Trek and the spirit, brutal and fantastic...

The Mr. and I were given the opportunity be cooks on our stake's Pioneer Trek along the Mormon Trail in the wilds of Wyoming. It was a brutal and a fantastic experience that I'll never forget.

You wear costumes of a sort on trek. I'm no seamstress (please don't judge me) and I am a bit of a penny pincher so I just couldn't feel good about purchasing skirts. I remember shopping with Sue for a dress that she could wear to her son's upcoming wedding while we were on our lunch break during the dental convention. She noticed several cute dresses, not right for the wedding but very cute. She mentioned how easy they would be to make. Oh boy! I probably should have asked her or Rachelle or so many others friends for help. Instead I decided to put my head down, lean into the harness, and just do it. Geometry comes naturally to the Mr. so he made a skirt pattern.

I prayed like a monk and sewed like a turtle.  :)

 Who knew a ping pong table would make such a perfect sewing table 

to get everything pinned just right?!

This guy wanted to play "you kick the tennis ball and I'll go fetch it!"

under the sewing machine while I sewed.

Then just like that, we were off! 

It was a tender mercy to able to see our twigs experience trek. Makes me get watery eyes, I'm so grateful.

Our twigs were in different "families" with a "Ma &Pa" and trek "brothers & sisters". There were 6 or 7 kids in each family, 3 or 4 boys and 3 or 4 girls.

Hunter's in the dark hat, pulling the second handcart in this picture.   :)

I wrote that trek was brutal and fantastic. The physical work was the brutal part. The spirit I felt was the fantastic part!

There was a palpable spirit at the second camp. It had been an actual camp where pioneers who made their way west across Wyoming, fleeing persecution in Illinois, had stayed. A pioneer grave in the camp was found that only had stones as a marker. The story was told by the land owners that they had picked up the stones to move them when clearing the area for a group camp site. Immediately they heard a voice saying "Please don't take those, those are mine." They eventually realized it was a pioneer grave, left the stones there, and build a fence around the site.

Hunter's trek "family" gave their "kids" some cool swag to remind them of the faith their pioneer ancestors had in God that carried them through their journey.

Our girlie's family had native Spanish speakers for a "Ma & Pa" and some of the "children." The rest of the "children" had attended Spanish immersion schools so they could hang with the native Spanish speakers. How cool is that!   :)

Both of the twigs LOVED their trek "families!"

Trek wasn't all walking through sagebrush and fording streams for the twigs. (Thanks for the great stream picture, Jeff Wilson!)

They still had enough get-up-and-go to show off their ninja kicks...

...and enjoy some square dancing.

 

One of my "fantastic" experiences happened late on Tuesday night after this beautiful program reenacting stories of pioneers who wrote their experiences in their journals about coming west in handcart companies. (Thanks Liz Christensen!)

As a cook, Tuesday night's dinner had been tough. While chopping pounds and pounds and pounds of carrots and celery for stew for 350 people, several of the cooks developed blisters on their hands, and then we de-legged (is that a word?) and quartered burning hot chickens for the stew. 

About 10:00 that night, after we'd cleaned up dinner, I ran to my car for my coat and was walking back down the dirt road toward camp where we were going to start separating out the lunch fixings for the next day. It was a dark night. The moon hadn't come up yet and as I walked along that dusty road I thought, oh how I just want to go home. I didn't want to do it anymore and mused that I could hop in my car and be home in just a few hours. 

Then I realized if I just up and left...number one...how would the Mr. get home? Number two...I'd be leaving all those people I was supposed to be helping, high and dry. I prayed as I walked back to camp and asked Heavenly Father to please, please help me, and immediately felt the sweet peace of the spirit. Then I heard the spirit whisper that I was having just a little bit, just a taste, of the same experience our pioneer ancestors had. They may also have had moments when they wanted to just go home, moments when they didn't want to do it anymore.

Probably not on day two though....   ;)

I don't have a picture of my last "fantastic" experience. It happened during the final moments of trek. The cooks were waiting at the end of the trail with frozen popsicles for the trekkers (phenomenal planning!). I hiked up the trail to see if I could catch a glimpse of the trekkers. Suddenly, they appeared over the crest of the hill and they could see the buses all lined up and waiting for them. They whooped and hollered for joy!! Their cheers continued as handcart after handcart crested the hill and they saw the destination was near. Gave me chills!   :)

An original pioneer from the Martin Handcart Company said, "I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it. I have gone on to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there. Was I sorry that I chose to come by handcart? No. Neither then nor any minute of my life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay."
(“Pioneer Women,” Relief Society Magazine, Jan. 1948, 8.)

I'm beyond grateful I was privileged to attend our brutal and fantastic trek and become more acquainted with God.    xoxo