Ma's and Pa's and Their Kiddo's

This summer I was called to be a Ma, with Dave as Pa, over a group of youth for our stake youth conference – a handcart trek to Martin’s Cove. We were divided into groups in May, so the work started early. I have to say that by the time we left I had to work pretty hard to convince myself that I still wanted to go, but I know our going was for a purpose because in all actuality, we shouldn’t have been going, but that’s another story for another time. Our “family” changed so many times over the months leading to youth conference that I was pretty nervous by the time the day came. We ended up with two girls, Rebecca Minor and Taylor Johnson (Green River) and six boys, Jake Colyar, Dexter (Dex Wayne) Sheets, Koi Cook, Calen Shumway, Tyler Hickerson (Green River) and Lane Talbot who joined our group the day before we left. I was also nervous about trying to deal with six boys. I do girls better J But I grew to love these boys!! They were so enthusiastic, so much fun to be around, and so cooperative and obedient. The girls, too, but I can do girls, the boys surprised me.

I got up Wednesday morning, July 28^th at 4:00 am, showered hard enough and straightened my hair straight enough to last for four days, and headed to the church at 5:30. We had a short devotional, got in our rented Tahoe; Dave and I, Jake, Koi, Calen, Dex, Rebecca and Shalia Harmison from another family, and we took off. The ride was 9 hours long and I was pretty worried about keeping six teen aged kids entertained for 9 hours in a Chevy Tahoe, but they were pretty self entertaining, so the ride went pretty fast. We arrived at Martin’s Cove at about 3:00 pm, met up with our Green River kids and went to orientation. We sang Come, Come Ye Saints for the opening song, I was playing the piano, so it wasn’t good that I started crying at that moment, but it became a common thing for the rest of the trip. I know there is a special spirit where faithful pioneers have walked, and I know the Lord concentrates His spirit where ever his youth are meeting together, so a double dose of spirit and I was teared up pretty much the whole time.

We got our handcarts and took off – and I mean TOOK OFF – with six boys brimming with pent up energy at the helm. Wynette Hawks, our stake young women’s president, told me when she added Lane to our group that she was concerned these boys were going to give me a run for my money. I was starting to realize how true that was, but in a whole different way than both of us realized. I ran to keep up with them as they ran with our handcart J

We trekked three miles that afternoon arriving atour camp site at about 6:00. It was a big open dirt field with the few fire pits, the wind was blowing from all directions, we were trying to gather our stuff, set up camp, set up tents, deal with blisters (already) and cook dinner all at the same time. The dinner system was, you took a cooler to the food camp, they filled it, you went and got it and left another cooler to be filled for the next meal. Tyler went and got our food cooler and when I looked in it and saw a package of spaghetti noodles and one bottle of spaghetti sauce, my heart dropped. This wasn’t enough food for six boys! I sent Tyler back to the food camp to get another bottle of sauce ( I looked on the bottle and it said “serves five” so thought they must have forgotten one) but he came back empty handed. He said they didn’t have anymore and this should be enough. So I started to boil water to cook the noodles.

The wind was blowing so hard that even on high the flame wouldn’t boil the water. Finally we just threw the noodles in. BIG mistake, because then the noodles wouldn’t cook. They just glommed together as I trying to separate them. I threw a lid on the pot hoping it would hold in the heat better and took Rebecca to the first aid station to have her blister looked at, where I was told by the five first aid people who weren't doing anything at all, to just to go back to camp and put duct tape on it. I was pretty frustrated by then, so I wasn’t having nice thoughts towards ANYONE in the food or first aid camps. I marched back to camp, put duct tape on Rebecca’s blister, went to look at our spaghetti, and OH MY GOSH!! It was a mess. The noodles were stuck together, the water now had the consistency of glue, and it STILL wasn’t boiling. I hurried and tried to drain the glue water off the noodles, but it was so thick it wouldn’t drain. I tried running cold water over it to dilute it enough that it would drain, but that just made the noodles even more sticky. Finally I looked at the pot of gloppy noodles and glue, looked at the tiny little bit of sauce warming on the other burner of our camp stove, dumped them together and called our family to dinner. They had been fighting with tents that wanted to act more like kites than tents, so they were worn out and hungry. The spaghetti didn’t look too bad sitting there in the pan with the sauce on it, so I was hoping it would taste somewhat as good as it looked, but NO. Unaware of what they were getting themselves into, the kids dished up the spaghetti onto their plates and dug in. I watched their faces go from hungry excitement to confusion, to disgust. I took a bite of mine. It was BAD. It tasted like flour and water, which was ironic when you think about it, because the pioneers ate flour and water. The only difference was, we had plenty of it :0 Jake looked up at me and said, “Ma, what is this?” I said, “It’s spaghetti glue, Jake, eat up.” Lane joined in. “I thought we were having spaghetti. What went wrong?!” We had Dave dig a hole and they all buried our dinner in the ground while I hiked to the parking area and got some jerky and a bowl of grapes out of our Tahoe and that’s what we ate for dinner. Jerky and grapes. I also gave them a package of sunflower seeds at our family devotional about faith later that night, so they really didn't go hungry. I, on the other hand, was disappointed and frustrated and, I admit, ready to go home. I crawled into bed ready for a good night’s sleep that, although I didn’t know it at the time, was NOT going to happen . . .