress at all! Except for the shoes. I didn't wear shoes like the pioneers and I'm perfectly happy with my fancy waterproof hiking shoes and nylon socks!! Also I appreciate sunscreen and bug spray and hand sanitizer because even long sleeved pioneer dresses and bonnets can't keep EVERYTHING off!

The day before I left I found a testimony of a German/Russian relation that was very inspiring to me and I left kind of wondering how this man had such a deep love and understanding of the Savior. I decided that it's because he lived a life of hardships, much like our pioneer ancestors, and it's during these hardships that we get to know Christ in a very personal way and find the value in maintaining a great friendship with Him. There were a few times on the trek where I felt just desperate. I know that's a strong word, but let me give you some background. The first day we trekked about 12-13 miles. We ate a good breakfast at 6:30 am and then got a little snack bag of trail mix and a fruit leather at about 3:00 pm and at 5:00 we had a piece of jerky, an apple and a string cheese. After "dinner" we had a women's pull. This is where the girls and their mas had to pull/push the handcarts up a hill without the help of the guys. It's difficult but very inspiring! Of course right before the women's pull it started raining buckets! We did the women's pull in a drenching rain and mud, which made the hill even more difficult because it was slippery, etc. We got through that all right and then had a little testimony time and then got ready to trek another 5 miles. The rain had stopped during our testimony time but as we got ready to leave it started raining again. LOTS of rain! This was a great time to discover that some kids didn't have coats and/or ponchos. So now it's about 7:00, it's dark, it's pouring rain and we are trekking another 5 miles in serious mud. There were some serious puddles of very wet mud in different parts of the trail so we would have to leave the trail sometimes and come back to it (I fell a few times because it was so slippery and dark). We got in to camp about 12-12:30 PM. Or is that AM? It was the middle of the night! We still had to create a shelter for our boys and raise a tent for the girls. Everyone had to change into dry clothes and this took quite a while as there were almost 300 trekkers and 4 changing tents. Several times in this process a disoriented youth would need help finding their "family" and I was called on to help with this. None of the youth had flashlights, but mas and pas did. This was a great time to discover that one of our "sons" had not brought a sleeping bag. Needless to say, I wasn't able to get in warm clothes until 1:45 AM after we had got our "family settled". It was so cold. My clothes were drenched because of the rain and because of my falls in the mud. It rained hard all night and when I woke up in the morning it was still raining. Here is where I really got a taste of what some of my ancestors endured. I lay in my sleeping bag, still chilled from the night before, listening to the rain, and totally discouraged at what this meant. I had only two dresses; one wet, one dry. If I wore my dry dress it would soon be wet and then I would have no more dry clothes. I had no choice but to put my wet clothes back on. I was so cold I could hardly button my dress and there was no way to deal with the cold except to hurry and get outside and move around. In the rain and mud. UCK. I had read stories about this but I don't think I ever understood before. We all do what we have to do to get through challenges in our life, but I was grateful for this experience because I don't often have to meet any challenges while being so physically miserable. Just taking care of our "kids" and trekking several miles and creating shelters, and then packing them up the next day, and cooking outside... seems challenge enough but this rain and wet clothes bit seemed like the last straw, if you know what I mean. Of course I didn't want to go home and I was grateful for the experience, but at that moment in time it was SOOO tempting to just stay in my sleeping bag, and ignore the rain, and let Vince take care of everything. Our condition that morning was so extreme that the missionary responsible for the land where the treks take place rode out on his 4 wheeler to offer to evacuate us. At that moment I would have been tempted to go, but our great trail boss said, "No way!" and I was glad that we stayed. It would have felt too much like giving up. I guess I learned that our trials are the price we pay to get to know our Savior. We have to work through difficult things in order to become who we need to be.