Bret and I had the awesome opportunity to go on our stake's trek as a Ma and Pa. We had an amazing experience and as you will see from the pictures loved our family very much. Thanks to Gina, Marcie, and Holly for watching Ayla while we were gone. Bear with me on the pictures I couldn't leave very many out because everything was just so important to us :)
This is our family right after we picked them. Our stake had the girls line up in one line and the boys in another. The Mas and Pas than went down the rows and the Mas picked the boys using the spirit as our guide, and the Pas picked the girls. I was really nervous about this but it turned out to be a really neat thing.
This was us right before we started out on our nine mile walk that night...
Us stopped at "Florence"
Ma and Pa Burnham (we're so cute!)
We walked that first night until one or two in the morning. It was really hard. It was dark and really cold and I thought I wasn't going to make it. Thankfully Bret kept pulling me along and we finally made it to camp.
The next morning we made breakfast, took down camp, and headed out again...
The first day we were handcart number three in the train. The second day we reversed the numbers and we were the third handcart from the back. What a view we had. There were 21 handcarts in all.
Our wonderful family. On this little stretch of the way us young woman (I count myself as one still) lead the boys in singing some silly camp songs. We had a really good time. The boys probably thought we were crazy and definitely laughed at the goings on at girls camp. Pa didn't so much like the sippin cider song and our favorite song was "I said a BOOM CHICA BOOM". We sang it in many styles and even made up one for trek that went like this: "I said a pull chica pull (repeat) I said a pull chica pull (repeat) I said a pull, push your handcart, push your handcart up the hill, all right, oh yeah". We all agreed that singing made pushing more fun.
This was the arrangement of the girls right before the woman's pull.
The woman's pull was an awesome experience. First Pa pulled the young men off the handcart (we were all on silence the whole time). Then the young men and Pas were called off to serve int he Mormon Battalion. The young women had a devotional in which Mary Fielding Smith talked to us about here story. Our stake young women's President than told us that what we would do would be hard and did we want to keep going. All the young women said YES! So we pushed on. We pulled hard and put everything we had into getting up the hill. It was steep and we shed many tears. When we got half way up the hill the boys could help us by putting rocks behind the wheels so it wouldn't roll back, by moving, rocks, by getting water, or anything else they could think of except pulling or pushing the cart. Finally we made it up the hill and the boys took over. We then had a little scare with one of the girls and her asthma. But, all of us rallied around her and she got a priesthood blessing, and inhaler, and lots of love from all of us and she was able to continue and walk the rest of the way to Zion. It was a really neat day. That night we set up camp in Zion and made dinner and cobbler. Finally way too late into the night we made it to bed.
The next day we got to participate in Pioneer games and activities. We were a little late because of our ever present problem with taking forever to make food (I don't know why but we could never get water to boil or oh a number of things but we did it together and with happy faces so it didn't matter how long it took right :) ) Anyway, our first activity we did was the gunny sack race.
Then, we did the tug of war. We decided to do boys vs. girls with Pa helping the girls and Ma helping the boys. The boys claimed that Pa could win by just sitting on the rope so it wasn't a fair war. Nevertheless we tried and low and behold the girls and Pa won.
The girls gloating over their strength...
The boys hanging their heads in shame :(
After that, our home teacher Mike showed us all how to rope.
Ciera roping like a pro.
Then we did some potato carving and hatchet and knife throwing.
Tashaila made a wolf on a mountain
Donovan made a castle
Jonathan made a gnome
the boys throwing
The girls showing their skills
Pa showing us all up
Monica and the turtle she carved
K.C. and the cow bones he found and wore around.... don't ask haha
That day during our last activity a huge rain storm came. We were not prepared for the rain but at least we were able to keep our stuff dry if not ourselves. We all huddled behind a tarp soaking wet and FREEZING during the rain. We said a family prayer where Pa thanked Heavenly Father for the rain and then we sang hymns until the rain let up. Ma then made everyone get into dry clothing and we prepared our camp for more rain. Arianna and Pa did some cheerleading moves to get the tarp up.
This was the glorious rainbow that came after the rain letting us know that the Lord will never forget us. Although the rain was a HUGE adversity we all agreed that it turned out to be a huge blessing. Throughout the trip each one of us saw tender mercy after tender mercy from the Lord. We all gained a stronger testimony because of the adversitities we faced.
Our shelter. One of the sleeping bags got really soaked in the rain and we did not get it dry. So... Pa and I offered our sleeping bag to Jonathan and squeezed into one. To say we grew closer on the trek is an understatment. haha. It was an interesting night but we didn't get cold!
Saturday morning we packed up and headed for home. The stake cooked us a yummy breakfast and we pulled our handcart out, took it apart and headed home on the bus.
Christian, Cooper, Jonathan and Arianna getting us water from the pump.
Lisette, Arianna, and Me
Trek was amazing and we love our kids SOOO much! Thanks guys!
