Trek Day Two

This was the day we spent at Trek so we have pictures to share.

We put on our "pioneer finest" and headed back down the road about 16 miles to the parking lot.  As we pulled in, this was the sight we saw:

 I am not going to lie.  I got tears in my eyes seeing them trekking down the hill.  It was an amazing sight!

There was a little hill right by the parking lot so we stopped there and took some great pictures of the families pushing their carts up.  The families were organized with a Youth Ma and Pa, eight other youth from all different wards in our Stake, plus 2 Adult "children". 

 This is Jena's family minus Jena who traveled a bit slower than the rest of the trekkers.  On the first day, she and her assigned sister who start off near the front of the handcarts and walk along while they all passed by and then they would get a lift from a trailing truck back to the front and start walking again.  At each break, they told us that her Ma would track her down and gather her to the family.  They walked 10 miles the first day although I am not sure how far Jena actually traveled by foot, she loved it all.

Bro. and Sis. Miggins were the adult Children
in Jena's family. Below is Maddie Kimball who was assigned as Jena's big sister.
 These were the only three people
from our ward in her family.  Jena knew a couple of
the other kids before the Trek a little bit.

Jena, Maddie, and another helper up a little incline

This morning was the time of the Women's Pull.  This represents the time when Mormon men were requested to leave their families along the trail in their wagons and join the Mormon Battalion to fight down in California.  Jena and I headed down to join the girls and women for their morning side while the young men and men headed up the mountainside.  It was a sobering sight as they separated (and these weren't even actual families.  How hard for a husband and father to leave his family crossing the plains!).

At the morningside, Jena sitting on her 5 gal. bucket.

Sis. Hatch spoke.  She is the Stake YW president.  I loved the description of her talk which was shared by Lindsay Ericksen at the Post-Trek fireside.  To paraphrase, she shared: "I was really psyched to do the Women's pull.  I knew we could do it.  I expected Sis. Hatch to talk about the strength and power of women and how we can accomplished hard things.  I thought she would be cheering us on and telling us how we could do it.  Instead she talked about the power and role of men.  She told us that the world was teaching us the wrong thing about men and belittling their roles in marriages, families, and society.  She taught us to stand strong and testify of the importance and role of men.  We need to expect them to be strong and work with them.  She challenged us to look into the eyes of the young men and men as we pushed up the hill.  See their goodness, their strength, how they want to help and pull with us."  Then Lindsay paused and said, "I took that challenge but only could look once.  It was too much to bear."

The women waiting at the bottom of the hill

Pushing up the hill
(cameraman on the side near the bottom of the hill)

 The young men and men had headed up the hill earlier and had their own morningside.  Then they were told to line the side of the hill near the top.  They could only watch as the girls struggled with the handcarts up the hill.  As the cart crested the hill, they could go to their family's cart and help them push it to the nearby stopping place.

Gary is standing at the top of the hill on the left in his blue shirt.

We chose to not have Jena do the push up the hill although I regretted it later.  I should have walked up with her.  She got a ride over to the testimony meeting which was held after every cart had made it up the hill.  With 400 youth, it was a long testimony meeting and we were told that Jena bore a sweet testimony herself in front of all those people.  Wish we had seen that, but those that needed to I am sure were there to hear it.

We headed out to walk the mile up to where the games were to be held in the afternoon and started setting up.  The skies were mostly overcast so it wasn't too hot for most of the day until right near the end of the games around 5:00.  Then the sun came out and we all really started sweating.

Susan Westbroek, Wendy Garcia, and Karla Robinett setting up
the Relay games.  I ran the Potato Sack races for 400 youth and adults.

Gary and Tim Robinett managed these tall catapults
launching water balloons.  Gary had a slight mishap as
a young grandchild of the landowners tripped over a
wire which release the 2 by 6 into Gary's face.
He was left with a knot on his head and a black eye
although he said he never got a headache.
I didn't see it until a couple of hours later since I was
in a different area of the field.

The tent city for the Trekkers

Jena's family was taking a family nap
after the games.  Everyone was actually sleeping but
Jena had her head up until she saw us
getting ready to take a picture so she
buried her head in a bonnet.

Ma (Megan) with Jena
Both Jena's Ma and Pa were outstanding with her.

 Jena's family is having dinner together.  Jena was definitely a part of this group and we so appreciate their willingness to go the extra mile.  Jena was relaxed with them and having a great time interacting with them.  We even overheard her making jokes with them.  Her Pa-Gavin- has known Jena since she was in 7th grade although I don't know him.  He told me later that it had been awesome to have Jena in their family.  She was always smiling and happy.

Here we are in our Trek clothes.

 Our Bishop and friend, Steve Slater, was able to go as an "unattached adult".  The Bishops were invited to do that so that they could visit with all of the youth in the ward along the way.  This picture was taken at the Friday night fireside.

We were there!

Friday night Hoedown took place in a large meadow near where we did the earlier games.  The kids had said that they didn't think they wanted to do the hoedown but from what we saw and heard later, it was one of the highlights of the trip.

The caller did a great job managing 400 youth and adults in two huge circles.
There were smiling and laughing everywhere.

 We knew that Jena would love it and she did.  The top picture she didn't know that we were there watching the dance.

 As the night wore on, she finally had traveled around the circle to near where we were sitting and I got this picture as she saw us watching her.  Smiles!

After taking that picture of Jena dancing, we decided to hike back to our RV and head back to our camping spot.  As we reached the parking lot, the moon was just above the trees.  It was a full moon and we heard it allowed the dancing to continue even later.  It was a perfect end to an awesome day.