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!
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