Pioneer Trek

Me, Celeste and Melyssa

A few members of my "family"

From the 23 to the 25 of June I went on a pioneer trek with my stake. We were assigned to a "family"  with probably 10 or 11 people in each one.There were around 20 "families". The purpose of the trek was to give the youth a little taste of what the handcart pioneers went through. I know that we did not  have it anywhere near as bad as they did. (I just saw the movie "17 Miracles") We walked about 10 miles on the first day and it was fairly difficult. There were at least three hills that were hard to hike with a handcart. We had large meals,and there was no way that the leaders would let any of us go hungry like the pioneers did. I got along pretty well with my family. There was one girl who was seventeen, one who was 15 and another who was 13. There were four boys in my group, the youngest was 12 and the oldest was 17.

Handcarts

We spent most of our time together as a family. I had a great Ma and Pa, they were always supportive and encouraged us to keep going. It felt a lot longer than three days though! The boys in my family were very sturdy and they hardly let us touch the bar at the front of the cart. Don't worry that didn't stop the girls from pushing the back of the cart.There was one hill that was a "women's pull". It symbolized when many of the men left for the Mormon Battalion, and their wives and children had to go on without them. (I have an ancestress, Amy Loader, who was part of the Martin Handcart Company and she had many more hardships. Her Husband died during the journey so she and her daughters had to pull almost all of the way.)
On the afternoon of the second day we had the opportunity to play some pioneer type games against other families, and mine did pretty well. We had a testimony meeting Friday night and I couldn't believe how many people got up. There was a line with at least 20 people in it. We were up until 10:30pm bearing our testimonies. I think that it was my favorite part of the whole trek. If any of you have the opportunity to go on one then I really think that you should.   

Wednesday

Wednesday was the last full day of camp, and the one that I can remember the least of. In the morning we retrieved our buckets of food from the trailer. Third years had music first so I got to practice the ukelele a little more.After that we had crafts. I'm not very good at crafts. Sister Means gave us a little square of the fabric of our choice and gave a brief lecture on how to make flower headbands. At first I was doing great, but as soon as we started sewing I fell behind. I kept redoing my stitches, because they weren't perfect. I didn't even finish one headband when other people at my table finished three or four. It was really sad for me. When that dreaded hour was over we got to go to the archery range.

My TWO bullseyes!!!

Again my first two shots were bull's eyes and the rest of my shots were also pretty good. Lunch was right after and it was, as always delicious. After lunch was the award ceremony. My ward got best attitude, and I was the one that got to go up and receive it. Then they did personal awards and I got a little wooden star that stated that I held the highest score in archery for that year, and I'm sure every year to follow. Later we had the Music presentation.Each year of campers played or danced to their own song. Half of my year, including me, played the ukelele and the other half danced a hula to our playing. It just happened to be awesome! Between performances we could hear yelling. That is when the leaders started to get nervous. The bear was back! The Fish and Game department had come early that morning and left traps for the bear right in the middle of the camp. Luckily nobody started to panic this time. We just continued the program. The slideshow was also that night so we got to watch the thirty minute show. After that priesthood escorted us back to our cabin and everybody went to sleep. The next morning we heard that the priesthood had gone on a bear hunt. President Anderson had come within 100 yards of the bear and

The bear enjoying our wonderful trash.

snapped a few pictures. Everybody thought that the bear trap would be all full of bear Thursday morning, but it was quite the opposite. The bear had crawled into the trap and ate the food without springing it. I don't know about the others but by now I had gained some respect for this bear. We were out of camp at about eight thirty in the morning and I was really sad to leave. I think that I am about ready for next year

Tuesday - Hike Day, Skit Day and Unexpected Guest Day

I'm Queen of the mountain!

Tuesday was hike day, so flag was at six and we had to be out of there by six thirty to leave on the hike. I packed my camelpak full of fruit snacks and granola bars, most of which I didn't even get close to eating. There were two hikes that were available. There was the first year hike (Friendship Loop) which is three miles, and there was the second year hike which was supposed to be five. The third years get to chose which one they want to go on. So naturally I chose the longer one. The first three miles was an easy hike. The terrain was relatively flat and the only obstacles were skinny streams and fallen logs. When we got to the end of the five mile hike many people, myself included wanted to continue and hike the switchbacks. Brother McDaniel, the priesthood holder who was leading the hike said that if we wanted to keep going we could follow him but if we didn't then we could stay here and wait for the others to get back. About three quarters of the girls wanted to keep going but a few girls along with some leaders were done. The first couple of switchbacks were the hardest for me. I bet at least ten girls had to turn around. I wasn't fast enough to keep up with Brother McDaniel and three ridiculously fast girls. However I was going faster than most of the girls so I was in the middle of two groups by myself. At the very end I caught up to the frontrunners and took lots and lots of pictures at the top of the mountain. We went down a few switchbacks and I saw a girl from my ward so I hiked back up with her to take more pictures. I really enjoyed the hike up, but by the time we were hiking down it was hot and miserable. When we got back to camp everyone had lunch, which was sandwiches. As soon I had finished my sandwich I fell asleep on the cabin deck with a mattress pad as my pillow. It was the best sleep I ever had. I'm pretty sure I was the last person in camp to take a shower because of my nap.The after hike activities consisted of little games like keep the balloon in the air for 20 seconds, get as many toilet paper rolls into the bin as you could throwing backwards, or my personal favorite, wear a pedometer on your forehead and shake your head as fast as you could and you had to get to thirty five steps in thirty seconds. After that the archery range was open and I went there and my first two shots were both bull's eyes! After that there was free time until dinner. Immediately after dinner was the Junior Staff recognition ceremony. This is when the camp leaders tell everyone about the Junior Staff's achievements and good traits. Right after that was when the wards preform their skits. My ward was third to last and  right at the very end of our skit  everyone was told to go into the kitchen Ramada. Nobody knew what was going on. Then a whisper that there had been a bear-sighting started to move through the crowd. Soon most of the girls were sprinting to the Ramada, where the other two wards preformed their skits. While we were in the Ramada we were informed that there really was a bear. Brother McFarlane told us that is was a nuisance bear that was afraid of people. It had raided one of the cabins for snacks and ran a way when it heard a leader coming. After that the priesthood escorted each ward safely to their cabin. They told us that all of our food needed to be packed up and brought into a trailer that would be locked for the night. Something that I think is weird is that I slept really well that night, way better than I had the other nights.   

Bear damage......

 

Monday at Camp Lo Mia

On the zipline

 Flag was at seven so we were up at six thirty. After flag one person from each ward had to go get the breakfast bucket, which contained more food than any one ward could eat in a day so we snacked on it for the whole week.  I'm the only third year in my ward so during classes I was with a bunch of people, most of whom I didn't know at all. My group had archery first. I didn't do very good, but on my last shot I got a bulls eye. After archery I had certification. The third years learned how to purify water if you didn't have any clean water.  After certification I had music. My YCL, youth camp leader, Sara is from Hawaii and she taught us how to hula dance. For those who didn't want to dance there was another choice, you could learn how to play the ukelele. I chose to play the ukelele, and I was pretty good if I do say so myself. The ukelele is very different from the violin and the strumming killed my fingers. (I probably wasn't even doing it right, but whatever). I really like playing ukelele it is such a cute little mini guitar. Then we had lunch. I can't remember exactly what it was but it was good. After lunch was zipline,

Dancing like a tree

compass certification and craft. The zipline was really fun, the scariest part was having to climb up the scaffolding to get to the top. For compass certification they gave us a list of directions and we had to follow it and then we would end up in some random place where we would get our prize. It had to be cut short though because our craft would take such a long time. The craft was to make a pocket size Book of Mormon cover. It took about an hour and a half, and four or five more hours to dry. It was fun, and turned out really cute. After we made those we had some down time at our cabin before flag ceremony. As usual I got mail, but I had also received a package. They had an embarrassing requirement  for everybody that got mail. We had to spell our names in the air with our butts. That was pretty awesome. Since I got a package I had to do something extra. A YCL named Alex taught me how to do "yoga" (I really don't think it was yoga).I had to dance like a tree blowing in the wind, then a tree blowing in a storm. I really got into it. Then I had to be a falcon, that was fun. Normally I don't think that I would want to do it but I knew that if I didn't get into they would make me do it again and again until I did. After I was done a big ole hawk flew right over us and I pointed up and said "that's me!!!". Then we had a delicious dinner. The devotional we had after dinner was given by the junior staff (sixth years). They talked about how it is not okay to gossip about other people. It can seriously affect their life.

Girls Camp

       I spent the last five days at Camp Lo Mia with my stake. We left on Saturday and got back on Thursday. My stake was in West Camp, which is the smallest of the three camps. The first night was Bishops Night. The Bishop from each ward gave a little talk to their ward  and provided dessert. My Bishop talked about how we should save our kisses for someone who really deserves them. After his devotional Bishop gave each of us a piece of seven layer cake. Alright so for those of you who don't know where Lo Mia is, it is near Pine, Arizona. It was pretty chilly and it got down to around forty five degrees. I was not expecting it to be anywhere near that cold so the first night was a shock! There was a very strict no prank policy this year so we went right to bed and stayed there.

The baby hat that I made

         Sunday morning flag ceremony was at six thirty in the morning so everyone was up at six, that was fun. I hadn't slept very well the night before and to make it better I had a stomach ache. Right after flag was instant choir, which was optional. I didn't go, I decided to go lay down for thirty minutes. To avoid the heat we had sacrament meeting at seven. My friend Shannon in my ward spoke and so did a girl named  Mikaela, and the concluding speaker was President Hettinger. Shannon talked about how a Kodiak bear could smell bacon from ten miles away, (later this information became very relevant). We had a little break before Young Women so I laid down at that time. Our YW lesson was on being friendly to others. We had some down time after this. Since I was  feeling better  I helped make little Father's Day presents. Later we did humanitarian aid projects. We made hygiene kits, file folder games and little baby hats for less fortunate people in other countries. The evening started with the Colors of the Wind Program. The fourth years teach the first years about the Young Women values and paint the first years faces with lines of the value colors (white, blue, red, green, orange, yellow, purple, and gold). They also sang Colors of the Wind from Pocahontas in sign language. Following the program we went back to our cabins for a little while. Then back to the grove for the next program. Women in our stake dressed up as Biblical women and told us some of their stories. At the end each ward gathered in their group and stood a few feet away from the closest ward. It was pitch black. All of a sudden one ward would turn their flashlights on and start to sing a song, and then another and another until each ward had sung their song. Most if not all were primary songs. My ward sang Scripture Power. It was probably my favorite program of all three years that I had been there. We went back to our cabin and received another devotional from the YCLs before we went to sleep.