trek diaries: Ma & Pa Training Meeting #1

This weekend we have one of those broadcast-from-Salt-Lake stake conferences. Just before the adult session up at the stake center Saturday night, we had a Ma & Pa potluck supper and a quick training meeting - about 45 minutes where the various leaders and committee chairs spoke to us, gave handouts, and promised to be available for any of our questions as they arise. I've said it before and I'll say it again, our stake is awesome and this youth conference seems to me to be extraordinarily well planned and well thought-out. All of that bodes well, in my view.

We also got our first look at the site, via a Powerpoint slide show (Powerpoint in our stake is the default setting for all stake trainings, it cracks me up sometimes, but in this case it was genuinely necessary). It's a 20-mile stretch of unpaved rail trail that ends up at the YW camp the church owns, up in New Hampshire. Twice along the trail we'll be camping on private or Boy Scout land for the night. In one case, the amazing generosity of the landowner has extended to allowing us to fish for lake trout in his stocked pond, if we choose. There will be several road crossings--I can imagine we will be quite a sight for the held-up traffic--and several tunnels that cross under major highways or roads. The tunnels are just those huge metal culverts and they are rather small, but have been measured and we're assured that the carts will fit through, maybe with some unpacking and rearranging. The photos were taken in winter without foliage, but it looks like it will be shady and gorgeous. I think bugs will be our major trial. Even if it rains the trail looks very solid.

Everyone will drop off equipment, bedrolls and the 5-gallon PVC pails we get as "luggage" a couple of days beforehand, so that the only thing being collected on day 1 is people. Someone transports all that up to the site, while the rest of us meet at the temple early in the morning and we have a devotional about leaving Nauvoo and the temple. Then we drive up to the site, get organized into families, load carts, and get started. (And that same someone, somehow, figures out how to get our Ma&Pa real-world cars from the start to the finish by Saturday). At the end, on Saturday, a gigantic stake activity, a "Welcome to the Valley" with everyone there to greet us as we roll in.

We heard from the food committee chairperson and got our cart equipment list. She told us that the food will be "plain" because there are so many food intolerances to consider, and she told us not to encourage the kind of bonding that happens when people complain about food. She said she will put "bug poetry" into our daily rations as a way to use humor to deal with (as she put it) the close relationship that insects will have with our food, and she pointed out that 2/3 of the world has ants in their food daily and just eats it anyway. She stressed the importance of replenishing electrolytes not just fluid, and we'll get a packet of Gatorade powder per person, per day which they should eat as pixiesticks or mix into their water, but not into their Camelbacks since that might go rancid. Hats off to her, seriously. She's got to feed over 150 people for 3 days, taking into account lack of refrigeration, celiac disease, vegetarians, dairy allergy, nut allergies, etc. Whew.

We'll cook breakfast as families and then have each person pack a sack lunch after breakfast from a buffet of fresh fruit, veggie sticks, nuts, bread & jam, granola, dried fruit, and jerkey. Then dinner will be a communal affair with some dutch oven component to it. All the meat will be pre-cooked, no raw meat on the trail. I adore dutch oven cooking, so hooray, it's right up my alley. In June, we'll have a more intensive all-day training with all the Ma&Pa couples, with handcarts, on site, and using our dutch ovens to practice.

We heard from the medical committee. Each family gets a first aid kit for blisters, pain relief, splinters, etc. We need to really watch our kids and alert upwards if there are concerns we can't handle. If we have a youth with allergies, food intolerance, asthma or other health issue that information will be in our cart's medical folder so we'll know how to handle that.

We heard from the clothing chairperson. She stressed how much period clothing adds to the spirit of the event. She reminded us that adult women would have worn long sleeves and we should do the same. She said that our footwear should be well broken in, comfortable, and we should wear hiking socks with hiking sock liners, don't skimp on the socks and don't wear cotton socks.

Our instruction to us as "parents" of this youth conference family: 1) Safety. 2) Foster an environment where the youth can feel the Spirit and have their testimonies grow - not by being preached at, but through conversation, finding their own answers to questions, and through one-on-one ministry (our stake YW president quoted Sister Dalton's message in the auxiliary training meeting about the importance of one-on-one ministering - ?can't find that one online). and 3) Build Unity.

We were encouraged to find responsibilities for everyone in the "family." The youth are not there to be entertained, and we "parents" should not do all the work. The Ma&Pa are there to provide guidance and to make sure that the guidelines are being followed and that everyone is being included, but the leadership should come from the youth, especially the older youth (each family gets a "Big Brother" and "Big Sister" who are Priests/Laurels in the stake youth committee).

Key quotes and scriptures for the Ma&Pa =

President Monson: "The leaders who have the most influence are usually those who set hearts afire with devotion to the truth... who transform some ordinary routine occurrence so that it becomes a vista where we see the person we aspire to be." (Priesthood session, "Examples of Righteousness," April 08 conference)

Mosiah 18:21 "And he commanded them that there should be no contention one with another, but that they should look forward with one eye, having one faith and one baptism, having their hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another."

President Eyring: "my children came to expect in every lesson in family night that I would find a way to encourage someone to testify of the Savior and His mission. Sometimes the parents did it. On our best nights we found a way to encourage the children to do it, either by presenting the lesson or answering questions." ("Our Hearts Knit as One," October 08 conference)