Trek 2009 (Brigham's Take)

This is actually a copy of a talk Brigham was asked to give about his experience as a Pa in our Stake's Trek. It's a bit lengthy but worth the read.

Tammy and I were asked 4 years ago if we would be interested in going on the Trek as a Ma and Pa. We had to say no. Ruby was still too young and I had too much work, besides, I just wasn‘t interested. Last February, Pres. Miller called us in for a visit and asked us to go on this year’s Trek. We agreed, not really knowing if it was a good decision.

After several meetings, a Fireside and an overnight training campout, the first day of the Trek arrived. We got up at 3 o’clock Friday morning to pack the truck, pick up the McLeans and meet at the Stake Center for a 5:30 Ma and Pa meeting. Little did we know that it was the start of a 22-hour day.

Everyone met at the trail head to get ready to go. The youth arrived on buses and the Ma’s and Pa’s performed skits in front of everyone to introduce themselves. What kind of skits? To give you an idea: The LaMunyons sang a Trek-inspired version of Abba’s smash hit, Super Trouper (renamed….Super Trekker). Then the families were announced. There was always a question among the Ma’s and Pa’s about how many youth we would have. The Beeson’s got 15, including our big brother and big sister. From the beginning, I was a bit discouraged about the number of youth we would have. How was I going to connect with them in only 4 days?

President Webster testified to us that we would grow very close to the youth in our Trek family. President Miller also said that each family was put together after much prayer. I believe that because we got to know our family members quite well and quite quickly. They were a perfect mixture of different personalities, and Tammy and I love every one of them. Our first duty as a family was to come up with a family name. We decided on: Plan B-son.

Loading our handcart was a challenge. The cart was about 6’x5’ We had to fit 17 5-gallon buckets, 17 sleeping bags, 2 5-gallon water coolers, 2 propane lanterns, 2 dutch ovens and another 12 gallon bucket with other misc. supplies. All secured with a tarp and some rope. No bungee cords allowed. That’s where I murmured. We were allowed to have propane lanterns, but no bungees. It has been made clear to me that the invention of the bungee cord has robbed me of any knot tying skills that I may have learned in my early scouting years. I’m glad I still know how to tie the square knot, it came in handy. That, and the Beeson Hitch, which is any combination of three improperly tied knots all mixed into one big lump of twine, the sight of which would make the ward scoutmaster cry. I could go on and on about my poor lashing skills. We eventually got our cart loaded and somewhat secured with the tarp and then pulled out onto the tarmac. Everyone else’s carts were nicely wrapped and tied. The Beesons looked like a bunch of hillbillies, but we didn’t care, we were on our way to ZION! We then gathered in a circle to offer the first of many family prayers. We asked specifically for strength and patience on the long walk. Then we joined into the convoy with 10 other handcarts and started moving. At this point I don’t think the youth knew that this was probably going to be the longest day of their lives.

Along the trail, I learned that hard work and service can bring a pretend family together just as it can a real family. Within a mile after starting, our family was really getting to know each other. They would take advantage of every opportunity to serve one another by getting water for each other, encouraging the group while going up hills and offering to trade positions on the cart. Tammy and I were becoming proud Trek parents with stewardship over a righteous family.

Before the Trek, we had heard so much about the women’s pull and its importance. It turned out to be a spiritual experience for everyone involved. We had been walking for about 5-6 hours and the fatigue was starting to set in when we were all notified that the men were being called to serve in the US military and would have to leave the women for a short time. We had a family prayer and specifically asked for the women to have sufficient strength for the trial ahead. They would need it. The hill they climbed was a ½ mile long, by far the longest hill on the whole Trek. Our handcart weighed at least 700 pounds and we only had 8 girls to pull it. Us men were told that it would be hard to watch the women struggle up the hill without being able to help them. And it was, our cart started to slide backwards a few times and the men were right there, but we weren’t allowed to help.

I asked the kids in our family to email me some of their favorite experiences and one of our girls, Danielle wrote: "The hardest and most spiritual part of the trek was the women’s pull. The girls in the family said a prayer before we left and we didn't have that much of a struggle (well, to me. But we ARE the Beesons. We could probably have pulled it with our teeth!) When we got to that sandy hill I thought we were gonna fall back, but we worked together and got through it!" I also spoke with a young man from our Priest Quorum on Friday night about the women’s pull. He said that the fact that the men couldn’t help in any way reminded him of the importance of being worthy to use the Priesthood. If we aren’t worthy to use it, then we’re just as useless as we were while the women were pulling the cart up the hill all by themselves.

After the women’s pull, it was dark and cold. A demoralizing combination. Sore feet, sore hands, sore arms and hunger were some of the complaints. At that point, we had about 4 more hours to go. A while after it got dark the moon started to rise over the horizon and one of our girls, Breanna, thinking we had been walking all night, thought it was the sun coming back up.

Towards the end of the trail, it was really cold and everyone was very tired. The handcart train was stopping every 20 minutes or so. When we would stop, some of our kids would lay down right on the dirt and sleep even for just a few minutes. At one point I dozed off while walking, had I not bumped into Tammy, I would have hit the ground.

We finally reached the end of the trail, ate our chicken broth and dinner roll and went to bed, it was around 1:30am

At base camp the next day, there were plenty of activities for the youth to participate in. There were no iPods, Jonas Brothers, X-Boxes, Halo 3 or internet and the kids still had a great time. The activities included, rifle shooting w/ black powder, tomahawk throwing and there was even a workshop on how to make a snare. After seeing Tammy throw a tomahawk, I’m a little more fearful of her. Two of our kids made a snare later that night but came up empty-handed. I’m sure the snare was perfect, but they were limited in their choice for bait so they used a grape.

We also had a hoedown, complete with square dancing and some line dancing, like the Virginia Reel. One of our girls, Breanna, emailed and said: "The funnest part was the dancing. I had never danced like that before and I loved it!"

Sunday night we had a testimony meeting. It was real cold so there were two big fires in the front on each side of the makeshift amphitheater with the pulpit in the middle. It was the perfect environment for the spirit to testify to the youth of the truthfulness of the gospel and of the pioneers and their heritage of sacrifice. There were at least 50 kids in line to bear their testimonies and they all got their chance. The meeting was 3-½ hours long. Poor Bro. Sharp. He was sitting on a bucket the whole time. He probably suffered some nerve damage in his legs.

On the last day we did an activity called Champion the Cause. The purpose of this activity was to tie together the whole Trek experience with our family. Each member of the family would say something positive that they noticed about another member of the family, and we would take turns until everyone had been “championed“. The kids loved it. They loved hearing what their family members thought about them. I would imagine some of them don’t hear those things very often.
I learned quite a bit on the Trek:
I learned that the Peoria Stake has some amazing youth.
I learned that after a 16 mile walk pulling a heavy handcart, that these youth are stronger than we give them credit for. I believe especially after this Trek, that they can be trusted with greater responsibilities.
I am impressed with the Young Men and Young Women of our ward that participated in the Trek and with their strength and desire to achieve the goals the Trek had set for them.
I learned to respect the early Pioneers. We hiked 16 miles in about 12 hours, under perfect conditions, with a backup crew ready to handle any emergency.
The Pioneers walked 1500 miles in 3 months, under any/all conditions, with nobody to help should something go wrong.

Another part of our girl, Danielle’s email said: “My favorite part of the trek would most definitely be all the family time we shared together. We all got along so well and it made the experience just that much better. I couldn't ask for a better family!”

Well, we couldn’t have asked for a better group of youth with whom to share this experience.

So back to our meeting w/ pres. Miller last February; I believe Tammy and I made a very good decision, we feel it was a very special opportunity. One that we'll always be thankful for.