Mormon Life - Trek tag

Mormon California teens take a pioneer trek for spring break

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:24:00 -0600

source: deseretnews.com

Mormon Life says: What great examples these youth are. Instead going to the beach, Disneyland or hanging out at the mall, teenagers from the Riverside California Stake pushed and pulled handcarts during their Pioneer Trek Youth Conference in the mountains of San Bernardino on Riley’s Farms in early April. It was also a chance to learn about their early Mormon pioneer ancestors, to understand their religion a little better, and to find out more about their own strengths and weaknesses.

Canada newspaper features the Mormon Trail of Tears

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:51:00 -0700

source: canadafreepress.com

Mormon Life says: The article features some beautiful photographs. This was a rut I was grateful to be stuck in one crisp, blue-sky morning in western Wyoming. Standing deep in a trough on a sparsely wooded hill overlooking the North Platte River near the outskirts of Guernsey, I felt the earth rumble as oxen mooed, whips cracked, and covered wagons creaked up the steep rutted incline hauling heavy loads of the essentials, and the trivial. Hardened women in bonnets and long skirts followed coughing in the dust, and men in hats on horses yelled at their livestock and encouraged children and the old staggering to keep pace.

Among this rolling wave of humanity were hundreds of poor English and Scandinavian Mormons on foot who had no idea what awaited them in October of 1856 as they pushed and pulled two-wheeled carts with bloody hands ever-onward to Zion and the Valley of the Salt Lake for 1,300 tiresome miles in the ultimate test of their faith.

Young Mormons embrace trek to deepen faith

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 10:09:00 -0600

source: lohud.com

On a recent Friday night when their peers were probably hanging out at the mall or posting on Facebook, some 150 Mormon teens pulled 10,400-pound covered handcarts for seven miles through Connecticut's Mohawk State Forest.

Girls donned bonnets and prairie skirts while boys wore suspenders and straw hats as they re-enacted the treacherous trek Mormon pioneers made out West from 1846 to 1869. Faced with religious and political persecution, about 70,000 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) migrated across a 1,300-mile trail through five states to settle in the Salt Lake Valley of Utah.

And while the modern-day LDS teen living in the northern suburbs may not know from persecution, the intense re-enactment shows how far their lives can be from the cultural mainstream, even one sprinkled with Mormon touchstones, from the Broadway smash "The Book of Mormon" to Mitt Romney making a second run for the White House.