Pioneer Trek

In lieu of a traditional youth conference this year, the stake put on a two and a half day handcart trek.  It was an enormous production, for everyone involved.  So much planning, organizing, sewing, and cooking.  It's amazing to me how much volunteer effort goes into our youth activities.  So many leaders lived and breathed trek for months on end to make sure it would be a positive experience for our teens. 

Not that they all went into it with stellar attitudes, mind you.  K was feeling a little homesick for her friends back in Cali this summer.  Girls camp was the last thing she did before we packed up and moved across the country last year.  And she wasn't sure how her experiences here would measure up.  She said to me, "If I survive camp, I'm going to die at trek."  No, she's never dramatic.

But happily, she did survive camp, even calling it "welcoming," which warmed this mother's heart.  And, thankfully, she also survived trek, despite her gloomy outlook on it.  She even enjoyed it and allowed it to change her.  Which was the whole point.

At the ward level, we had our hands full getting our girls ready for trek.  Everyone had to have two sets of pioneer clothing.  They had to be physically ready to withstand walking and pulling a handcart for 14 miles.  And they needed to be prepared spiritually, so they'd be open to the lessons that can be learned on such adventures.

Fortunately, good people stepped up to help.  One woman opened her home as a sort of one stop pioneer clothing shop.  She had fabric and helped us cut it, gave us sewing instructions, and even made a set of bloomers for every girl.  She was amazing.

Sadly, however, I find seamstress-ese completely incoherent.  I thought I would die of irritation trying to sew K's clothes, until youtube saved the day.  I found a video that walked me through what I needed to do.  Sewing still irritates the daylights out of me, but the video made a whole lot more sense to me than the paper instructions.  I guess I should have taken some sewing lessons back in the day.

We also had a couple from our ward that was called to be the Ma and Pa of a youth group. 

They planned a couple of hikes, even arranged to borrow a handcart, to help us get ready.  They're awesome.  And fun, which make them doubly awesome.

I was impressed that we had such a great turnout, even with such short notice.  J and I tagged along.  He absolutely loved it, didn't mind a bit being there with all those girls.  As long as they all ignored him, he was happy as could be.  I knew he would enjoy the hike, and if he was with me, he wouldn't cause trouble at home with S in charge while we were gone.  Win/win.

He was especially proud of all the wild onions he collected.  And he insisted on a picture in this exact spot "because it's so beautiful."  I love how intensely this boy loves nature.

But he wasn't about to pretend to eat cow bones, like these crazies.

Some s'mores came out a little challenged.

And some came out perfectly.

Everyone had fun.  They were even trying to plan another hike that would include camping out overnight.  It's fun to hang out with the youth.  Their enthusiasm is refreshing, even if it also sometimes exhausts me.  ;)

I love to see the genuine friendship and support they offer each other.

 

By the time the real trek was about to start, our youth were ready.  With the young women, we had even found a 10 day spiritual trek program which we had them do right after girls camp and right before trek.  We had just enough time.  Busy June?  Yes.  Yes.  Yes!  But it was a great way to get them thinking about what the pioneers went through in an attempt to get themselves and their families to a place where they could have true religious freedom.  Where they could escape the violence and hatred they encountered in the Midwest.

 

Our girls knew that trek would be hard.  But they also understood that it would be just a tiny taste of the true pioneer experience.  Everyone would have enough to eat.  And drink.  They had comfortable shoes.  There were no children to care for.  Winter wasn't on the horizon.  And no one would have to bury anybody.

This was the group from our ward.  Aren't those costumes awesome?  We had two other boys there, but I couldn't track them down.

I loved the fog that was hanging over the site as the youth got checked in.  And I was having a terrible time just dropping off my van load and leaving like I was supposed to.  I found myself suddenly, desperately, wanting to go on this journey with my girl.

 

But all I could do was take a few pictures and send her off with my love and the letter I wrote to all the young women.

 

As much as I share your distaste for no showers, muggy weather and too many creepy-crawlies, I wish I was going on trek with all of you. Truly, I do. Because I believe it will be an amazing experience. Not because it will be easy, but because it will be hard.

I want to witness the kindness that you will both give and receive. I want to see how much taller you stand as you look around and notice that you are part of an army of youth (some of whom might even be cute!) who are fighting for righteousness in a world that isn’t. I want to see your frustration and exhaustion fall by the wayside because your determination to push forward overpowers it. I want to see the look of humble understanding spread across your face as you begin to feel in a very personal way what the pioneers went through to stay true to their faith. I want to see the lump in your throat as your own faith and gratitude grow by leaps and bounds. I want to see the look in your eyes as you realize you are so much stronger than you knew. I wish I could experience your cheerfulness in the face of challenges. But most of all, I wish I could see your radiant smiles as you discover just how much joy can be found in a journey that is also so very hard.

That’s my challenge to you. Find the joy in this journey. And then, report back to me so I don’t feel so left out. ;)

 

Judging from the photos I took before my lonely drive home, I was pretty confident they would meet that challenge.

These next three pictures were taken by K's Ma during the trek.  There was a professional photographer along for the whole journey, who supposedly took lots and lots of photos that would be distributed to the youth.  But sadly, nobody seems to know anything about those alleged photos now.  So I'm forced to make do with the handful I have access to at the moment.

 I especially love this one.  It was during the women's pull where the guys had to sit out.  But even when everyone could pull those handcarts, I have it on good authority that K voluntarily pulled a whole lot.  She didn't lag behind and let the guys do all the work.  Good girl.  I've been telling her that she's stronger than she knows.  Maybe it's sinking in.

She arrived home dirty and exhausted.  And a better person for having done this.  Seeking to understand, in such an intimate way, what our ancestors went through gives her an opportunity to see more clearly who she wants to be.  It gave her the motivation to be more grateful for the abundance she has in life, and a greater ability to find joy in the journey.

And we were sure glad to have her back.  Even though it was terribly hard waiting until after a shower and a nap to hear all about her experiences.

 

Naturally, we ventured out for some photos before trek, once the pioneer clothing was finished.  My reward for sticking it out, I suppose.

I hope this experience will help my girl find the strength to be a pioneer, to stay true to her faith for the rest of her life.  Regardless of the challenges and hardships she may face.  And that she will find joy throughout her entire journey.



Happy Campers

I was beginning to think that I was never going to blog again.  Which would be sad.  I just haven't been able to carve out the time to do it.  And although there are any number of more pressing matters that I should be handling at the moment, I've decided that today, I just don't care.  I'm going to blog. 

 

It's  not that I especially love the process of blogging, per se.  But I really love having blogged.  A state that I can never reach if I don't trudge through the act of blogging. 

 

So here we go.  Camp.  Which happened waaaay back in the beginning of June.  Timely, right?  I don't know what it is about this post that has caused me to shy away from it time and time again.  Oh, wait, maybe it's because I took over a thousand pictures at camp and I was having a terrible time narrowing it down to just a handful to post here.

 

Yeah, that's probably it.  Note to self: don't take so many stinking pictures!

But it's hard to resist when you get to spend time camping with 24 beautiful, enthusiastic (most of the time) teenage girls.  Plus a handful of amazing women who were running the whole experience.

 

For the sake of honesty, I was not terribly excited to go to camp.  I haven't been to girls camp since I was 17.  It didn't help that I was sick.  And stressed.  Or that my neck had just slipped out of alignment.  I didn't want to pack, or sleep on the ground.  It was hot and humid.  And mosquitos absolutely love me. 

 

But somewhere during this experience, I caught the vision of what girls camp is all about.  And from here on out, when given the choice to stay or go, I will always choose to go.  Because it was amazing. 

 

Although . . . I'm pretty sure that we would have died that first day if we hadn't had the lake to help keep us cool.

I shudder to think where we would have camped if it weren't for this lake house which belongs to an awesome member of our ward.  He let us set up our tents right in his front yard, and use all of his lake toys which were in his back yard.  He didn't even act annoyed (or if he was, he totally didn't show it) when he discovered that all the girls had invaded his living room and were passed out over every square inch of his carpet.  (More on that in a bit.)  When I grow up, I want to be like him.   

 

One of the biggest highlights of camp was playing on the lake.  Riding the boat.  Riding the tube.  Riding the surf board.

Until the boat broke down.  :(

Thereafter, everybody had fun riding the tube AND the jet ski.  :)





And our awesome benefactor had entirely too much fun catching the girls off guard by gunning the engine.

 But it was the slower speeds that created the opportunities for nose dives.

Now it's starting to make sense that I took so many pictures, isn't it?  I couldn't resist.  It was too much fun trying to catch those perfect moments.

We didn't exactly have sailing on our camp schedule, but it's just not something that you can turn down when somebody's dad shows up with a sailboat.  So everybody took turns riding on that, too.

Sometimes it's easier to pull a sailboat to the dock than to sail it there.  Or so I've heard. 

When we weren't playing on the lake, we were busy doing more traditional girls camp type things.

Certification.  Journal writing.  Scripture study.

Advanced braiding.

Playing games while waiting for the mother-of-all storms to decide to either hit us, or go around.  (Mercifully, it went around.  More or less.  We still had a whole mess of soaked sleeping bags to contend with.)

Cookin' breakfast.

Doing crazy, silly skits.

Roasting marshmallows.

Eating taco salad in a bag.  Ok, maybe not so traditional, but brilliant and delish.

Fireside devotionals.

Hanging out and sharing snacks from home.

Reading letters from home before a devotional and testimony meeting.

Oh, and CAMPING! 

Even though we didn't do quite as much of that as planned.  The first day was so hot and muggy, which made the tents terribly hot and stuffy.  Somebody threw up (but triumphantly, she made it out of her tent!  SO grateful for the little things!), then there was widespread panic when the girls thought someone was having an allergic reaction.  Which, if it had turned out to be an actual allergic reaction, would have been grounds for panic because we have several girls with life threatening allergies.  Fortunately for all of us, it wasn't.  The girls couldn't find the leaders in their tent (because we were sitting in the front yard trying to avoid our stifling tent), and so commenced to run around yelling.  Perfectly natural reaction, right?  All that yelling woke everybody else up and they came spilling out of their sauna-like tents.  Which led to multiple complaints of stomach ailments.  Everybody was sick with worry or just plain sick as we gathered together in the house with it's AMAZING air conditioning while we sorted out the fact that our little beehive wasn't having an allergic reaction, but just had a bad stomach ache.  I'm not sure I've ever felt so relieved that someone near me had an upset stomach.

With all the tears and worry and stomach problems, we decided it might be best to just sprawl out on the floor.  The girls were overjoyed by that decision.  I can't say that it was all that upsetting for me, either.  I wish I had a picture of those wall-to-wall sleeping girls.  But I was too busy being sick to think about my camera.  I was up most of the night.  Which totally spoiled the beautiful A/C and mattress that I had access to.  Bummer.

The next day, that mother-of-all-storms brought deliciously cooler weather after it's mad rain.  So we closed our ears to the hopeful questions about sleeping inside again, and took to our tents.  Which was nice for those of us with warm, dry sleeping bags.  Sadly, not all of our campers fell into that category. 

The other leaders ended up needing to help our benefactor with some granddaughter sleepover anxieties, so I found myself alone in my tent.  It felt wonderful to stretch out on my cardboard thin mattress, cozied up in my dry sleeping bag.  As I was drifting off to sleep, I kept thinking to myself how nice it would be to get some rest.  I don't know how long I was out.  5 minutes?  10 minutes?  Half an hour?  But I woke up to the sound of flip flops approaching my tent.  Then I heard a whispered, "Sister B?" followed by the zzziiiiiiiiipppp of the tent opening.  Somebody needed to use the port-a-potty, but they couldn't wake up their tent mates to be their buddy.  So I stumbled along to accompany her. 

A little while later, the process repeated itself.  Flip flop, flip flop.  Whispered name.  Zzziiiiip.  Same sounds, different girl.  Who was damp and shivering.  I went with her to change clothes, but her sleeping bag was still wet.  Since it was the middle of the night and my fellow leaders hadn't yet taken to their sleeping bags, I invited this girl to sleep in one of their spots.  Quickest route back to sleep.

Only to wake a little later to the same sounds.  Flip flop.  Whisper, whisper.  Zzzip.  Another cold, shivering girl.  Although her bedding was dry.  This time I didn't even get out of my sleeping bag.  I just sat up and told her to bring her stuff and get comfy on the cot next to me.

If there were any more issues that night, I slept right through them because I didn't wake up again until dawn.  And it was a good thing we were having bacon for breakfast that morning because cereal just wasn't going to cut it.

For our last night, I had heard a lot of hype about the tradition of staying up all night.  The other two leaders do it every year.  Some of the girls try to do it.  But I was so exhausted that I couldn't even bring myself to consider the idea.  I snuck off while everyone was watching a movie on a strung up sheet and curled up in my tent.  And I didn't wake up until dawn.  Beautiful.  I think it was my first whole night's sleep in a week. 

So what is it about girls camp that will keep me coming back?

It's not the lack of showers.  Or the bugs (mosquitos, chiggers, and ticks, oh my!).  I can do without the unpredictability of severe weather.  Humidity and I have never been pals.  And. I. Like. My. Bed.

So why does the Mormon church have girls camp every summer all over the world?  It's not to turn everyone into avid outdoorsmen (outdoorsgirls?).  It's because camp is a microcosm of life.  The nature of camping is uncertain.  It takes a lot of effort to prepare for it.  And even then, unpredictable challenges usually arise.  Things don't always go according to plan.  Girls get sick, or cold, or hurt.  They have to endure things they don't like.  They have to pull together and help each other.  They have to figure out where to turn for help.  And through it all, they have to hold onto the good and dismiss the bad.  To learn to see joy even when it doesn't come knocking on the front tent flap.

So much of life is the same way.  What do we do when we face challenges?  Where do we turn for help?  How often do we find joy in the journey even when the path is tough? 

For the record, I have to brag a little about these girls.  Because they really are amazing.  They were kind to one another.  They were respectful.  There was pretty much no drama, which is just the way I like it.  They were helpful--we would not have been able to run camp without the YCLs (youth camp leaders) who stepped up to lead and teach and nurture their assigned age groups.

Despite all the little nuisances, it was an overwhelmingly positive experience.  I think some credit for that must be given to our benefactor, who creates such a positive, welcoming atmosphere in and around his home that it's bound to be felt by all of his guests.  As a youth group, we were able to bond in a way that just isn't possible to do by meeting once or twice a week.

I loved these girls before I knew them.  I felt that love fill up my heart when I was asked to be a steward over them.  But that love has grown larger than that.  Now that I have laughed with them and helped them sweep the creepy spiders out of their tent.  Now that I've wrapped my arms around them when they were cold and helped comfort them when they were sick.  Now that I've seen the depth of their faithfulness and compassion, their capability to lead and organize.  Now that I've captured their moments of pure joy with my camera.

I wouldn't trade these memories for a month full of restful nights.

And I've found a deep, deep respect for these two women who have been running girls camp in this little corner of the world for many, many years.  They put in more time and lose more sleep than any of the girls and their families realize.  They make camp fun.  They have such an easy rapport with their own daughters, which spills over into their relationships with all of the girls.  Their laughter and willingness to serve make them completely enjoyable to be around.  If I can't grow up to be like our benefactor with my very own lake house to share, then I'd be happy to grow up to be like these ladies.

I'm pretty sure they are the happiest campers I've ever met.