A week and a half before the
Pioneer Trek for our stake, I went to the Trail Boss' house to help out his wife. They were making journals for the kids and asked a few of the women in the ward if we could help. I over heard them talking about not having enough medical people and kind of got the look from them.
The next night I got a call to see if I could possible go everyday or any day. I talked with my mom and she agreed to take a few days off work and watch the little munchkins.
When I went to the first meeting, they told me I would be the main medical person because I would be the only one there all three days. Awesome.
I had to make up 7 first aid kids to be split between 13 Trek families. I needed to figure out what my possible problems would be, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, blisters, chaffing, dehydration, sunburns, bug bites....yada yada yada. Pretty much everything I had no experience in, well except I knew what to do if someone went into cardiac arrest.
We trekked around a cattle ranch/orchard at Utah Lake called
Mosida. This was the first time I had ever heard that you could go on a Pioneer Trek not in Wyoming. When I was a youth that is where we went but I guess there are places all over. Lot's cheaper I'm sure.
The first day we trekked about 9 miles. I had a lot of kids with 'heat exhaustion' the second half of the day so I sent them to camp. We had support staff with vehicles to take them. I had someone tell me that there feet hurt and were hot. Yeah. Ditto. Welcome to Trek. The worst injuries I saw were a few blisters.
The second day we headed out and were planning to trek about 6 miles. Luckily, I had a podiatrist with me. Every trek needs a podiatrist. They are amazing. He taught me how to pop the blisters correctly and bandage people up. Oh boy. Did I need that that second day. When we got to camp, people just kept coming up to me. I was, to say the least, overwhelmed. Wondering why I had volunteered for this torture.
The third and final day came and my wonders of why were answered. Starting out, we had a girl really struggling. A group of us in the support staff were back with her trying to get her going. We sent one of the women up to the rest of the handcart train to stop them. Suddenly, I see two of the men running back. At least I thought it was the men. It turned out to be two of the young men running back to help carry this young women to catch up with the train. Writing this makes tears come to my eyes. It was such a beautiful, heartwarming thing to see. What great young men to drop their handcarts and run to our rescue.
We also had the women's pull that day. The women's pull was a re-creation of a time along the pioneer trail when only the women were available to pull handcarts. The men had been sent off to help fight the Mexican American War. Traditionally, the pull is up hill simulating Rocky Ridge that is on the real trail in Wyoming. On our trail they dug up part of it and made it really sandy because there are no hills to climb at Mosida. All the men left and met up with us later. It was hard going with just us women pushing those handcarts and nearing the end the men were reciting the
Young Women's theme to us. Very spiritually touching experience.
At last of the day, they recreating the
water crossing. The young men picked up every single one of us young and old women and carried us over this river. There was such a sacred feeling there and you could only imagine those saints who were so weary and beaten down being lifted and carried through the bitter cold Sweetwater River. It's hard to explain the feelings of appreciation I felt for those pioneers who sacrificed so much to get to Utah so that they could have religious freedom.
I finally realized why I had come on Trek. I did not expect to have a any sort of faith building experience so it was a welcomed surprise to me. Would I go again in a few years? Maybe. It I had a podiatrist there every day then for sure!!!
Pictures will have to be added later. One of the photographers was our Young Women's President and also my buddy/tent mate/sister wife. We joked that we were sister wives since it was the two of us being each other's family. Anways, I'm waiting on pics from her.
