The actual Trek began early. Michael had to report to the church at 4:45 am to load on the buses which would take them to an undisclosed location about 4 hours away. They had a specific list of sparse supplies to bring with them in a duffle bag and wore the pioneer type clothing of the 1800's.
Once they got there they had to assemble the handcarts.
For the next 3 1/2 days, Michael treked across deep east Texas, sleeping under the stars, pulling a handcart and living and eating like a pioneer.
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| Dawn rising at the campsite. They slept under the stars on top of a tarp. |
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| One of the snakes they encounterd on their Trek. |
They were divided up into "families" of 10-14 people, including a "Ma and Pa" to lead their group.
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| Michael's Trek family, the "Bunkers" |
The first day they didn't stop until after 10 at night, finally stopping for the night, gratefully eating a meager meal of broth and a hard roll.
They ate food like cornmeal mush, cracked wheat, stew and chili. During their "down time", they also did Pioneer themed activities like an evening hoe-down dance and doing things like a stick pull game, learned how to make candles, threw horseshoes and pulled taffy.
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| Cornmeal Mush for breakfast |
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| Learning to dance |
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| Tasting the taffy |
A large portion of their time was spent pulling the handcarts over ravines, making bridges to cross creeks, etc. They learned a lot about teamwork and a lot about themselves during this time.
Don was able to go pick Michael up at the end of the trek and bring him home to us.
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| End of Trek, running towards their families |
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| Michael & Don |
Michael had a great time, learning a lot about himself and the pioneers. He made some great friends and was grateful to be home. (And of course, he was happy to hear that BYU had won their playoff game earlier in the week and was going to be playing that night!)
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| Brothers Mosies and Michael at the end of Trek |
We were happy to have Michael back and his brothers and sister had made him a sign to welcome him home. I love how they put different things on the sign that they knew were significant to to Michael, especially the BYU basketball and Trevor's classic line, "Welcome to the 21st century!"
Below is a video of the theme song of Trek, "Faith in Every Footstep".
We are grateful for the legacy and sacrifices of the early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To learn more about the Mormon Pioneers, visit: http://lds.org/gospellibrary/pioneer/pioneerstory.htm.
