Day 2 of Trek!

Katelyn with Libby Trimble during the activities at Trek.  We had such a great time!  Libby is in Katelyn's Trek family with Brother and Sister Updike.

Here's my journal entry for the day:

We got up the next morning, and instructions were in our Liahona!  It was basically a schedule for the day.  They gave us ham and cheese bagels that morning that tasted pretty good.  The “baby” that we’d carried all day Wednesday “died” and we had to bury her.  They’d named her Abish and everyone took turns carrying her during the trek.  She was heavy—we made her about 10 pounds—filling her with sand.  Our group got tired of carrying her, but it did mean that you got a break from pulling if you were carrying her, so people wanted to rotate that.  I carried her a lot and she WAS heavy!  I ended up just putting her on my shoulder rotating shoulders, because she got so heavy!  As we had the burial ceremony, we had the chance to talk about death and its part in the Plan of Salvation.  We read several scriptures out of the Book of Mormon (we’ve been doing this the entire time where we get a list of scriptures to talk about and mark.)  and discussed the miracle of the Resurrection and that Christ has overcome death and that we will all be able to be resurrected and receive a perfect body someday.  It was a really neat and spiritual conversation with our family.  Then we loaded up and trekked AGAIN!  This day’s trek wasn’t as long, but this is where our family fell apart a bit.  Most of them were great, but Charity kind of had a meltdown.  Thursday was not a good day for her!  She had a bad attitude and was being mean and ornery y with ALL the members of our family—telling then they weren’t pulling hard enough, etc.  She was even being rude to the adults!  (Us and other leaders!)  This caused some problems in the group and Whitney and Sarah approached me, because they didn’t know what to do about it.  I told them to just be patient with her, and that she was just really tired and that it would probably get better.  It did.  She was still hard to be around for the entire time, but she got a little easier to deal with.  We finally made it to our next camp around noon.  This was main camp and where we’d stay for the rest of Trek.  This was called the land of Zarahemla.  As we entered camp there was King Benjamin’s tower—and it was tall.  We were instructed to set up our tents facing this tower.  The tents were another story!  Ours was too big, so we couldn’t get it to hold up, so we just gave up after about an hour of trying to make it work and just laid tarps out—we’d sleep out under the stars the entire time and for all 3 nights!  Keith set up a few tarps around trees so the girls would have a changing area—which was really nice.  We got our stove and camp stuff set up, and then we had lunch.  Nothing too exciting—rolls, a watermelon, some apples, beef jerky and red vines for dessert.  We enjoyed sitting as a family on our tarp and eating together, though.  The rest of the afternoon was spent doing team work type activities, where we rotated around the different stations.  One that really stood out to me was the Prison Break game.  We explained the game but as the Emma and Abba, we were instructed to let them come up with the solutions and figure it out on their own, so we did.  Our big brother, Keith spearheaded this activity.  It was a game where you had to get all the members of your team over the rope tied about 5 feet tall between 2 trees without touching the rope, and because you're breaking out of prison, you have to do it without making any noise, so you couldn't talk.  Keith instructed them on how to do it, and they had to try again several times, because if someone touched the rope, you had to start all over again.  On about our 3rd or 4th try, they managed to get everyone over the rope except for Keith and they couldn't figure out how to get him over, so he motioned to them to just run and leave him there!  He would sacrifice himself for the good of the others.  Well, according to the rules of the game, everyone has to get over the rope, so they ended up figuring out a way to get him over.  Afterward, when we were processing with the kids and drawing gospel parallels, the kids drew the parallel that Keith, as our family's big brother, sacrificed for the rest of the group so they could be saved from the prison and they likened that to our Big Brother, the Savior, who gave the greatest sacrifice and atoned for each of us so that we could be eternally saved.  It was one of the most spiritual moments of all of Trek for our family-- to make that connection and draw that gospel application!  It was a tender moment, as Keith got super emotional and bore his testimony to the kids.  He did this a lot on trek and the kids from this moment on were bonded with him.  They loved him so much!  It was a really neat experience!  (Just like we love the Savior and are bonded with Him as we realize what He did for us!)  We made dinner together as a family and Bill asked Charity if she would like to be in charge of the cooking for our family.  She was super excited to do this and took it on!  she was great as she instructed everyone on what to do.  She was having a super rough day, and this was just the things to get her involved and focused!  I was glad to see that it was a good and positive thing for her!  Dinner tasted so good--beef stew!  Yum!  After diner was the skit night--our skit was the first one!  We did the Primary Hello Song with the lyrics changed to "Trek Style" and we held up signs with the new words.  We did it through once, and then had all the kids (200+) join us when we did it the second time.  They really got into it!  It was a cute song!  We did it with the Sandovals and Eliasons.  The skits and entertainment were lots of fun!  There were some really funny skits!  WE went back to our camps and had our dessert of fry bread, which tasted more like fried pretzels.  The kids all wanted to turn in early that night for which I was super grateful!  I slept really well that night considering the hard ground I was sleeping on.  It was the warmest of the 3 nights, too.  The first night I almost froze and the last night I was pretty cold too!

 

 

 

Trek Day 1 -- Journey to the Promised Land

Today was the first day of Trek and we were so excited!  It was a long day of activities and trekking but it was so amazing!  We all ended up in great trek families, too!  Here's my journal entry for the day:

We got up early on Wednesday—3:30 am for me!  (We were asked to be at the Stake Center by 5:30 and Katelyn by 6, so Brooke dropped her off to give her a bit more time to sleep and get ready.)  We had a prayer mtg. with all the Emmas and Abbas in the foyer—everyone dressed with their Book of Mormon attire and all their gear and babies!  It was neat to see everyone dressed like that!  Then the kids started to arrive—Bill checked in our ward.  When I walked into the Cultural Hall, I couldn’t believe how amazing all the decorations were!  It was decorated to look like a market in Jerusalem!  They served breakfast—just about every kind of breakfast food you could imagine!  (I’d already eaten, because I wanted to make sure I had a good breakfast… I didn’t know what they would be serving.)  It was fun walking around and seeing it all!   I enjoyed getting pictures with Katelyn and her friends and visiting with all the Trek participants.  Then they did the first reenactment where Lehi prophesied about the destruction of Jerusalem and preached that the people needed to repent.  Of course, there were people planted in the audience that were the naysayers and scoffing at what he had to say, and threatening to kill him.  They reenacted Lehi’s family on the stage, leaving for the Promised Land.  Jared Abbott is playing Nephi, and he did such a great job the WHOLE time at Trek!  Then they called out each of the Tribes/Families.  We were group 3, so we got called early!  (Out of 28 families!)  We had an awesome group of youth!  (Charity Finell, Ethan Clement, Jesse Grover, Chase Kurtzeborn, Claire Cannon, Whitney Jensen, Grace Scoffield, Isaac Proudfit, Luke Trimble, Daniel Holmes and Sarah Harris—our Big Brother was Keith Garn and our Big Sister was Heidi Tuita)  There were many, many tender mercies on the Trek!  Heavenly Father was definitely aware of all of my anxieties and worries!  Keith was definitely an answer to many of those!  He was amazing!  He is a police man, but was also a paramedic, so he had medical training that really helped our family.  He is also super outdoorsy and knows how to tie knots and do all of that kind of stuff, so our cart was packed well and he was always RIGHT there whenever we needed him!  Heidi was also really great!  She’s a happy person and really helped to motivate the kids when it got hard!  She was always right there to work and help, as well!  Each one of the kids were good kids who wanted to be there and ALL of them helped push and pull the cart.  No one didn’t care about it or had a bad attitude.  The first day was amazing to see them all work together with such positive attitudes.  Charity was a worry to me because of our interaction at the Shakedown, but she was an amazing leader that really rallied our family that first day with her leadership.  She’s very direct and won’t say it nicely, but she gets the point across and the kids always listened to her.  Anyway, we got an hour to get to know our family there in the YW room.  We played a couple of games and explained things as much as we could.  The Emas and Abbas really weren’t given much information more than what the kids were told—it was all just found out as we went along!  We boarded our busses and headed for Flagstaff.  When we got there, our gear was in a pile under a pine tree with several long wooden poles.  We had to figure out a way to carry them a couple of miles to our hand carts!  This activity proved to be very physically taxing as we literally carried all of our duffle bags and heavy gear!  Jesse Grover was the first family member to impress me!  What a tender mercy that guy was the entire Trek!  He rescued me by taking a very heavy bag that I was carrying along with several bags that Bill and I were carrying, plus the stuff he was already carrying!  He’s a big guy, but by the time we reached our cart, he had collapsed and had pulled something in his shoulder too.  He was a work horse the ENTIRE time we trekked!  We loaded up our carts.  By this time it was already in to the afternoon.  I was anxious to get trekking because I knew it was going to be a long day and long night!  It was hard, and I didn’t have to pull or push the cart.  (They asked that only the kids and big brothers/big sisters do that.)  We trekked through very steep and rocky terrain for most of the time!  We were so lucky to be in the first caravan.  Dave Baker was our caravan leader.  There were 8 families, and we seemed to be closer to the front of the caravan throughout the trek, but sometimes we fell back for whatever reason.  Early on, we had a reenactment, where Nephi (Jared) came and we all stopped our caravan and went to hear the reenactment.  It was the part of the Book of Mormon where they were sent back to Jerusalem to get the plates.  They then asked that 2 volunteers from each group go back to where we started with the carts to get our plates (trek journals they gave to each member of our family).  It surprised me, but Charity volunteered.  The other person was either Dan or Ethan-- I can’t remember.  But what was amazing was how fast they volunteered!  They both just offered and we’d hiked for around an hour at this point!  I was super impressed with that!  There were enjoyable periods of the trek as well, where it was relatively level, or with no big rocks, or both.  Most of it was difficult though.  Around 10pm we hit Rocky Ridge. Looking at it, I didn’t think we would be able to do it!  Our cart was heavy, and it was so steep and rocky it looked impossible!  Both Bill and I jumped in to help because there was no way they could do it alone!  It took a lot of energy, and by this point everyone was exhausted and done!  We were so tired of walking and pushing and pulling!  But somehow we made it!  Then, worn out and tired—around 10:30—just after Rocky Ridge, they asked the men and boys to gather at a certain area.  The women gathered in another area where they explained that the next pull would just be for the women. It was explained that often, in the church, women are asked to do hard things without their husbands or the help of others and that this exercise was one to help us learn that we can also do hard things, just like them men and without their help.   I looked at what we’d have to do alone, holding my lantern up, and it was incredibly steep and rocky.  We gave all our satchels to the men to carry for us and huddled up for a prayer.  We prayed for help to be able to do this!  I was worried because my lower back was really hurting and sore and I hadn’t even had to do a lot of pulling.  How were the others going to be able to do it?  We then had a group prayer with all the women and girls.  You could feel the Spirit as we all contemplated the task—many were expressing their fears, and others were giving pep talks encouraging the girls that they could do it.  Our group was very encouraging!  We offered to be the first cart up the mountain.  (This is what got us into first place!)  It was decided that the girls would all go in the front, and that Heidi and I would push from the back.  I have never exerted more physical energy in my entire life the way I did that night.  But interestingly, I felt like there were more people pulling an pushing—as if we literally had help!  It was hard, but miraculously, my lower back didn’t hurt at all.  It completely stopped!  I couldn’t believe it!  But, my knees were in all sorts of pain.  I don’t even have problems with my knees but they ached during that time of going up that steep and rocky mountain!  I think just the torque of pushing from the back, strained them.  Then we hit a huge rock—the whole time the boys are all hiking next to our cart watching us do this hard thing.  Then Dan couldn’t help himself any longer (and by the way, he’d hurt his knee earlier and was having a really hard time himself) and gave our cart a big push to help us get over the rock.  He wasn’t supposed to do this, but he said that he couldn’t stand it any longer and just gave the cart a push.)  Even though he wasn’t supposed to do this, I was incredibly impressed with his compassion for our situation.  None of the boys liked watching us do this, but it ended up being a super spiritual experience!  Angels literally helped us!  It felt like there were more people pulling!  There was still a very long way to go after the women’s pull and ALL of us were so done.  All the kids were talking about what kind of food they wanted to eat and how hungry they were, but the conversation never turned negative!  Everyone stayed positive and just kept pulling!  We finally made it there at 11:30!  We were the first ones there and I could hardly believe it!  WE DID IT!!  I’ve never been so physically, emotionally and mentally spent!   We parked our hand cart and they directed us to a path that they wanted us to walk with everyone in our family.  I can remember just wanting to find a piece of ground and go to sleep, so I was annoyed that we had more to do.  We walked up and they had warm broth and pita bread for us to eat.  I swear, that broth tasted like a steak dinner!  Then we walked a little further where we saw signs that asked questions about our testimonies.  We also saw a sign that said The Land of Nephi.  Then we walked the Covenant path where we saw reenactments happening with a child being baptized (The Theresa and James Nally family with their son.) and a girl being confirmed a little further down.  Then we saw a priesthood ordination being acted out a few steps down.  Then we saw missionaries—this is where I lost it!  Brooke and Sky were the sister missionaries!  I was already emotional because it was so touching, but seeing Brooke standing there just made me fall apart!  They were “praying” as we walked by, but I had to reach out and touch her to say hello, so I did.  She looked up and just smiled the biggest smile ever!  (She later told me that she wasn’t supposed to interact at all, but that she did because it was me.)  Then there was a couple in front of a temple—The Noe’s from our ward.  It was all so amazing and touching!  Then they had a big Iron Rod set up with lights along it.  Lehi and Sariah were right next to it.  This tree was amazing!!  It was all lit up with white lights EVERYWHERE and with little packages of something wrapped in white paper.  I was so tired I couldn’t get mine to come off the tree!  I finally got it off but the hook was still on the string and I couldn’t pry it off because I was so tired!  We went back to our cart and we ate our bread and broth and I finally got my paper off, and it was such a yummy roll!  It tasted so good!  It was kind of sweet, but so soft and it tasted so good!  (Brooke told me later that she’d helped put the lights on the tree and set it up earlier that day.  She said it was really hard to set it up and get it to look so good!  They did an awesome job!)  After we finished eating, we pulled the cart into camp and Bill and Keith had already scouted out a clearing for us.  We just laid our tarps down—one for the boys and one for the girls and just crashed.  We were all so tired.  We were given a Liahona earlier at the church, and instructed to put it out each night, so I put it right by my head.  I was really cold and my muscles were all hurting so badly—I’ve never been so sore in my life, so I didn’t sleep very well.  The ground was hard and my shoulders and hips and neck were all hurting, but the worst was the muscles—arms and legs!