Trek (the earth kind)

For those of you who don't know what Trek is, Trek is a reenactment of the mormon pioneers that our youth do every 4 years. The mormon pioneers trekked more than 1,000 miles on foot to get to Salt Lake. (Originally they had intended to reside in Jackson county Missouri, but people sorta wanted to kill them so they had to move. In fact, for a period of time it was legal to kill mormons in Missouri, [that law wasn't revoked until the 70's!]) The youth don't trek 1,000 miles, but we still trek a good distance.

Unfortunately I missed the cut-off date by 27 days. But that doesn't mean that I can't participate in the preparation activities! Last night at mutual we had combined activity and we did a lot of pioneer-ish games. I got there 25 minutes late so I missed the first activity but the second one was the stick game. You have a long, sturdy, stick and two people sit on the ground foot-to-foot facing each other and grab the stick. Then you have to try and pull the other person off the ground. The point is to try and stay on the ground because if your pulled off the ground you lose.

So we did that, and then we did a relay race. There were 3 teams. The person in the front would run to the other side of the gym, put on some pioneer clothes that had been placed there earlier, run to the opposite side of the gym, tag the wall, run back, take all the clothes off, run over to your team and tag your teammate. It was really funny to see some of the inventive ways the youth wore the clothes. The rule was that you had to wear the clothes. Wether you wore the skirt on your hips or on your head it didn't matter, as long as you weren't carrying it.

After that we did tug-o-war. I thought it was just hysterical how all of the priests and teachers (+ a leader) were on one team, and all of the beehives, mia-maids, and deacons were on another (the laurals didn't participate). My hands hurt! I couldn't fully bend my fingers for five minutes! Darn priests.

So the guys liked that activity (the ones on the winning team at least) so then we did an activity for the girls. We learned how to dance. I have never seen so many boys disappear so quickly. All around the gym you could hear cries of "I'm too tired" and "my hands hurt too much" and "I just remembered I have to talk to bishop about... something". Trent was man enough to dance, so him and I paired up. Trent loved the dance....

After that, the Laurel's announced that there would be popsicles in the kitchen. There was suddenly a stamped of teachers and priest's (most of whom I'm sure weren't there before) to get to the kitchen. Then everyone went home.

It was fun to do those activities, and I wish all of the trekkies luck. I can't wait until my turn!

four years from now....

P.S. I'm sorry that I got this post in so late! This happened on the 13th.