Youth Coference

What a wonderful opportunity Scott and I had this last weekend to attend the Stake Youth Conference, we had signed up months ago to be a parent couple to a group of children that were assigned to us, thanks to my mom she watched the kids so we could be a part of this great experience. This youth conference was the Pioneer Trek, we were assigned 8 children whom we did not know to be their parents for 3 days, we traveled by foot for about 8-10 miles pulling a handcart full of everything we needed for those 3 days. We had different tasks including me being pregnant, delivering a child on the trek, and a day later the baby died, one of our children broke a leg, and we had to help carry them along the path. The first night we arrived at camp 3 of our boys were taken to join the Mormon Battalion, and left our family, then the next day Scott (the Dad), and one of our son's died as well along the trek, so we were left short handed to pull the cart.

This whole experience with our "children", and the handcarts has given me such an appreciation for what the pioneers did to bring the true gospel of Jesus Christ to Zion and the hardships they faced they could have only done it with Heavenly Father there with them along the way. It was a remarkable experience and the children we had we amazing, strong, dedicated, positive, and were great leaders, I learned so much from each of them. I could not have imagined the difficulty the pioneers experienced we had a glimpse of that just in a few days, and we had much better conditions to travel in, and our carts were in better condition with metal wheels, not wood. When we had family members die along the way it really hit home that you would have had to leave them behind and continue on, how difficult that would have been, as a mother and a wife. Their faith was remarkable, Scott and I would do it again in a heart beat.

We are back to life and leaving again tomorrow to go camping for the 4th of July, I can't believe it's already July.