Ja mata ne! Okyakusama no ai!
{If you add Ohiogozaimas you then have the extent of my Japanese ;) }
They were right, it was life changing. We have a new appreciation for the word experience. Until you experience what the pioneers went through you can never fully understand what they went through. Our stake made our trek experience, amazing! The level of humility that it takes you too, will hopefully exist within us throughout the rest of our lives.
The connections established with our trek family will hopefully be a part of us forever. Even as I write this it is hard to put words to explain the "experience". The family that we were assigned turned out to be a wonderful collection of youth. We lucked out big time to have these kids in our family.
They all contributed in every aspect of the trek, pulling the cart without hesitation, cooking dinner, participating the assigned activities, getting into the spirit of the trek. We enjoyed every minute of the time we had together. At the end of the trek they asked us for feedback. The one thing several Ma's and Pa's asked for was more time with our families.
The stake members that organized our trek tried as hard as possible to make the experience as authentic as they could. This meant wearying clothes similar to what the pioneers wore. Pulling a hand cart the same dimensions as they had. Having the same amount of provisions etc. I know we still had it a lot better then our pioneers had it, especially since we were crossing parts of the country that they crossed in the dead of winter while we crossed it in the middle of summer.
But yet again the efforts from our stake helped us all to "experience" the trek rather then think contemplate trek.
As you can see from the above picture they had some fun activities organized for us. McKenzie was not good at this particular activity, it is a bad sign that she has markers over her face.
The picture above was right after the women's pull. The women's pull is where the brothers are not allowed to help the girls pull the cart up a steep sandy incline. It is a challenging sequence both physically and emotionally. After the women's pull the boys in our family would not let the girls pull or walk for a short while. They insisted on the girls riding on the cart. Activities like this helped bring everyone together. The spirit was incredible throughout the trek.
The picture was taken after pulling the cart through a mud hole. There where about four of them. The "experience" was life changing. I hope our own children get the opportunity to receive the tremendous blessing of attending trek, because it is hard, tiring, expensive, and requires a significant time commitment. But it is an incredible spiritual "experience."
I did a double take and had to look close. I was sure this was us when we were little, it wasn't. This was the way my dad took us "hiking". It was always an adventure. Our first Y hike was more then an adventure. My dad never takes the "path", that would make it too easy and not exciting enough for us adventure seekers. At one point we were hugging the side of the mountain holding on to clumps of grass. I think it only took us 30 minutes to get to the parking lot. 
