This Year Our Youth Conference was a trek... The last trek that I went on was in 2002 when I was a junior in High School. We did it in the end of July the first time and it was a killer... This year they did the trek in the middle of June and I have to say that I really enjoyed it. It was challenging at times but so worth it... The best part about it was that Taylor and Brooke Henderson were our Big Brother and Big Sister and Tanner and Shawn were in out family. We had 4 girls in our group two from our ward and two from another ward and 4 more guys. I have to say that we had the best family in the whole trek... Day one we traveled about 13 miles, we got heavy rain for a long while in the afternoon but it was refreshing. At one pointe along the trail the lightning and thunder got so bad that they made us stop and go under tarps... Taylor, Brooke and I ended up under the handcart and we had a blast... I have the picture below!!!
My father was in charge of two things this trek; the Anti-Mormon Expierence and the Ferry... He put so much time and effort into both of these... Below are a few pictures of the anti mormon's. My mother is trying so hard to be mean. The other people are Natalie Soloman, Brian Melick, Les Brigh, Daniel and Emily Munns. Brother Soloman came late but also participated. I love the picture below of my father. He was wearing a wig and had a huge knife, he never said a word just sat there looking mean and growled...
Let me explain a little bit about the ferry. 4 years ago they had a ferry that was ok but not the best, the first hand cart and people that came across fell into the river... So my father being the perfectionist he is created the best ferry ever. He build two docks one on each bank and then had ropes going across... It was almost fail proof, I say almost because one cart almost fell in... I will explain below...
Here is our group coming to the ferry!!!
So above I mentioned that a hand cart almost went into the river... That handcart happened to be ours... So when the ferry was pulled back to the dock Taylor and Brian were suppose to tie it onto a piece of wood and when the handcart was on the ferry it would be undone and then able to go across... So our family was the only family that let the youth do the ferry all my themselves. Most other groups the pa and the big brother helped out, but we let the kids do it all... So I am standing at the top of the hill and I watch as the handcart is going down onto the dock and starting to go onto the ferry when the ferry starts to float away with only half of the handcart on it... Tanner and a girl name Brittany were stratling the dock and the ferry and I thought that they were going to fall in, but they did not... Taylor ran down and pulled the roap back and they were able to get the handcart back up the hill... below is a picture of them pushing the handcart back up... I witnesed a miracle because that handcart was suppose to fall into the water, someone had to have been helping hold it up... I am so glad that our stuff did not get wet...
So as I mentioned above the first day we traveled about 13+ miles and made it to camp way passed dark... The trek that I went on while I was a youth had a yucky meal the first night, to show us how awful the pioneers had it. The meal was like water/broth and salt with a little roll... It was pretty bad. Sister Bainer this year wanted the youth to be well fed and they had a beef stew waiting for us that was so so yummy... I usually dont care for stew, but it was really good... Taylor and Brooke made a great tent for us to sleep under... So the first night was misrable... It took a while to get all the kids in and down and then I went out and changed and brushed my teeth and readied for bed. I was so tired.. It was past midnight when I finally into bed... I brought my handy earpluggs along and not 5 minutes after I put them in and I was laying comfortable I felt someone shaking me. It was a girl in our group that said she was not feeling well... The leaders had already left and we were left to fend for ourselves. If it had gotten too bad there was a way to call for help. So Brooke and I woke Taylor up and he was able to give her a priesthood blessing, we spent the next two hours rubbing her back and helping her to relax. She finally went down around 2. We were beyond tired but you know when you get so tired you cant sleep, well that is what happened. We spent the next hour rubbing eachothers backs and feet.... We finally went down by 3 and I sleped on and off till 6 when I was wide awake... Ready to start day 2...
Day 2 was great. We had breakfast and a family scripture study and left camp around 10... We did not travel too far this day, only about 4 miles or so to the mail camp... We got to the mail camp and found the perfect place to make a tent... Taylor was the mastermind behind our place of rest which the trekkers deemed two names... The Deseret Marriot and the Tasha Mahala... My father had bought a huge tarp that we were able to throw over a huge tree limb. Really this was the best tent ever... We acually won the best camp site award and were able to get our deseret first that night... We stayed in camp that afternoon and had hair washing, slip in slide fun and gun shooting... This night was alot better, no one got sick
Day 3 we got up and had a wonderful meeting with the stake president and then a testimony meeting. It was so great to hear our youth bear testimony and strengthen eachother. We left there around 2 and made it to the Salt Lake Valley where our friends and family were waiting... I am so glad that we particiapted...
I love my facial expressing as I sat down on the tube and the cold water engulfed my body...
The Crew!!!
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