Trekkin' (Days Three and Four)

If you haven't checked into my blog for a while, scroll down to Trekkin' (Day One) first, then go up to day two before reading this post. It will make a lot more sense and make me feel better (whether or not I ever even find out). Just do it, OK?

So, day three of Trek was Friday, but we pretended it was the Sabbath. We spent the morning in camp, which was a really good thing for several reasons. First, we were all still exhausted from Thursday's events, emotionally and physically. Second, after the hoe-down, it started to rain, and rain, and rain, and rain. It wasn't just a sprinkle, either. It really came down and didn't stop until about 7am on Friday. The entire camp was soaked. Most of the tents flooded, sleeping bags, pillows, clothes, and everything else was drenched. Fortunately, we stayed dry because we borrowed army spring bar tents (way to go, Dad!) but we were the lucky few. We were told to not pack up our things in the morning, but to wait until after the Sabbath activities and they would make the decision then.

We attended several "church meetings" on various subjects like prayer, family unity, and gratitude. They were all very good. We were then given free time to ponder, read scriptures, or pray.

We then gathered together by the stream where we witnessed a real baptism. A little boy in our ward, whose dad was on Trek helping out, was chosen to be baptized here. It was such a neat experience to watch! The bishop tied it to our Savior and his baptism in the river Jordan. The talks and music again brought my emotions to the surface. It was a wonderful morning!!

The word was then sent out that we were not going to pack up our tents and move on to the next camp. Things were simply still too wet. But we were to pack our buckets (what we used to sit on in camp and also put our personal things in) and water and head out into the hills for a short walk. It sounded wonderful! Our tents kept us nice and dry, but they were also SO heavy! Our handcart was so much lighter with only our buckets. We also were only going about 4 or 5 miles instead of our original 8 to 10 to get to our next camp site--another bonus. And don't forget the joy of not having to take down our campsite and put it back up somewhere else. We thought it was great news! So this is us heading out of camp with our lightened load.

We first went back to the giant kilns where we heard a talk on keeping your promises to people and keeping your covenants with God. Good stuff.

We then went up the road to Piedmont, the ghost town and heard from a pioneer who was one of the rescuers of the handcart saints. He was sent from Salt Lake by Brigham Young to help those freezing and starving in the mountains. He told us he felt it was a privilege and an honor to have been called to help those people.

This was the rest of the ghost town...a few houses and a school. Pretty neat.

We then started up another hill and at the top, we met Miss Fortune for the last time. This time, she took the life of our little baby, Ephraim. He was just a doll that we had to carry around and one of our sons even used him as a pillow. We hadn't taken excellent care of him along the trail (often putting him in his "cart seat"), but when it came to burying him, it became real to me. Ryan and I had to speak at the funeral. I, being a big boob, cried through it and expressed my feelings about what the pioneer had said just moments before. I, too, felt so honored and privileged to be called as a mother in real life, and also to be called to be a Ma on Trek...to be allowed to feel the spirit so strong and to have the experiences that we were having was a gift. There were so many great people who could have been asked to go instead of us, but we were given the opportunity, and I was so grateful. I cried when they put my baby in the ground, it was tough to watch.

We then went further on and found King Lamoni. He was a king of the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon who led a group of people who had made a covenant with God to never fight another battle. They buried their weapons in the ground and when their enemies came upon them, they kept their covenant and perished. But by keeping their promise, many of their enemies were converted to the gospel. At this trailside, we were asked to make a covenant with God of something we would do to draw closer to Him. We wrote our promises down and put them in the hole, to be later buried, symbolizing our own personal commitment. It was neat to see all the youth make promises to Heavenly Father to do a little bit better in their lives.

That completed our journey of day three. We walked back to camp and had the rest of the afternoon to hang out with our families. We had a great time. We had really bonded the past few days while pulling that handcart, and it was so nice to just be together. We played games and just talked. It was so neat to hear them opening up to each other. My love for them grew even more. I was so glad we didn't move camp--we wouldn't have gotten that chance to be together in that way.

Chris and Brittany changing hats...the bonnet looks good on you, Chris!

Hanging out at our tent...sitting on those very uncomfortable buckets and just chillin'

So, that concludes day three. Day four was Saturday and "going home day"! We had a morning fireside and testimony meeting with both our company and then the whole camp. We then packed up our handcart one last time....

And here is one final shot of us heading to the buses. On the handcart was our family flag...it was the Wilson Family flag. We walked all that way and had all those experiences in honor of Ryan's great, great grandpa, Thomas Wilson. He crossed the plains with his family when he was just fifteen years old! I looked at my sons, and knew that each one of them could have done what Thomas had done. I was so proud of all my kids!! What a great experience!

OK...so I wanted to write a few more things down, so hang in there with me---almost done!

What I LOVED about Trek:

• My youth "kids". It was amazing to me how wonderful they all were. They each had such different personalities, but they all came together. Some have been through some tough things in life already and they are so strong. Stronger than I was at that age. Being with them made me miss serving in Young Women.
• Having my wonderful hubby there. What a neat gift to be able to share all of these experiences with the one you love. I felt bad for some of the adults that were there helping along the way, but without their spouse. I loved spending time with him, every minute with him is so precious--I don't get very many sometimes. I was lucky to have him there!
• All of the hard work people put in to pull this off. What a huge undertaking to feed, corral, and herd hundreds of people in the wilderness!! It was marvelous and I don't know how they all did it!
• Of course, the spirit that I felt almost every minute of the Trek. What a spiritual shot in the arm!
• No cell phones, computers, TV, or any other distractions! This was especially great for Ryan who is swamped at work. I'm so glad he could get away from "crazy central" and come out here for some peace and quiet!
• Another big shout out to my dad who scored us three huge army tents! They kept us nice and dry! Yahoo!

What I didn't LOVE about Trek:

• Sitting on those horrible buckets. We sometimes had to sit on them for hours and let's just say, that it's not so great for the back or the behind.
• Trying to open the buckets. It was so frustrating!! I always needed help getting mine open!
• My bonnet tried to kill me all along the trail. It would fall off my head and immediately try to choke me---luckily I survived.
• My feet didn't make it through Trek. All along, we kept telling our kids to make sure they weren't getting blisters. If they started to feel a "hot spot" on their feet, we would stop and put padding called Mole skin over the area to prevent it from turning into a blister. Well, after the second day, my toes were really sore, but they didn't feel like blisters, just jarred from all of the walking. But upon further inspection, I had blisters all over. My baby toes were the worst, they were completely liquefied! The ENTIRE toe....liquid!! OOOUUUUCH!
• To go along with the last entry, I'm going to have to say my hiking boots. Apparently, they weren't as good as we previously thought.
• Outhouses---that's all I'm going to say about that one.
• Cow Pies---again, 'nuff said
• Wait, I lied. I have to say a little bit more about the Cow Pies. They were bad enough the first few days, but after the huge rain storm, they all became "fresh" again! Watch out!
• We were given Gatorade powder to mix with our water out on the trail. It was really refreshing, but the powder would get everywhere because of the wind! I was so sticky and smelled like Gatorade for a large portion of Trek (I guess that's better than smelling like BO)
• Bloomers!! What a pain in the butt! I feel sorry for anyone who had to actually wear those things on a daily basis!
  

So, there's my synopsis of Trek. It is more for me than anyone else. I wanted to jot these things down while they were fresh in my mind so I would never forget these four days. I'm glad to be home with my kids in my nice warm bed, but I am also so grateful for the chance to go.