The TREK

The TREK

March 13-16th, 2013

 Left to Right: Jerry, Keaton, Veronica, Brynn, Zach, Asher, Kim, Justin & Audra

It has taken FOREVER to finally get this post ready to go. I've had the pictures uploaded for weeks, but this experience really isn't something I want to rush in describing. I will do the best I can and Justin can add anything he would like later.

Back in December, Justin and I were called to be a Ma & Pa for our stake's TREK in March. We were both pretty excited (Justin especially, he had been putting the word out as much as he could that we wanted to do it). I looked forward to getting the chance to experience the TREK again as an adult, and be able to focus more this time on relating to my ancestors and their sacrifices, and truly keeping them in mind through the discomfort. I purchased a CD called "Nashville Tribute to the Pioneers" several years ago and it touched me then, but I also listened to it more and more in my spiritual preparation for the TREK. I wanted my TREK family to have a better experience on their TREK than I did (I had a bad attitude with mine, had originally been assigned an awesome family with a great Ma & Pa that I already knew, my best friend in my family as well as Justin...My dad alerted the stake president that Justin & I were in the same family and they were quick to boot me out and into another family. I was NOT happy. Didn't know anyone in the new family very well, and to be honest didn't have the greatest Ma & Pa either). What a blessing it has been for me to get a chance to have a 'do-over.'

Justin and I were so lucky to be assigned simply awesome teens for our family. We had Keaton Schlink, Kim Lindquist, Asher Cramer, Bryn Harris, Zach Brereton, Veronica Gale, and Gerardo (Jerry) Sandoval as our TREK "kids". Boy I had no idea I could grow to love 7 strangers so quickly. What a special bond I will always feel with them from this experience. Two of them come from broken or blended families, and a few others from less active families. You would have never guessed it. I was a basket case when I got home from the TREK, maybe partly because I was tired, but more-so because I was so incredibly touched by the experience. Keaton, Asher and Kim were our oldest kids and they were just amazing. Always pushing and pulling their hardest even when they were exhausted. Always willing to step up when we needed them. I didn't hear a word of complaint from them the entire time. Keaton & Kim especially were total leaders to their younger TREK siblings. Both had such good wisdom and patience and kindness even when our nightly conversations and spiritual messages would get random and sometimes slightly "what?!" comments from the other members of our family. They both just exhibited such maturity and spirit.  Poor Jerry wasn't even prepared for the TREK. He rarely comes to church and I'm pretty sure his older brother (who doesn't live in the same household as him) tricked him into coming, without telling him what he was in for. He wasn't prepared with pioneer clothing or even a hat. His mother packed his bag and sent him off. The first day Jerry asked me multiple times how much further we had to go (that was at like miles 4-5 of 13). I thought he was going to be a difficult kid to have in our family. I couldn't have been more wrong. I LOVED that kid. He was such a sass, and always took little comments out of context (and it was obvious) and made hilarious gossip at our family meals (Ex. Justin said something about my dress, can't remember what, and Jerry says "OOOOHHH did you hear that? He just said you aren't modern! Another time a boy from another family had a crush on Brynn, and he came by to say hello but she was off fetching water. When he crossed back to his camp, he didn't come back by ours, so of course Jerry says "Oh you see that?! He's saying he doesn't wanna be with you no more!" but it was totally out of fun and we all razzed him right back). Asher was the funniest and most light hearted kid you could ever meet. He always had a smile on his face and a giggle on his lips. He was one of those not afraid to sing or dance or act goofy with anyone, and EVERYONE (especially the girls) in and outside of our family loved him. Zach was the youngest in our family, having just barely turned 14 a few months prior. He quietly pushed and pulled right along with Asher & Keaton most of the time. His mom was a Ma in another family and separate company. She came by once to ask me if he was acting alright or complaining a lot, and I think she was pleasantly surprised when I told her how great he was doing and that he hadn't complained at all. Bryn and Veronica were both sweet and happy. They are petite girls who had great attitudes and brought a lot of stories and experiences to our family. Bryn has less active parents and only recently started coming to mutual and to church when she can. I was amazed to hear her testimony and her desires to get her parents to church with her in the future. Veronica is adopted from Russia and about to graduate. She loves to sing, and she's really looking forward to college and getting married in the temple someday. She never directly said it, but I'm pretty sure that girl is boy crazy :) 

There was one hill called Yankee Joe that was so awful!!! It took 2-3 families to join forces to get a single handcart up the long hill, and EVERYONE was exhausted by the time it was done, only to run back down and help the next family (at minimum you got your cart up and then helped the people behind you, because the people in front of you helped with your cart). Some of our boys pulled up that hill 3 times, and looked like they were ready to drop dead, only to take a 10 minute break and start pulling our own cart again. LOVE those kids.

 At dusk on our first day, our kids hadn't eaten anything since breakfast other than water and Gatorade. Justin and I had been slipped some trail mix and a banana at a Ma & Pa meeting about 30 minutes prior, but other than that we hadn't eaten since breakfast either.
At the Ma & Pa meeting they announced that the woman's pull would begin and that after a certain point the Pa's needed to take all the men/boys away from the handcart and let just the women pull it up the hill. I remember this experience from when I was a youth, and I remember that nobody explained to me what we were doing or why. I kind of had a bad attitude about it, in my opinion mainly because I wasn't prepared for it and didn't understand. I made it a point to explain to the girls in our family that the women's pull was to represent the women that pulled their own handcarts and/or traveled without a male in their family. Women who's husbands were sick or had died, or who had been called out on the Mormon battalion. To be honest I had feared the women's pull since the beginning of the day because I'm not in shape, and two of the three daughters in our family were about 5ft tall and 100lbs. I just hoped we could do it because those handcarts are almost 1000lbs!
As soon as the pull started, and even before we started up the hill, I found myself choking up with tears. Not because it was difficult (which it did get!) but because I almost immediately felt this overbearing sense of what it was like to be one of those pioneer women. One who had the weight of the world and her family on her shoulders, on a trek that she or other members of her family might not even survive. The desperation she must have felt when moving forward must have taken everything she had. I was trying so hard not to break out in sobs because I would have been so embarrassed to have people thinking I was crying because it was hard. I wasn't crying because it was hard (though it was!), but because I got what I had been praying for, and that was to have a real sense and appreciation for what my pioneer ancestors went through. The bonnets the women wore weren't just for keeping the sun off their face. I'm sure those bonnets hid thousands of tears. My great great grandmother came across the plains in 1856 as a young adult (she was either 19 or 21) with a handcart. Her parents had disowned her for joining the LDS church. She had nobody with her, save another girl near her age also traveling alone. They became best friends. Polygamy was legal back then and they both wished to marry my great great grandfather, who was the captain of that handcart company. The deal was that he take both of them or neither of them, because they did not want to be separated. I don't doubt why those two women became such close friends, a difficult journey across thousands of miles with nobody but each other (there were others but they had their own families) would sure create a strong and everlasting bond.

 

 You can see Justin walking along side us on the right in the picture below. What also impressed me was when we got past the point where the men could re-join us on our cart, our boys seemed to jump back into position to relieve us. I really felt like after that point, the boys in our family really stepped it up and didn't seem to care about how much effort the girls were putting into the pushing and pulling of the cart. They seemed to understand how much they were needed and what their responsibility was. It was moving to me, and a very special experience. The women's pull tends to be an amazing experience for everyone on every Trek. After the women's pull, we pulled over and stopped and processed our feelings for about 15 minutes. The boys shared their thoughts and girls shared theirs. I just loved hearing the testimonies of these youth. We got started again and it was dark. We thought that surely we would only be pulling for another hour or so, but it turned out we pulled well into the night, in the pitch black night with barely a sliver of a moon, until we stopped at about 10:30pm. That last ridge we came to before camp was about a mile of rock, up hill. We would be pulling our hardest and then hit a rock and jolt to a stop, then pull with our might to get moving again. It got to the point where the last hour of pulling was in near silence. Everyone was too exhausted to talk, joke, or even complain. As a Ma & Pa Justin and I were asked to pull the cart as little as possible. This was an experience mainly for the youth, not us, so it wasn't our job to make it easier for them. On Rock Ridge, though, we all pulled, and it was awful. When we hit camp, we got some broth and a roll for dinner (which of course was the BEST broth and roll any of us could have ever eaten), the first thing our youth had eaten since breakfast. Apparently we had only pulled for 13 miles that day, but it was a constant up and down pulling, with very little flat land in between, so it felt like much more than 13 miles. Nobody seemed to mind that we were sleeping out in the open on the ground on top of a tarp, trying to steer clear of the cactus everywhere on the ground. Nobody cared to stay up and laugh or chat, we just crawled in our sleeping bags and slept. All was well until about 3am, when it became SOOOOO cold. Justin and I didn't have any spare blankets, and even with pants on and my jacket, I still froze my tail off!

There were several photographers along the way taking pictures of our families on the TREK. So nice!

On my Nashville Tribute to the Pioneers CD, it has quotes from Pioneer diaries in between songs. One of them mentioned that the pioneer wagon train looked "like a movement of a nation". Our handcart group was less than half the size of a typical pioneer company from 1856. Looking at this picture I could see what they meant...

After we made it to base camp the second day, we got to spend an entire day without pulling. We finally had good food to fill our bellies, and had activities like the axe toss, candle making, taffy pulling, saw races, and black powder rifle shooting.

I look at this picture and WOW. Thank goodness I didn't have a mirror. THAT is what Two straight days of exhaustion, no make up, and no sleep look like on a woman's face...

Justin really looked the part with his hat and beard.

Brynn

Zach (and Asher) cleaning our raw chickens for dinner. One great thing on the Trek was that EVERYONE helped with every meal. Everyone had an assignment, and it was SOO nice! Since we've been home from the Trek I've implemented this into our lives at home, and now Brighton & Adaira are in charge of doing the dishes every night after dinner. It's great!

Jerry peeling onions

                                                                            Asher

Pa Owens

Family prayer before heading out for our final pull, one of many we got to have.

Justin loved running into his best friend, Cliff Tolman, sporadically. Cliff was on assignment helping the stake with hauling wood, water, and our activity supplies.

Asher, Keaton & Zach spent a lot of time at the back of the handcart, almost always pushing up hill or being dragged by a rope down the hill trying to keep the cart from going too fast.

Black powder rifles

Lots of laughs at dinner time.

My Sunday dress, thanks to Jenny VanAllen for loaning me this!

Yikes....

Goofy kids, love them

What a great experience. Zach contacted me on FB a few days ago and asked when we were going to have a Trek family reunion (we've been trying to coordinate one). His exact words were "Are we ever gonna have a reunion it just like occurred to me that I miss you guys

.....Like a lot"  :*) love them!

We had a TREK reunion fireside a few weeks ago and while Asher and Jerry missed it, it was so great to see our other Trek kids and meet their parents, who expressed such gratitude to us and told us what a great experience their kids had and how much they just loved their Trek family. Made Justin and I feel great. 

A wonderful thing I also learned on this Trek, that I wasn't planning on, but sorely needed, was to learn that the youth today aren't totally lost. They have testimonies and strength to battle the evils in the world. They feel the spirit and have desires to do good even when their parents aren't around. They want the same goals that I want for my children. Working for LDS Family Services for the last 5 years has really jaded me. Although I've had great experiences there, it has made me feel like unless I am super mom (which I am anything but, and never will be) my kids don't stand a chance of making right decisions and staying out of trouble. With the birthmom stories I've heard and seen (come on, a teenage birthmom got pregnant at the Easter pageant for crying out loud!!!), as well as other news from the clinical side of the agency, I had become completely fearful and distrusting of my own children. Thinking there was just no way that they could make it, and perceiving their unwise choices as just a starting point for future rebellious behavior. While I can't say that I don't have any worries anymore, my Trek children taught me that even though the standards of the world are not aligned with ours, and even though their family situation might not be perfect, they can still rise above it, find their own testimonies and desires to be great. They still can seek out the good instead of the bad, and they do. It really gave me hope for the future that perhaps my children will turn out all right, in spite of me having so many shortcomings. If Brighton and Dale turn out anything like Keaton, our oldest, I will be the happiest mom around. If Adaira and Daisy are as responsible and even tempered as Kim, I will feel like maybe I wasn't a horrible mother. It has been such a blessing to have this unexpected lesson, and I hope to keep it with me.