Trek 2019

John and I had the opportunity to go on trek in June with the youth in our stake. To be honest I was a little nervous about going. I wasn’t sure we would love it as much as we did last time. Although I was happy to be able to go so that we could be with Ainsley and Owen and share the experience with them.

I dragged my feet a bit and didn’t feel nearly as prepared as we were last time, but when the time came to meet our family and begin the trek we were ready. And I would even say that we had a better experience than we did the first time.

We had two activities with our trek families before the actual trek. A get to know you night at the church and a family night at our house. We had a great group of kids. One girl in our group ended up not coming so we ended up with three girls and 5 boys. (Lexi Smith, Seviah Limb, Raquel Benites, Ben Price, Brandon Keetch, Calvin Kinzel, Logan Stimpson, Alexzander Allen ). It didn’t take long for the kids in our group to mesh and we were able to have fun together pretty quickly. Ainsley went with the Demars as her parents and no one else from our ward. She loved her family really quickly as well. Interestingly. Owen was in a family with several youth from our ward but he came home after the first activity a little disappointed about his group. He said they didn’t talk and didn’t really click. But by the end of trek he absolutely loved his family.

We went to a different location for trek this time. We went to a property up above Banks. In fact we spent our second night on the mountain top that overlooks Banks. The scenery was absolutely beautiful.  I couldn't get over the amazing views and and the beauty of mountains and valley's we were in. The trails were hard. We traveled up around 4000 feet and down about the same. All of the ma’s and pa’s were told that they would need to help push the carts because of the difficulty of the trail. And we did. By noon on the first day I was dripping sweat and my shirt was wet. It was disgusting. We worked hard all day.

I had set a goal to make sure I had time to talk with each of the kids in our group. So I tried to ask them all sorts of questions to get to know them individually while we were walking. I loved getting to know them. We had a diverse group of kids but they all got along and worked hard together. I was nervous when we started when it became clear that our oldest boy was not going to be much of a worker. However our 13 year old boy (Brandon) stepped up and was our hardest worker, and he was my little puppy the few days we were there. He was always at my side asking what needed to be done. He was awesome.

There were a few injuries along the way. We learned that Ainsleys hand got caught between the cart and a tree. Her hand was torn up pretty badly. But I was amazed at how tough she was. I was told repeatedly that she was a hard worker and positive the whole time. One of our girls (Seviah) twisted her ankle our last night. Not only was she sad about not being able to help but we were sad to lose her! And our workhorse (Brandon) was struggling with the ankle he had had a surgery on just a few weeks prior. We had our hardest and steepest incline the last day. So steep that when we were walking up I couldn’t keep my skirt and apron out from under my feet. Thankfully two members of the photography crew saw us struggling. I don’t think we would have made it with lout them.

Our trek was shorter this year, only two nights instead of three. But it was incredible. We worked hard all day and at night we danced and played games (we even have pictures of Owen dancing with cute girls during the dance. One of which may have been a cute highschool girl that I convinced to dance with home). We had great conversations. We had great devotionals. And we had some time to remove ourselves from the distractions of our daily lives and think about what really matters. I’m grateful that we were able to go and that our kids were able to have that experience.