TREK

This is a REALLY long post. So congratulations if you get through it... Well.... Trek...is over. After 6 months of planning...it's over. And I don't want it to be. You'd think I would be sick of pulling a handcart, and I am, but I'm not ready to back to the world. So many good things happened on trek. We did this thing called a Rose, Bud and Thorn. A rose is something good that happened, a thorn is something bad, and a bud is something you look forward to. We also had everyday spell out TREK. So Wednesday was T = Trust Thursday was R = Revelation, Friday was E = Endurance and Saturday was K = Knowledge. The first day was really good. Everyone was motivated even though they knew there was a huge hill. They said after the first day it wouldn't be that hard - they "lied" to us. There were bathroom facilities every two miles a long with another water jug to replace the empty one. We did 6 miles the first day and to get to camp there was a huge hill to get up. But we did it and everybody was SOO tired. My company just sat around for a while until we needed to put up the tents and make dinner. While we were sitting around my friend was joking around and accidentally put a grass hopper down my shirt. I didn't even care. It was even funny! Dinner was exquisite! We were all SO hungry and it was just amazing. Truly though, we had to have TRUST that day. We had to trust our leaders and the kids that came that the activity would actually happen and not turn into a disaster. I think my rose for the first day was seeing all the guys going back down the hill to help other carts. My thorn was...I don't think I had a thorn that day. My bud was looking forward to the next day and making more inside jokes, or something like that. The second day was just as hard I think(at least for me) because nobody had the best night's sleep and there were still plenty of hills to get over. From the first hill things just got worse for me. Hill after hill got so much harder. Then we finally stopped for lunch, but because it was in a sunny spot, everybody wanted to go into a shady place. But on the way to the shady place nobody was guiding us so we went up an unnecessary hill. Nobody would have known to go another way because it was through a locked gate. After lunch I felt a little better, but I was still just exhausted. I was disappointed in myself for not being more enthusiastic. I was a company leader, I needed to be a strength to the rest of the people in the cart and I wasn't. But then after lunch they called the men away and I knew it was time for the women's pull. After the men left all the girls scattered to go to the bathroom and I took the chance to say a much needed prayer. I asked Heavenly Father to help me get my attitude back up and to help me have the strength to be a strength to others. Then all the girls came back together. We knelt and someone said a prayer. As we stood up Sister Grenko, the Stake Young Women's President said, "please stand for truth and righteousness." And we all said the Young Women's theme and I just started bawling my eyes out. You see, the first week of June was the Temple Trip. On the last day of the temple trip we got a tour of the Relief Society building, and Sister Jones, the tour guide, challenged us to say it slowly, clearly and listen to every word we say. So when we started saying the theme in the middle of the woods with 100 young women surround me all so supportive and loving, it was hard not to cry. Then we started the women's pull. It wasn't as effective as I would have liked it to be, but it was still good. Last trek the hill was SO muddy and all the girls were either crying or close to it. Lots of girls fell down and we REALLY had to work together to get the handcarts up. This year the hill wasn't that steep, it wasn't muddy, it was short and there were a ton of girls on one handcart. BUT something cool happened to me during the pull. I was trying not to look up into any of the boys' eyes because it would've been a bit awkward. But once when I did look up, I saw my Dad. And I almost started crying again. I think because I realized then because despite my not being close to him, through both our imperfections I loved him so much. And I knew he loved me and always would. After the women's pull, the day was pretty easy. When we got to camp, it was literally grasshopper valley. Everywhere I stepped a million grasshoppers would jump jump away. They were all over the tents and anything else that was on the ground. But soon the little critters went to bed and we had a dance. It was pretty successful, though it was really short. I taught a boy the box step. For one of the dances I was guy because some people were lame and sat out. But I was happy with it, because when the song ended everybody went, "Aaawwww!!" which means they enjoyed it. That day was full of REVELATION, from the experiences that day I definitely had some revelations and good experiences. The third day was 90 down hill and the rest level. Down hill was hard, but it was so nice for a change from the UP hills. When we got to camp, it was the same camping spot for last trek. A blessing and a curse, I think. It was hard not to compare it with last time. Right when we got to camp the "Pony Express" came with letters from everyone's parents. All of the company leaders were to hand them out to the people in their cart. But of course my company partner went straight to the river and left me AGAIN. There's a background story to that: For every company there's a boy and girl in charge. I was a girl in charge and my partner's name was Kasen. He had football and other stuff and couldn't make it to the meetings a lot of times. But he never answer his phone, he never called me about what was going on and he kind of left me in the dark. Finally when Trek started I was pretty happy to see him actually there and he was a pretty good leader. But it seemed like when I needed to find him, he was gone, which MOST of the time wasn't his fault. But when we got to camp he totally left me and the rest of the company to unload carts and whatnot by ourselves. I wasn't very happy. But after everyone had read their letters they went to play in the river/creek. It was so cool and refreshing! A lot of people layed completely down in it. I wanted to, but I...couldn't. When about 5 of my friends were completely soaked in the water my cart captain decided to follow - each company leader(like me and Kasen) each chose one cart captain. I chose Nathan to be the cart captain. But in the creek he looks at me, points to himself and says, "THIS is going In." It was hilarious. So he went over to the rest of my friends and sat down in the water. While he was getting up the nerve to lay back into the water I snuck up behind him and right as went down I pushed him down. Then I let him come up, and I pushed him down again. Then I let him up and ran away so I didn't dunked into the water. Then while everyone played cards, I made dinner! Mostly by myself, but it was kinda fun. That night was ward testimony meeting. I think it was the best ward youth testimony meeting I've ever been to. The first testimony was a bit long but my Dad, being the bishop, tapped him, signaling not to take so long. After that my Dad said to make sure not to take so long so that others had a chance to bare their testimonies, which was funny because my Dad took a long time too. When it was my turn to talk I was already crying, but the tears kept coming. I was in the middle of saying something when one of the boys hands my Dad a stick, and Dad looks like he's bored and is about to play with it. So, being the judgmental person that I am, I looked at him and said, "You're not listening!!!" He defended himself, and it was SO funny. He really ended up just having a scratch on his back. Then I bore my testimony on my experience of the day before and what happened with the Women's pull. I also was glad to listen to the boys' testimonies, which never happens. It was cool because I saw they were growing up and not just boys who used to tease me all the time. I'm also very fortunate to be in the same ward with the Stake Young Women's President and the Stake Young Men's president. Both are very valiant, fantastic people. That was the last night right before company devotional I found out that a girl wanted to put up the tent! It was already almost all the way dark, so I help her and a couple other girls put it up really fast. Then we had devotional with the company. That was a good one, but for some reason I was antsy. After it was over my the rest of the girls in my company(besides the one in the tent) were trying to figure out where to sleep. We refused to sleep in a tent! I don't know why, but we really wanted to sleep under the stars. But both tarps were being used, but there was a random tent laying around. So we just layed out the tent and slept on top of it! It was pretty great. The moon was SOO bright. I also slept next to my really good friends Lindsey, who's not in my company but in my ward. The last day was very slow and quick at the same time. I really did not want to go home, but we soon had everything packed. All the company leaders were called to a short meeting. We had to get all the equipment into one pile in the campground and put only our personal buckets in the cart. We were going to push our carts up a nice large hill one last time! It was the same hill that the women's pull was on last trek. That was interesting. We also had to comprise all of our leftover food into one bucket. It was then that I realized how much food we still had! If ANYbody complains about being hungry on that trek, they can go dig a hole. There was a ton of food left! Anyway, then we pushed all the handcarts up the hill had a devotional with everybody and then came back down. By then the cars were pulling in to pick up everybody. Everybody's loading up their stuff into the cars when Brother Cragun(the adult leader in charge of transportation) comes up to me and says, "Hey Sarah, we need to figure out how we're going to get all this equipment home. Go ahead and get Kasen and let's figure out how to get it home." WHAT?!?! I Hadn't even thought about that for a second. So, I go to find Kasen. I find him in a car, already and eating cookies. I told him he had to come with me and he finally got out of the car. Right after we get there though, he leaves me again... So I'm standing there... trying to figure out how to get all this STUFF back home when Amber(The girl in charge of personal equipment) says there's a lot of extra room in some of the trucks. So we fill up the trucks, but while I'm doing that I'm also holding up the rest of my ward from going home. I felt torn. My Dad kept asking how much longer I would be and I had no idea because I really needed to help with the stuff. Finally we cleaned up enough so there I was able to leave. If there was any real thorn I had, it was not being able to be at my niece's baptism. I cried half way home. Partly because of the baptism. Partly because of having to leave. Partly because of what had happened the last 15 minutes, as well as some other things. I was sitting in the back next to the Stake Young Men's president and his counselor. They were making some decent conversation and joking and I just stared at the window, crying. I felt like such a dope. Finally, they asked me something and when I answered them I couldn't hold back the tears. When we dropped them off, they left quite a nice stench! :D :D :D As soon as I got home I changed(no shower), ate, picked my friend Annese, and went to the stake center to help clean tents. It was actually pretty fun, and Sister Grenko was going crazy with her "misty" puns. All through trek she would mist people with her spray bottle. That's always been her thing. "Did you 'mist' me?" or "What am I?" and we would respond "MISTified." because she was mystified to be in the presence of a child of God. ANYWAY, she was goin' crazy because she was so loopy. It was so funny! All in all, Trek was Amazing. The End. (If you really just read through that, you are my new hero).