Elder Howard finally caught up with me in age! I am a year older than he is, for two months. Sometimes it is a looong two months! We have one more year to enjoy our 60's!
Every birthday person during the summer gets their RV decorated by a certain Sister (Sister Call thinks it is a secret, but most of us know it is her doing the decorating.) It is so fun. Elder Howard was also given some treats by several other missionaries. Some of us ate dinner out a couple of days earlier and the waitress brought him a piece of chocolate cake with a candle on it. He passed it around the table and after 12 missionaries sampled it, there was enough for him to still have some!
Our first Trek week is here! There is still a lot of water on the ranch. This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago, so some of the water levels have gone down a bit, but we still have water crossings on most all of the trails.
The Tuesday before our first trek started, we drove the trail one last time to check the water crossings. The antelope are beginning to have their little ones. This one was just getting his running legs going.
Our first trek of this season was with Hyde Park Stake from Logan, UT. There were 424 people and they had 41 carts. This is the biggest group we have had, and will have, on our mission. They were such a great group--kids and leaders. Here we are starting out on the trail. The first day we met a young man named Chase Larson. He is a nephew of Shad and Kim Larson in our home ward in Emmett. We took a picture of him with us, but I inadvertently deleted it from my phone. I was so sad, but he wanted to make sure that we said "hi" to them from him!
The weather was beautiful--just right for trekking. Because we have no shade on any of our trails, the families bring tarps and use their handcarts to make shade. These guys did a good job.
Because of the heavy snow this past winter and spring, there is still a lot of water on the Ranch. So, our trails have some water crossings. Trail #6 had several. This is one of the first ones. It was pretty interesting getting the handcarts across. If they could get them across without getting their feet wet and muddy. . .
. . . them most of them could just jump across.
We piles sticks across to help some the the girls and women get through easier.
Our handcarts stretched for at least a half mile sometimes. We ususally have two missionary couples traveling with each trekking group. One missionary walks up front with the Trail Boss (and tries to not get them lost,) one walks up and down and in the middle of the group, one drives the emergency medical side-by-side ATV far enough behind them to have visual and radio contact, but far enough back to not disturb them with the motor noise, unless needed for medical problems (or catch-up rides, or photographer rides, or tired leader rides,) and one missionary drives a mission pick-up and leads the support staff to the next porta-john stop and/or camp.
The Hyde Park Stake started making a trailer to put all of their cooking gear in. Then they decided to enclose the sides to protect them from the wind. Then they thought, "Why not just put a top on it and make it into a chuck-wagon!
It had six smokers that they cooked in and kept things warm in.
On the other side were seven grills to cook on. They even had a propane water heater in the back corner so they could have hot water any time they needed it! They said that when they get home, they are taking it all apart because the owner of the trailer needs to haul hay on the trailer! Too bad!
The leaders gave such good devotionals and they had a lot of musical talent. They had a youth choir that was so good. They danced a short hoedown every night, using a lot of their own musical instruments. Before they closed the devotional, their leader told the kids that he had talked to their mothers that night and they wanted him to remind all of them to keep hydrated and use sun block. Each night he told them that he had talked to their mothers that evening and reminded them of several things their mothers wanted them to do.
On the second day, we met up with the Ranch road grader right out of camp. I was driving support and we all had to move off of the road to let him pass. Then, because he was traveling about 2 mph, we asked him if we could pass him. He was very amiable and let us pass. Then, when we were at our lunch stop, just before the Woman's Pull, he started up that hill. Our support vehicles going up the hill had to wait on him, but some of the road we had traveled on that day, and the Woman's Pull hill, were a lot smoother than they would have been.
They had the devotional at the bottom of the Women's Pull that afternoon, after the boys had gone up the hill. The Woman's Pull is usually done in the morning when it is cooler and the girls haven't traveled most the day, but this group wanted to do it in the afternoon. We were a little worried about them doing this.
The women get ready to start up the hill, all with 4-5 girls/women on each cart. The Women's Pull on Trail #6 is one of the shortest of our pulls, but it is the steepest. We were glad the weather was still cool, and they did great, even though it was very hard for them. The boys/men were waiting along the road at the top, reverently, with their hats over their hearts. It is a very emotional part of the Trek, where the girls learn they can do hard things, and boys learn respect for the girls doing hard things. It is sometimes harder to watch than it is to pull the hill.
Elder Howard is going to enjoy his lunch after climbing the hill with the men and boys and watching the girls come up.
The Stake leaders found a perfect spot at the 2nd camp to build the Nauvoo Temple--right on a ridge overlooking the beautiful ranch. Each youth gave up their buckets as they came into camp (a bucket that held everything they had brought on Trek, except sleeping bags and tents, and that was used by them to sit on) to build the temple.
The wind was blowing so hard at the top of the hill where they camped, that they did not know if it would be possible to keep the temple upright. But, as they gathered together in front of it for their evening devotional, sitting on tarps, the temple never moved. As the sun set, it shadowed the people and shone on the temple. It was amazing!
Continuing the trek the next day, pushing and pulling, some with blistered feet, twisted ankles, and tired bodies, they headed towards the last camp. They were such good trekkers!
Their last camp was tucked into a valley, and there they built the Salt Lake Temple, again with the buckets given up by the youth and their leaders.
They ended up with a very good replica of the Salt Lake Temple, with beautiful clouds behind it. The Stake President gave the devotional that night and reminded them of a 2002 conference talk given by President Gordon B. Hinkley, prophet of the Church. President Hinkley said that the Nauvoo Temple, facing west, and the Salt Lake Temple, facing east, are like two bookends, with the stories of all of the pioneers coming to Zion in between them. All of the trekkers had willingly given up everything they had (their buckets and the things in them) to build these two temples--just like the members of Church had given their all. All of the trekkers had brought a pedigree chart of their ancestors (some of them being those members of the Church, and pioneers) and were carrying them in the lid of their buckets. These ancestors were all part of the temples they had built on Trek. The Stake President challenged all of them to continue their stories by being modern day pioneers to add to those stories between the temple bookends.
On their last day of trekking, we encounterd the widest of the water crossings. By this time, the trekkers didn't mind their feet getting a little wet because they knew they were on their way home. What a great trek we had with the Hyde Park Stake!
Being the first trek of the season, this was Elder and Sister Clark's very first trek. They did great and we had a lot of fun sharing it with them.
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