This past weekend Daniel and I had the pleasure of being Ma and Pa at our Stakes pioneer trek. We were assigned 11 kids(5 girls, 6 boys) ranging in age from 13-17. I can confidently say that we were assigned 11 of the best youth in our stake...although I have heard most of the other Ma's and Pa's say the same thing...that must mean that our stake is full of exceptional youth.
Trek is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about the handcart pioneers as well as about yourself. Trek is designed to encourage spiritual growth and to be physically challenging. Trek is not easy, and if by the end of it you haven't learned anything or felt growth in yourself, you have missed out on an incredible opportunity.
So here are 5 lessons I learned(or had reconfirmed)
1. I'm loosing my mind. Just before we arrived at the trek sight on Friday morning I started wondering where I had packed our flashlights. But for the life of me I could not remember what I had done with them the night before. The last thing I could remember was holding them in my hand after putting fresh batteries in them. After that it was a complete blank. That might have something to do with packing the last of our stuff at 3am. When we got there I looked through all of our stuff and couldn't find the flashlights, so I grabbed the little emergency one I have in the van and stashed it in our stuff with the hope that when we arrived at camp I would find the others. That never happened, I thought I must have left them at home on my dresser or something. But when we got back home they were nowhere to be found. As I was unpacking our bags, I found both of them tucked safely away in the front pocket of our duffel bag.
2. I am not a young adult anymore. My mind thinks that I am not all that much older than I was when we first got married. I certainly don't feel any older than I did then...but time has obviously gone by seeing how I have 5 kids and all. All I can say is that it was a really good thing that I had been training to run a 5K the months prior to going on trek, because even with that, it was tricky keeping up with these young kids at times. Their fast pace pulling/pushing the handcart was often a faster pace than my fast walking pace...and I wasn't pulling/pushing the handcart.
3. I didn't know I could be so fiercely proud of kids that aren't even my own. We had been trekking a long time. It was around 8pm and we hadn't done the women's pull yet, and everyone knows about the women's pull. The kids had been talking about it off and on through the whole trek speculating when it would be. But as time went on and in the distance loomed a hill our young men told the girls to back off, because they were going to need their strength for the women's pull that was likely to take them up that hill in the distance. And so our boys took over and pushed and pulled that handcart, and our girls refused to be told what to do and tried to push along. They were true gentlemen(a trait they get from their Pa), even if the girls were a bit stubborn(they may get that from their Ma). At the base of that hill, we stopped and sat in families so we could share the story of
Jens and Elsie Nielson to help set the tone for the women's pull.
We then were put on silence, not a word was to be spoken for any reason and then we began to trek again. Slowly one by one the boys were pulled back and our 5 girls were left to pull and push the cart up the rutted trail littered with roots and rocks.
Look at the determination on there faces. As I walk alongside these girls my heart swelled with pride as I watched them putting everything they had into it. The hill was long and the ascent was gradual, and it was anything but easy. But they rocked it. We had some seriously tough girls. They never squealed or complained. Not even when it was time to kill, pluck and prepare the turkey. They just got right in there and got the job done.
4. God knows his children and their needs individually. A couple of times along the trail we would stop and share a handcart pioneer story with our families. A favourtie of mine and one that demonstrates how personally Heavenly Father knows the needs of his children is a story from the Willie handcart company. They were faced with trial early on in their trek.
"We started out in great spirits, grateful at last that we were on the last lap of our journey. When we started our weather was intensely hot and our feet were badly blistered. The stock had to be herded at night and this was a laborious task for men who had drawn carts all day.When we were well out into the wilderness, we noticed a storm approaching from the southwest. The terrifying thing was not the storm, but a large herd of buffalo stampeding right past our camp. Afterward, I thanked the Lord, that our lives had been spared, for we all could have been killed. As it was, we lost 30 head of our best oxen. They were swept away by the buffalo. The men hunted for them but had to give it up.This was the beginning of our great hardships and probably was the cause of most of them, for we had spent valuable time looking for the oxen. This loss in turn, reduced our meat supply and because there wasn't enough cattle to pull the supply wagons, a hundred pounds of flour was placed in each handcart."
"October 12, Captain Willie again cut the rations to 10 oz flour for men, 9 oz to women and 6 oz to children and 3 oz to infants. On the 14th another reduction was made and on the 19th, the last ounce of flour was given to the starving saints. The same evening the first snow came and by morning it was 18 inches deep on the level. They were at the three crossings of the Sweetwater. The Company was already eating boiled rawhide and wild berries gathered from the bushes.It was on this day that my Grandmother went out to gather buffalo chips to make a fire, and a man appeared to her and said that he had heard that her company had been put on rations, and were short of food. She told him they were very short of food, and he told her to come with him, and they went a short distance to what seemed to be a cave. In this cave there was plenty of dried meat; he filled her apron with the meat and she was so happy to get it, she turned to go. And then, remembering she had not thanked him, she turned and he had disappeared, and the cave had also disappeared. She took her meat back to her Company, and the leaders told her the man must have been one of the Nephites."
Not only were they blessed with food when they were in such desperate ways, but it was in the form of protein, something that they had been with out for such a long time.
This past weekend, stakes all around our region were fasting for rain....basically we as a trek group got out prayed. We were praying to not have rain until we were done trek while everyone else was praying and fasting for rain. It is interesting to me that about the time that the fast was to begin Saturday night, the rain began to fall, all across the region, everybody's story sounds the same no matter where they were, from Beazer, to Lethbridge and right down to Milk River. Suddenly around 7:30pm there was a large black storm front that moved in quickly bringing with it rain, and lots of it. And although our prayer was not answered to hold back the rain, it was answered in a different way. The forecast warned of possible micro bursts, strong winds and hail. Now imagine 160 youth and their leaders with only tarps strung up in trees for shelter. That forecast sounds terrifying. But we saw none of that. Rain, that we saw and lots of it, ALL. NIGHT. LONG. We were told that we had recieved 2 inches of rain that night, but the strong winds never came. Most families stayed relatively dry through out the night. I am sure that many Ma's, just like me, when they were awakened in the middle of the night by a flash of lightning and the rolling thunder, said a quick prayer that their families would be kept safe and dry. Safe we were, and dry we were mostly. Our prayers may not have been answered the way we wanted them to be, but they were answered in the way that Heavenly Father knew they needed to be.
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| huddling close so as to be able to hear each other over the deafening rain |
5) God hears and answers prayers in his own time and in his own way, and sometimes his time is the same as our time and his ways are ours ways. Sunday morning all Ma's and Pa's were gathered together at 7am. As we stood huddled out of the rain under two large pine trees we were given instruction that we were going to be packing up and heading out. It was decided that we would be ready to trek at 10am. Breakfast was simplified to cheese buns, oranges and hot chocolate. We headed back to our family to give them the news. We asked them to pack up their gear but to leave it in the shelter until after we had eaten breakfast. As we gathered for breakfast, one of our youngest boys was asked to offer up our family prayer. It was short, and humble, as he asked that we have good weather for our trek out. I am certain that similar prayers were offered up in every other family. As we huddled together in our rain poncho(or garbage bags) to eat our breakfast, the rain began to subside. By the time we were done eating it wasn't raining any longer and Pa told the kids to pack up the wagon while it wasn't raining. It never rained again.
As we gathered as Ma's and Pa's one last time before heading out, we were told that all two wheel vehicles that were parked at the fence line would not be able to get out as the roads were in such rough shape and it would likely be about a week before they could be retrieved. I looked at Daniel and said "what are we going to do? How do we get home? We already sent word to Bishop to not come get his son because we would bring him home, and now they are telling us our van isn't getting out." But as we lined up the carts to start heading out word came that we would trek as far as the fence line, and then the two wheel vehicles would head out first, then the four wheel ones and then the carts would head out. Daniel went up ahead and I trekked with our kids. When we reached the fence line, I watch the vehicles drive out, but didn't ever see our van, so I inquired and was told that he had already left, but had gotten stuck. I went back and told the kids that if we were delayed it was Pa's fault because he had gotten stuck. As we began trekking again, our older boys commented that it was no wonder Pa had gotten stuck as the ruts were so deep and sloppy. Pa later told us, that there was no way he should have made it out with the low clearance of the van, but that at times he felt as though he was driving on a cloud, and there is only one way that that van made it out of there and that is no less than a miracle.
My prayer is that each of our kids, and in fact, each and every one of the youth who attended trek can look back at their experience and see how the hand of the Lord was revealed to them. I know that He was there each and every step of the way. I saw it. I felt it. I experienced it first hand. I hope that our "kids" know just how much we care for each and every one of them. I really wish we would have had those last few days to continue to get to know each other. I hope that as time goes by they'll still think we are cool enough to call Ma and Pa. I hope we don't loose touch.
I'd do each and every bit of it again if ever given the chance.
