Our stake in our church held trek this year. Its when the youth 14 and up, along with adults acting as their "mas" and "pas", trek across some form of land in honor of our pioneer ancestors. Along with the families, they also ask a ton of people to be over medical, equipment, and food. They asked Kevin and I to help with food. Kevin knows I always say yes when the youth is involved, but even better-Scott was old enough to join too so that was awesome!
Also they don't always dress up like pioneers, and when I went as a youth I didn't dress up. I guess there's a first time for everything!
Scott with his family
They trekked 30 miles over 3 1/2 days. It was so awesome to be at base camp so we could see them all come in each day. Beautiful site! I love the clouds in this picture too. We went to Wyoming and it was beautiful. Windy, but beautiful.
Then at night after dinner they would do a devotional and then some dancing and singing.
It was awesome! Here's my Scott dancing :)
It was a lot of work for everybody involved I know, but food was seriously exhausting lol. Sometimes they have a "base camp" and the trekkers trek around in loops always going back to the same base camp. This year they chose to camp somewhere new each night. So every day we set up tents and the dozen of grills and everything involved to cook, cooked dinner and breakfast the next morning, and then took all the equipment down in the morning to drive and set it all up again in a new place. For a total of 4 different camp sites. A ton of work like I said.
The last place we camped was gorgeous. Just open fields. I had to take some pictures of Scott in his pioneer getup.
Look at my eyes in this picture it just shows how windy it was!
We were SO worried about Scott. He's plenty active, but he doesn't physically exert himself a lot. We are talking about 30 miles. He also hates being hot. So that's a battle in itself. When they asked us to help with food I thought that was a tender mercy from Heavenly Father. That way I thought, I could keep an eye on him. I whole heartily believed he would go and trek and once he got to the camp each night and saw Kevin and I we would be there to soak up all his tears. For real. That was what I expected. Instead I hardly saw him! After the first day I told him, "Hey young man you need to come say hi to me and at least come through my line when you get your food!" haha. After that he made a point to check in :) But seriously. It made me so happy that he did so good and was so strong. He threw up a few times the first day but kept on going. He never complained even when his feet got blisters. My heart wanted to burst with pride and also broke a little when I realized he doesn't need me so much anymore. I went to tell him goodnight that first night at his family camp. It was dark and I was watching him laughing and telling stories with his new friends. He is SO shy and I worried about that too. He was so happy. It made my heart burst with joy for him. I just watched with pride but like I said, it was a little tender mom moment as well.
Sorry this is long but important I promise :) So I was talking to the Stake President on the last morning. I told him how I thought it was such a tender mercy that we were there because we really thought Scott was going to struggle. And then we would be there! I love his answer and it stuck with me. He said, "It was a tender mercy! You would be sitting at home worried sick unable to sleep wondering if he was okay! Instead you are here and can see he's thriving and you can relax." Don't you just love that? There really are so many tender mercies if you just change your perspective.
So it was a wonderful time. I will treasure it. Amazing speakers and the spirit was so strong. The women's pull was absolutely amazing. It was quite a large hill about a mile I think they said. They separated the boys and girls and grouped each together for a talk. They talked mostly about what the women's pull represented and how a lot of our ancestors who were women went alone and some even with children and no husbands. They talked about how strong women are and they also talked to the boys about respecting women. All the boys spread out along the hill on the sides, took off their hats and held them at their hearts. Then they watched the women pull up all the handcarts by ourselves. Man I wish I had a picture of that. And a little miracle I have to write down. They have missionaries at these sites and they had just come by a few days prior to mark where the women's pull would be. It was dirt and pretty rocky and there were no wildflowers on the hill, just like there weren't any wildflowers anywhere else they trekked either. Well on the morning of the pull, both sides of the hill were lined with wildflowers. They said they were there just for us. It was our past ancestors as angels to help us along. And we definitely felt their help as we pulled up that hill. It was beautiful. What an experience.
While we were trekking in Wyoming, Hailey, Arianna and Jay were at Aunt Brooke's having a blast. It worked out that after Newport we were able to drop them off in St. George on our way home. It doesn't look like they had ANY fun right? LOL
Look how darling this picture is! Laya and Jay....they played hard!
This might be my favorite picture of all time! Zoom in to see Jay's exhilarated face!
