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.