Pioneers

This post will be wordy. Sorry. Just so much to say.

We were asked to be a Ma and Pa for our Stake Pioneer Trek at least 9 months ago. Bryan was thrilled...me not so much at first. It took a lot of preparation/ arranging. But it was all worth it. 

Meet our family. We were over 9 kids. It's always nice to think that of all the places these youth could have been, they chose to have a spiritual experience for a week.

I've always loved stories of the pioneers, but I didn't think in just 4 days you could really get a glimpse of what they went through. I was wrong. 

One day, we were able to walk 14.8 miles over Rocky Ridge (the hardest part of the pioneers journey). They asked Bryan and I to rein-act the story of Jens and Elsie Nielson. Elsie was 4'10 (I'm 5'2, but the reason we were asked :) and Jens was 6'3. They were hardly surviving on little food and what little they had, the men gave to their wives and children. Her husband was suffering from frost bitten legs and fell down and couldn't go on. He finally told her to just go on without him. She was a stubborn Dutch woman and said, " I didn't make it this far to leave you behind." She picked him up and put him in the handcart, and pulled him the rest of the way in a blizzard. When the missionary asked me to do this, she said, "We are going to let you struggle for a long time so the kids really get a sense of what it was like."

From my experience, I know that she was not able to do this on her own. I just don't think it could have been possible. Angel's helped her to she could make it to the temple and have her family sealed to her for time and all eternity.

The pioneers sacrificed so much so they could receive the blessings of the temple.

It seems like people always say, Heavenly Father will not give you more than you can handle. I think He can and He does, but he sends angels to help us through hard times.

The youth were listening to the story at the top of the hill. The missionary asked, "What are you going to do about it?" They all ran down and helped me push the handcart to the top. There are so many good kids in the world :)