Family Reunions!

 

Yesterday was an amazing meeting!  We had to pick up 4 of them and gave another one a ride home, but they all came!

These are our 9 new TREK children:  Kevin who got baptized yesterday is standing next to me.  We just found out that Felix, wearing striped tie next to Kevin, is getting baptized in 2 weeks!  Exciting, joyful news!  That will be the next time we will hopefully all see each other.

 

White towel with brown & white trim from "Tuesday Morning" store, brown iron-on applique.

We sat in a circle, on a tarp and on a quilt (my $1.00 thrift store treasure).  John & I explained our family motto:  "Murmur not," and encouraged each of our 9 children (ha!) to think of the phrase with a comma and add something to it, something they wanted to learn or feel or do during Trek (3 days of wearing pioneer clothing, eating out of Dutch ovens, and pushing handcarts loaded with our bedding, clothing, food...).

I started, and said, "Murmur not, be cheerful"
"Have fun"
"Ignore pain"
John said, "Don't quit"
"Be strong"
"Be confident"
"Enjoy it"
"Be thankful"
"Carry on"
"Be faithful"
"Remember"

Unknown to us, two of our "sons" were not members of the Church.  As we walked, talked, and had family prayers, devotionals, read scriptures together, shared stories, son "Be confident" was amazing as he confidently called us "Ma" and "Pa" and encouraged his trek family siblings.  He told us he had been taking lessons from the missionaries, and was thinking of getting baptized at the end of July...but Sunday John got a text from this son who told us he had decided to get baptized this Saturday!

Hard to think that it has only been a week ago that we got home!  It feels like it lasted months and that it has been a lifetime ago already, since coming back to our busy, modern lives.  And tomorrow is our first family reunion!  All our Brown Bandana family will be there to support him!

I have this towel gift for him, inspired by the cool CTR applique towels the Primary president makes for the children in our congregation, but his is with a handcart/wagon wheel.  And pillowcases for all 8 of the rest of the children with the list of "Murmur not," add-ons.

I want them to remember what they contributed.  I want them to feel loved, appreciated.  I want them to never forget Trek, always remember...

I am not sure how to talk about this, yet, without getting weepy.

 

Theme for the whole company was "Courage to Stand."  World-wide Church theme for the LDS youth this year has been "Stand in Holy Places."

The leaders gave brown bandanas to each of our little family group.  We knew 2 of the youth assigned to us, one was in my seminary Bible study class last year, the other, our bishop's daughter.  Imagine walking, eating, sleeping, playing games, singing, sharing personal stories, encouraging, complementing, serving complete strangers for 52 hours and think of how close you can become in that short amount of time.  No longer strangers, but family.

John and I after a particularly hard pull up a mountain, without each other...

John pulling next to our new-to-us-forever-in-our-hearts sons!

Me on far, far left, encouraging my family and trying to not gasp in fear as they negotiated boulders in the path.  PA has ROCKS!  Big rocks.  And we went up and over them.

 

And through water & mud.  Sam in center, maroon shirt.  Cheerful Suzanna below, on right.  Sam and Suzu were assigned different families.  Their Ma's and Pa's reported to us that they were hard working, helpful, good children on the trek.

Photo credit Tara Long and last one Donya Harvey.

It was emotional, physically hard, spiritually powerful.  If you ever get the chance to participate in Trek, I hope you jump at the chance.  It was amazing.  Wonderful.  Faith-growing.   Life changing!

Our motto was "Murmur Not" with a comma after it.  Each of our 5 sons and 4 daughters added a phrase with us Ma & Pa to "Murmur not, be cheerful, have fun, ignore pain, don't quit, be strong, be confident, be thankful, enjoy it, carry on, be faithful, and remember."