Danville teenagers participate in Pioneer Trek

Teenage members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints got a three-day taste of what their Mormon pioneer ancestors had to endure as they participated in a Pioneer Trek from June 18-20 at Cherokee Scout Reservation in Caswell County, N.C.

Thirteen youth from Danville donned long skirts, pants and shirts and either bonnets or straw hats to pull handcarts — smaller wagons the pioneers pulled — filled with supplies up and down hills and across rivers much like the original pioneers did.

More than 130 youth from as far away as Asheboro, Greensboro, Eden, Kernersville and Yanceyville, N.C., joined with the Danville youth the first morning of the journey to be divided into “trek families.”

“I learned if you don’t get along with everyone, then you will be doing a lot of extra pushing by yourself,” Matthew John, 13, of Danville, said of the experience. “Also, you need to be asleep before 1 (a.m.) and not scream at spiders.”

After meeting their trek fami-lies, the youth listened as a letter was read, similar to the one read by Brigham Young that started the pioneers westward from Nauvoo, Ill., in 1847 to the desert of Utah.

To re-enact the persecution that forced the pioneers to leave, a pretend mob shooting black powder rifles (without live ammunition) surrounded the kids as they were given bags of money to go purchase the supplies for their handcarts.

“That got us on our way, and we hit the trail and headed for camp,” Jake Peters, 18, said.

Each night the kids returned from their miles of hot, humid hiking to the Boy Scout camp for the evening meal and to sleep. The first night a live band played out in the woods, which Peters said was “cool and inter-esting.”

Friday was a long day — the only full day of hiking — with historical re-enactments along the way.

At one point, all the boys were taken away to re-enact the pioneer men enlisting with the Mormon Battalion to fight in the Mexican War, leaving the girls to push the handcarts up a hill by themselves.

As the girls struggled and the boys watched from the top of the hill, people dressed in white to portray angels came down to help the girls reach the top.

“We also had an Indian attack on the handcart companies with people dressed as Indians taking things from the carts,” Peters said. “Also we saw a couple with a baby throughout the trek as they re-enacted a family losing a child to death. That gave us insight into their lives and how they still had to move one.”

Also on Friday, “big brothers” and “big sisters” in their 20s, who had been helping the younger kids, suddenly fell to the ground as if they had died. They then left the trek.

“Each family had a big brother or big sister die like either in the Mormon Battalion or a bear attack or with the sisters, from the sacrifices they made,” Mark John, Matthew’s twin brother, said.

This symbolized the hundreds of people who lost their lives along the way to Utah and the families who had to continue the trip without them.

Jake’s younger sister, Jessica, was also on the trek in another trek family since the youth were put with only one other member of their congregation with them.

“The hills and crossing the few streams were the hardest,” Jessica said. “We also crossed over a river two to three feet deep. The girls crossed first, and then the guys used ropes to lower the handcarts down the bank, and then the girls had to push them up the opposite bank.”

Jessica’s favorite part was learning to shoot the black-powder rifles.

Sariah Yarber, who was in Jessica’s trek family, liked shooting the guns best and the dance, but had to be taken back to camp when she blacked out from the heat the first day. She recovered, though, and said she learned to have more forgive-ness and kindness in working with her “real” family.

“The hardest thing all to-gether was the hiking,” she said. “I need to get out and exercise more since I’m lazy.”

To keep the kids from getting dehydrated, each family kept five gallons of water in their handcart for them to refill their water bottles and stopped fre-quently for water breaks and to eat snacks along the way. A doctor accompanied the teens every day.

On Friday night, a Native American speaker in full dress, who has spoken throughout the world on the Native American history and culture, spoke to the youth and told them of the re-spect the Native Americans had for the Mormon pioneers as they traveled because the Mormons treated them with respect.

A testimony meeting followed, which Jake Peters, who will be leaving for college at Brigham Young University in the fall, said was the highlight of the trek for him.

“I bore my testimony about the youth program and how it has helped me,” he said. “I talked about the importance of families and being obedient to the commandments. I said I had a testimony of Jesus Christ and that I was impressed that the pioneers dropped everything to leave when they were forced out.”

He said that will definitely remember his experience with the Pioneer Trek.

“It was inspiring to think that people crossed the country in that manner,” he said. “It was rough, and we only did it for two days. I was always covered with sweat.”

On the third day, Saturday, the teens were awakened by the sound of the black-powder rifles at 6 a.m. and started their hike early before it became too hot. As they finished their last morning of pushing and pulling handcarts, they were met at the end by their real-life families, who had come to see them finish.

“I learned basically how the pioneers felt,” Jessica Peters said. “I think it would have been hard to do what they did, and we had extra stuff that they didn’t have, like porta-potties. And many of them didn’t even have shoes.”

The Danville youth who participated were Jill and Philip Roach, Sariah and Ted Yarber, Jake and Jessica Peters, Amber Petersen, Patrick Mullins, Riley Barnett, Chris Williams, Mat-thew and Mark John, and Austin and Nathan Clay. Peter and Dawn Barnett and Rick and Cynthia John served as “Maws” and “Paws” of a trek family.