Trek...Amazing!

Mike and I had the opportunity to go on Trek with our ward July 8th-11th! It was truely an amazing experience. My testimony was strengthened as well as everyone elses. It was just great! We had so much fun and it was so spiritual! We went to the Wille Handcart Site and stayed there. I will tell the stories as I go through the pictures. We left the church and headed off on our 6 hour drive to Wyoming. We arrived and trekked 2.7 miles into our campsite.

This was our handcart

Steve and Jessica...after we set up camp we all got to sit around and talk. The Ma's and Pa's were all sitting around chatting.

Mike and Brandon chillin'

My baby sister McKenna came down with my parents to help babysit. The night before trek we were getting ready and Kenna really wanted to come so we called the Bishop and he said she could come on trek. So this is me and her...at first she was having a hard time finding some good friends so she said we were going to be BFF's for the trek...well as soon as Rachel took Kenna over to some of the kids...my BFF left me cuz she found some new BFF's! :) LOL it was really funny! She had a blast and made a ton of great friends. Everyone kept calling her mini-Dede and kept getting us mixed up...it was so funny!

This is us starting our 5.6 mile trek on the 2nd day. This is my family pulling our handcart.

Me and Kenna again! We had a great time together!

This is my awesome Trek Family! From left to right...Bryon, Mike, Me, Brennan, Cassie, Kylee, and David. We had so much fun. I was amazed at how close we became! I love each of these kids so much. They truely are amazing people and have so much to offer the world! We had so much fun with them!

Me, Rachel, and Jessica at the Martin Handcart Center...it was so nice out the 2nd day we were finished with our 5.6 mile trek by 1 pm. So we got to all hop in the car and head out to go see the Martin Handcart visitors center and watch a movie about the pioneers and hear a talk from some senior missionaries.

Brandon, Steve, Dallas, and Mike at the Martin Handcart Visitors Center.

Us ready to head out the 3rd day...this day was much hotter

Here we go!

Mike and I

Here is our cute family again! They were so awesome!!!!

The men being call off to war...this is called the Women's Pull...there were so many pioneer women who had to trek to Zion alone. This was one of the most spiritual experiences of the trek.

This is a picture of the men marching away. As soon as the men left it felt so different. They walked up to the top of a hill and then all the women had to pull the handcarts up the hill. It was so hard and as we reached the top of the hill the men were all standing there on both sides of the trail with their hats off respecting us. They couldn't help us as we tried to make it up the hardest part of the hill. It was so spiritual and as we were walking through I could literally feel the power of the priesthood from them and the cart felt lighter as if we were having help pushing the cart. It was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. After we got back to the campsite we all got to go swimming in the river. We got to jump off a bridge and it was so much fun! Then we got to hang around and have fun until it was time to square dance! It was so much fun! Have I mentioned trek was so much fun? :)

The square dance caller...he did awesome!

The kids square dancing

More square dancing

Cindy, Jessica, Rachel, and me

Me and Cassie she was in my family and we became really close! She is awesome!

Byron, Conner, and Carson...the 3 boys who kept me up until 2 am Friday night...here is the funny story...Of course it was so hard to get all the youth to bed but we finally got them in their tents and were able to finally get to bed. I'm a really light sleeper and any zipper that unzips I jump up and think a youth is getting out of their tent. Well an hour or 2 after we had gone to bed I hear a zipper unzip from our boys tent. I had heard them talking prior to this and looked out the window and David (0ne of our boys) was outside a girls tent talking to them. I stuck my head out of the tent and said, "David get back in bed now!" He ran as a fast as he could and then I heard the zipper un-zip again and a big thud into the tent and boys laughing and saying, "Shhhhshhhhh...quiet." Then I hear David, "Hey guys be quiet Ma heard us and is awake." So I hop out of the tent and walk over and say, "Byron, stay in your tent. I need you guys to be quiet so I can go to bed. David you stay in here too!" Then I paused and said, "Conner and Carson you can say in here but be quiet...I understand you guys want to have fun the last night and that fine but stay in this tent and be quiet." They were like, "How did you know we were in here?" I said, "I know everything just be quiet but have fun, goodnight!" The next morning they kept asking me how I knew they were in there...maybe it was the fact that they kept saying each others names. It was so funny! They thought they were so sneaky and had dooped the leader but I'm a lot smarter than they think! They just couldn't get over it, it was awesome. They said the best part was when I paused and then said the 2 boys names who weren't supposed to be in the tent. It was so funny!

The picture above is of the youth cleaning up the camp making sure we didn't have any trash on the site. The video is of square dancing. We had so much fun! Being on trek was one of the greatest experiences of my life! It was awesome! Now our ward is spliting and we have to all be in different wards...I'm so sad! :( But I know that all will be well!