Trek

 This year our ward decided to go on Trek for youth conference.  I was invited along as the trek medical personnel.  

The younger boys only got to come up for one day, so Derek was tasked with bringing up a carload of deacons for one day of trekking.  We trekked at the Mosida site which was close to home.

  

They have  missionaries that run it and stop you along the way and tell pioneer stories.  It was overall a great experience that helped us all to gain a little appreciation for the sacrifices and faith of the pioneers.  I had one girl day 1 who got a pretty severe case of heat exhaustion, but with the help of everyone we were able to get her out and back to a medical compound with showers and AC and she cooled down and was able to trek the next day.  They taught all the kids some pioneer dances that night and they had a blast with that.  Unlike, the pioneers we had great meals the whole time spearheaded by the Hemenways.  Putting together all the clothes for our family for this pioneer trek was quite the ordeal.  Liv really wanted to match me one day.  

The second day of trek was the day we had all the younger kids join and Derek joined us.  So our whole family was together trekking for the day which was fun.

We started by leaving one kid behind and then were told a pioneer story of a child that got left behind when he fell asleep under a bush on the trail.  But his Dad went back looking for him and after a couple days found him still alive.  He was able to catch back up to the group and came back waving a red shawl to let everyone know that the child was alive and well.  I had several kids I was very stressed about having heat exhaustion this second day, and so so many blisters.   Luckily after lunch, clouds came rolling in and it rained on us- this was a major blessing and no one minded the rain one bit.  We watched Sister Kresge try to wheel brother Kresge up a small hill, but was unable to do it until several kids went down to assist and we heard a story of a pioneer woman who had to pull her husband over a whole mountain range by herself.  That night the kids played Danish Sockball- they had such a blast with this and it was so much fun watching the young men and women play and interact together.  Day 3 brought the women’s pull where all the men left and the woman pulled the handcarts alone for a bit.  Then, we got to a river crossing and the boys carried all the girls across.  Liv was pretty excited to have Tanner and Aiden Rassmussen carry her across the water.  

We ended the day off with a testimony meeting.  Almost all the youth had a similar narrative- they didn’t want to go on trek, thought it was gonna be lame and dumb to pull handcarts dressed like pioneers.  But in the end, they all were so glad they came, they learned a lot, grew as youth group, gained respect for pioneers and grew their testimonies.