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.