Onward Christian Soldiers part 3

I had a surprisingly comfortable 'home evening' with people I had never really knew before today.
At least, I  didn't know any of them. But for these four days, we were all Pioneers. Christian Soldiers.
I hadn't got the chance to ask Joseph how fun it was for him to watch us girls and Women struggle and sweat up the hill while he just cooled off at the top. Turns out later I find that it wasn't. As his real sister, I'm glad.

But I listened to my trek brothers talk about it, as we all took turns giving our thoughts for the day.
The one I remembered, was my eldest brother Captain's thoughts, because they really surprised me.
"The hardest thing was watching you all go rushing up that hill with one cart, and then go help the next one up. We wanted so bad to come help you, but they wouldn't let us."

Wow. No wonder they ran to help us. In turn, Each of the boys in our family agreed.

I began to actually like my family. Ma and Pa naturally were the easiest. But one by one, I learned something about each about my sister and brothers that I respected and liked them for.

For example, my sisters Constance and Faith, and Ester. They are named for their good deeds.
Constance carried our two flour babies all the way, we had to steal them from her to let her rest from carrying them.
Honestly the flour babies weren't much for me, I just couldn't learn to love a wrapped flour bag with button eyes and big, grumpy, slanting, eyebrows.
We had two of them. Little food monsters. But, naming them after Joseph smith's brothers helped me think better of them.
 I took my turn whenever I could to carry them, it was a duty. But Constance carried them with heart. And imagination. Far greater then mine could be.

My second sister, Faith, was a  hard worker, and I kind of got into a silent one sided work competition with her. I liked her right away, for that, but also, because vaguely, I remember her as my first JC, a good JC,  at Girls camp. That feels like a long time ago now. However, that work competition....it didn't matter really, I soon came to realize, because we were making the same cart move. We were on the same team, and family.

Ester, My eldest sister, pushed even when she was very tired, was at the front  a lot, and took on tasks she wasn't used to doing, and I saw several times that she was quite brave.
Captain, my eldest brother did everything he could do to serve.
Helaman, my second brother talked at ease with everyone, even though he didn't know them, and was kind and outgoing to everyone.
Alma was quiet, but willing. He listened intently and sung with us in our family home evening songs, which included, Come come ye saints.

That song was sung very much on the trek. And I noticed, That our Pa would start singing it, and then we would, and the next thing I knew everyone in the company was. Ma was a mother to everyone, and made sure we were comfortable and that our needs were taken care of. Both Ma and Pa took the next step to know each of us a little better.
The next mourning we had oat meal for breakfast. Our water never heated up, ( We were using slightly warm coals,)  so we ate not cooked oat meal, but wet oatmeal. It wasn't too bad, but while all my trek siblings thanked Ma and our eldest sister for their work, I made a face at my oatmeal. Because I eat it doesn't meant I like it. But I was on the trek, and complaining wasn't an option. While eating we noticed ladies dressed in white.

They were angels. Yesterday they took a few kids to 'heaven.' Helaman commented that they only seemed to be taking the girls. He joked about being taken himself.
But then Captain pointed out, "Look, they just took two boys," I glanced behind myself, at one of them. Ohhhhh, the angels of death. They weren't going to take me! I inconspicuously hid behind Captain until Helaman announced that they were gone. whew!

Little did I know, I would soon be working hard enough to know him well enough, for wishing I was tall enough to cover Captain.

 Eating oat meal in the morning. Captain and Alma are taking our, 
(the girls') tent down for us.

 I got Joseph's family to pose for me, and though I had to hurry off to Family home evening with my family, I could tell Joseph was feeling right at home. I was later to learn, the next day, that Joseph  was made the oldest brother of his family, even though, in real life, he is the youngest of them all. ;) He is the fourth one in that picture, quite in the middle.

I can see that some of Joseph's brothers are as goofy as he can be sometimes. :)

 Joseph shows his sisters how to set up their tent. Mmm. Will this amazing big brother behavior carry through to real life? I have a tent...Just kidding. He always sets up our tents. And stuff.

 Not that both of them don't look tired.

And this is my sister Constance, putting up our tent with me. Sun is setting. Time for naps.

My Pioneer talk

I gave this talk in sacrament meeting two weeks ago.

I am going to talk about my trek experience.
It was great. I made new friends, had fun,  ate Doritos, chili, tin foil dinners and brownies, and had a nice set of spiritual experiences.
It was hard, but fun. I want to go again if I get the chance.

When I got home, I told my stories to my parents.
Mom said, "Oh Tali.... you were spoiled."
 Yeah, I thought the same thing, ' uh, no I wasn't,
But then, I think about it and--- yes, I was spoiled.

I walked and pushed only for 4 days. I never starved. My trek family had a cart break down, and we fixed it with rope. We got back to base and Pa fixed it professionally as soon as he could get his hands on some real tools. Nothing serious.
We never had a big, or true breakdown,  we were never left days behind.
I was  hungry. But I knew we would always have food. Only one meal was flour and water pancakes, where as the pioneers went days without eating anything other then boiled leather or white soup. They didn't have enough flour to go around to make thick pancakes. It was flour flavored water. I f you can call flour a flavor.

But I did get a glimpse of what they went through. I did.
I had a big trek brother. (He is the one with the hat in the pic.)
Goodness gracious he would just pull that cart like a freight train. He wasn't hogging it, he was working as hard as he could, and taking care of us.
It is not surprising, but I was the shortest one in the family. I was automatically made the youngest, apart from our flour baby twins. And I noticed every time there was an
opportunity to help out, my big trek brother leaped to it.
Every time any of us needed help he was usually the first there, if he wasn't already occupied.
But then we lost him, ( he "died" ) and abandoned his belongings on the roadside.
I saw him , not too long after, dressed in white with a halo of flowers on his head.

This was the most real part of the trek for me. when we sat down at dinner that night there was an empty space. We moved our buckets closer, but this empty space couldn't be filled that way.

And the resurrection-- besides the water fight, was my favorite part of the trek.

The pioneers lost many loved ones  and left their burial sites on the roadside.  But like me, they knew they would see those people again.
But this time, I didn't have to wait as long.

Now all that, that is not the reason my mom said I was spoiled.
She was comparing my trek experience with hers.
She didn't get Doritos and hamburgers. As an every day meal, she had oatmeal and cornmeal. When they were given something else to eat,
it got up and ran away. It was a live turkey.  They had to catch it, kill it, and cook it.
Mom showed me pictures.

when I was comparing my experiences with the old Mormon pioneers, those were just my thoughts.
what courageous, headstrong, faithful people. Stepping out of their comfort zone eating anything they could digest to survive, and being chased from their homes. But don't think that you have to push a hand cart  for a couple days or months to be a pioneer Yes, there are Mormon pioneers today, in this congregation. A pioneer is someone, anyone shoeing a new way to others.

A Mormon pioneer is someone, anyone showing a new way of life to to family members, being the first in your family to live the gospel standards.

My seminary teacher tells me, that we marvel the old pioneers for their physical challenges, but they will marvel at us for our moral, choice making,  and modern challenges.