July 25, 2010

Dear Grace,

Okay WOW! This is going to be a LONG letter! Mostly because I haven’t written for a couple of weeks and tons of stuff has happened in the meantime. So first off, we went to Fish Lake, and yes it was GORGEOUS! We had a campsite that was right on the side of the mountain on the border of the campground, so I went hiking a few times up there. I listened to that song Golden Years by David Bowie on my iPod while I hiked, and if anyone saw me, they might have thought I was mental or something because I was dancing/walking/hiking as I went. Yeah, I know, I’m strange. But I actually ended up hiking halfway up the mountain. It’s like Maria says in Sound of Music: The Untersberg led me higher and higher, like it wanted me to go through the clouds... that pretty much sums up how I felt while I was up there. I just didn’t want to stop climbing up that mountainside. But I’d been gone for maybe an hour or two, so I figured I’d better get back down to camp so no one would think I’d gotten eaten by wolves or shot down by some poacher.

Then, that same afternoon, Grandpa, Josh, Jessica and her kids and I all went out on the tin-can boat to fish for a while. Storms had been brewing all day, and it had been drizzling off and on, so we figured we’d be okay to go out for the afternoon. Murphy’s law, right? So we’d been out for maybe an hour, when a really nasty storm rolled in, and we decided, too late, that we’d better head in to shore. As we were heading in, it started to rain on us pretty hard. It was windy, and the waves were choppy and splashing dangerously against the boat, sometimes sloshing over the edge and getting us wet. I felt so bad, because Grandpa gave me his coat to wear to keep warm, since we had neglected to bring the rain ponchos with us. We made it into shore okay, with one fish still attached to the chain. It was so cold that Grandpa and Josh didn’t want to gut it, so they were going to just leave it on the cleaning table. I got mad and told them that I would gut it so it wouldn’t go to waste. When I finished gutting it, I realized I had nothing to carry it back to the campsite in. Grandpa fished a big drink cup out of a trashcan and dropped the fish inside to carry back. I laughed.

So then we went back to the campsite and dried off by the fire for a while, and then Josh and Jessica left to go fishing again because the rainstorm had blown off and it was sunny again, so they left their wet clothes next to the fire to dry. Mom and I spent the better part of an hour drying out all the clothes, holding them up in front of the fire. When they were dry, we set them on the chairs around the fire. The downside to this? Jessica’s sweatshirt got a couple of sparks on it and got a couple of holes burned in it. So that ruined a perfectly good $60 sweatshirt. Yeah that sucked.

The next day we went to church, and I just about laughed my head off during relief society when we were asked to give input on some things we were discussing, because Grandma kept raising her hand, and the lady teaching the class kept ignoring her and calling on only the people she knew. I was getting kind of mad that she was doing this until Grandma Joanne suddenly said very loudly and impertinently: “You have a comment right here!” and pointed to Grandma. I love Grandma Joanne J.

Well, that’s all I can think of to tell you about Fish Lake, so now I’ll move on to the next thing: trek. It was an incredible experience. People saw angels while we were up there, Grace. They were there with us. I kept a journal for the first two days while I was there, but I hate just writing to no one, so I wrote you a couple of mini letters while I was there instead of keeping an actual journal. It was easier that way because then I felt like I was actually telling someone about what I was seeing and feeling. So let me just insert what I wrote from that.

Dear Grace, here I am on trek, sitting out on the plains just after dinner. We rode on the bus six or seven hours today after getting up at three this morning. My family and I were assigned a baby doll to be our baby. Well, really it’s my baby, I bought it at DI, but you get the point. His name is Jacob, and he was born on the Sweetwater on October 16, 1856. Miraculously, Jacob and his entire family survived. The baby is my responsibility, since I’m the oldest sister in my family, even though it’s the mom’s baby.

But that arrangement is so appropriate, because the person I’m trekking for is our great-great-great grandmother, Jane Johnston Black. I’m reading a biography that was written about her in a novel, and I love her! She’s so spunky and fiery, and no one could hold her back because she was a woman. She was a very famous midwife and doctor, and she delivered over 3000 babies in her lifetime without ever losing a single mother or child. Her own daughter, Mary, however, died in childbirth, leaving behind a baby boy. Jane had not been there to help with the birthing at the time. I haven’t reached that point in the book yet, but from what Mom told me, the baby was put into Jane’s care. So Jane crossed the plains with her family, and brought the little boy, Johnston.

He was probably five or six at the time they began the trek, but I like to imagine that she was carrying little baby Johnston, since the baby isn’t mine. It’s funny what a coincidence that is.

We walked three miles this afternoon, pushing the handcarts with our families. I got to know the eldest brother in our group, Ryan. He’s pretty cute, and he was big time into football before he graduated from Timpanogos High, and guess what? He’s from Oregon! Haha, small world, right? Yeah, that was funny.

As we walk these plains, I still can’t imagine this vast, green expanse covered in eighteen inches of snow and ice. I’ve tried to imagine cooking and eating the leather off my own shoes, and I’ve tried to imagine being wet in the bitter, icy wind, walking knee-deep snow while my fingers and toes slowly rot away. I can’t imagine living through that day after day after day. All those people who made that trek must really have believed to have suffered that much to come to Zion. When I hear the stories of their sufferings I feel inadequate and weak; spoiled and selfish. One story that has particularly haunted me is that of a man, whose feet were so frozen that when he took off his shoes one night, the skin of his feet came off with his shoes, leaving the bones of his feet exposed. To hear of such suffering makes me recoil; I can’t bear to hear about those poor saints.

Dear Grace, Last night I watched the sun go down as the wind stirred the tall grass all around me. Few things have seemed so beautiful to me as that quiet sunset, out here on the plains. After the sun had gone down, we went to bed. We’re sleeping in burritos (tarp around the sleeping bag on the ground) so I get to stare at the stars before I fall asleep. As I stared up at the partially visible milky-way, I heard, for the first time, the sound of the wind whistling through the cliffs in the distance. I felt like I had stepped back in time, just for a minute. That particular swishing, whistling wind made the same sound that those pioneers heard as they went to sleep at night, so many years ago. I was so grateful for that wind yesterday because it kept us cool in the hot sun. I miss it today though, because the sun is so hot! But we’ll pull through just as the pioneers did…

That second letter got cut short because we were doing a lot of stuff that day, and then the next day we hiked fifteen miles all day, and then it rained that night, so I really couldn’t find time to sit down and write, so I’ll have to tell you about the rest of my experiences from memory the best I can. So first off, here’s my family, Parents: Ma and Pa Fairbanks, Siblings oldest to youngest: Ryan, Me, Justin, Brad, (actual stepbrothers) Colton and Addison (yes, Addison was a guy), Monique, Sarah, and Mallory. Ryan did most of the pulling the cart for the trip, hooked to a make-shift rope harness in front of the cart, and I was so grateful to have him in our family. He was really fun, and he helped believing in ourselves, that we could keep pushing forward and keep working hard. Justin didn’t say much, but from what he did say, I guessed he must have been a little slow. Still, he never complained at all the entire time we were there, so that was great, and he pulled the cart all day long on the fifteen miler. Brad complained sometimes, but he always apologized for it and tried to be more upbeat about everything. Colton didn’t want to be there, but he was awesome because he never complained, even though we could all tell he wasn’t having a very good time, and he kept going all day long, even after we went through five mud puddles.

I didn’t get to know Monique very well, because she got heat exhaustion on the second day and had to get an IV, so I didn’t get to see much of her or talk to her that much. I felt so bad, because the nurses said she wouldn’t be able to do the fifteen miler. However, she got up the next day and walked with us for half of the day. We carried her in our cart a couple of times because she got pretty worn out, but I was still so glad that she got to do at least that much. Sarah and Mallory were my two little balls of sunshine, and I don’t think I would have been nearly as cheerful or willing to be helpful if they hadn’t been there. Sarah looks EXACTLY like a smaller version of Mallory Millet. It was really weird. But she was very sweet and fun in a quite sort of way, and Mallory was a spirited little fireball, and she kept me laughing and positive for the entire trek.

Addison was the only one I wasn’t glad to have with us. In fact I think we all could have said that. From day one he complained about anything and everything. He was the kind of person, who, if he couldn’t find something to complain about, he would complain that there wasn’t anything to complain about. Yeah, I was about ready to kill him by the last day. He brought a Nintendo DS with him too, and when I saw him playing on it I said very loudly, “Wow, you’re pathetic. You can’t live three days without that?” and then I made fun of him some more until he put it away and joined the rest of us on the trek experience, while grumbling about how stupid it was not to have technology. If we were pushing the cart, it was too hilly or too hard, if it was sunny it was too hot, if the wind was blowing it was too windy, if we had a good dinner, it wasn’t pizza, so it was disgusting.

The second day, we rode a bus to our next campsite, two hours away, and the first thing he said when we got off the bus was: “That was pretty much the worst bus ride ever, it was stupid.”

I asked him why he thought this.

“Because it was cramped and uncomfortable. I hate trek, it’s so stupid, my feet hurt and I’m tired…” blah, blah, blah. I finally snapped and said, “Will you quit complaining? We’re all in the same boat. All of us have blisters on our feet, we’re all tired and hungry and we were all uncomfortable on the bus, but none of us are complaining about it.”

“So?”

“So none of us want to hear any of it from you. If all you’re going to do is complain, then keep your mouth shut; we don’t need to hear it.”

He shut up and disappeared for an hour or so. Then he reappeared at our campsite later to complain about the bugs that were everywhere. I gave him some OFF! Wipes to make him shut up, which he thankfully did.

Then the next day, he kept complaining about everything again, and then, after we climbed the five treacherous miles of Rocky Ridge (which Ryan did the majority of pulling the cart up) we were walking on a flat stretch for a while, so Ryan was taking it easy because with three people pushing the cart, it pretty much pushes itself. So Addison was on my left, I was in the middle, Mallory was on my right, and Ryan was walking in front of us with the make-shift harness he was wearing hanging loosely, since he really didn’t need to be pulling it. Addison said, “Well you’re not even doing anything Ryan, you’re just walking in front of the cart, you’re not helping.”

Ryan turned and gave him that Are you serious? look. I got mad and snapped, “I’ve got an idea, let’s strap you to the front of the cart and see how easy it is to pull it up Rocky Ridge.”

He shut up again and didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day. Later that night, Mallory told me I was her hero for saying that.

Okay, I’m done ranting about him. But seriously, we all agreed that if we had been on the real trek, he would have been the first one to go because his attitude sucked so bad.

So let me tell you about the cool stuff we did. The second day, we did the women’s pull, up the hardest hill they had, which was covered with sand that must have been six inches deep or so, making it extremely hard to push the cart up. The young men had to stand along the side of the path and just watch us. They weren’t allowed to speak, and they weren’t allowed to help us. They had to just stand there and watch us. I have to admit, getting that cart up that hill was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. But I felt that it was my responsibility to be the strong one in my family, since I was the oldest, and my Ma was older. As we neared the top, the other sisters who had already made it began to sing our camp song: we are strong, and we are brave, we have the courage to obey, this is the time, we know the way, we believe in the difference we can make…

When we finally made it to the top, we went to park our cart, and as we walked, leaders and girls alike had tears in their eyes as they said, “You did it, you made it.”

We parked our cart behind Sister Jackson’s cart, and when I looked up, one of the girls was bawling as she went over to give Sister Jackson a hug. My first thought was jeez, it wasn’t that bad. But as I went to give Sister Jackson a hug, the spirit of the whole situation hit me, and tears filled my eyes as several things went through my mind.

First, I looked at all of the young men and fathers lined up along the path and imagined that they were the spirits of the fathers, brothers and husbands that had died along the way, and how they could no longer help their families. They could only stand and watch as their families had to struggle and suffer and go on without them. Then I thought of how that was exactly how it must have been for all of us to sit in the life before this and watch as Jesus suffered for our sins. How we must have stood along that path and watched him pushing that cart all alone, and how we must have turned to Heavenly Father in tears, pleading Please, can’t we help him?

And how Heavenly Father, equally in agony as we all were, had to say, No, he has to do this alone.

And last of all, I felt the spirits of those pioneer women around me. I can’t describe it to you, but they were there. I felt them there on the path with us. I felt their heartache. I felt their pain. Can you imagine losing a loved one out there, and having to leave them behind somewhere, buried along the path, never to see them again, never to visit their grave? Not knowing if their bodies would become the next meal for a pack of wolves? I kept thinking about my Daddy, my real Daddy, and how hard my life would be without him, and that hurt so much to think that so many children lost their fathers along that trial.

The next day we went on the 15 miler, and halfway up rocky ridge, a girl in the group in front of us sat down on the side of the trail. At first I thought she was crying, but when we came up to her, she was having problems breathing. We loaded her into our cart, since her group hadn’t noticed that she had fallen behind, and we continued on until we found a nurse to come look at her. She was fine, thank goodness, but we had her stay on the cart for the rest of Rocky Ridge.

When we got to the hardest part of Rocky Ridge, President Doughman stopped our group and called all the Ma’s and Pa’s to him and sent them ahead on the trail. Then he called all of us children together and told us, “Your parents have just died, and now you will have to do the hardest part of Rocky Ridge without them. I had a very funny moment, because while we were going up that ridge, Mallory and I were pushing from the back, and when we got about halfway up, I gasped, “Mallory.”

“What?” she panted.

“I have a butt-cramp.”

We both busted up laughing, and that was our joke for the rest of the trip. Then, after Rocky Ridge, we had to go through all of the mud puddles. Five of them. Three of them were mid-thigh high. I didn’t have any extra shoes or socks on the cart I could change into, so I wasn’t planning on getting in the mud until I realized that no one else was going to. So then I decided I’d better jump in and help push, while the guys pulled the cart from the sides with rope. I didn’t want to get my skirt or my bloomers totally mud-soaked, though, so I tucked the hem of my skirt up into the waistband and hitched my bloomers clear up so they wouldn’t get wet. Then I charged through the mud puddles and decided to wear my skirt like that until we were done with all of the mud puddles. It made for easier walking anyway, since my skirt didn’t catch on my ankles anymore.

After the last mud puddle, we washed up in a stream. I rinsed out my shoes and socks the best I could, and then went back to our cart, not really sure what to do about my mud-caked legs. Then Ryan pulled out a spray bottle from the cart that we had been using to stay cooled off and started spraying my legs with it, which I have to admit, was kind of sexy, haha.

Fortunately, Ma and Pa Fairbanks had a towel that the others were using to wipe down their legs, so I got to get most of the mud off me. Then, when I was clean, and after Ryan and Mallory and I all joked about what sexy legs I have, I looked down at my skirt and bloomers and stated matter-of-factly, “I kind of look like a pioneer hooker.” To which we all promptly burst into laughter. Then Ryan started squirting all of us with the spray bottle, and we broke out into a water-war. Ryan had the spray bottle, Mallory had her water bottle which she used to try and soak the rest of us with, and me with my dripping wet wool socks, which I went after Ryan with, swinging them like some sort of water-sock nun chucks. Haha yes, my family was awesome.

That night, a MASSIVE storm rolled in, and there was so much lighting, that it looked like a fireworks display. Rain dumped so hard it sounded like hail, and I woke to the explosion of thunder over my head. I huddled in my sleeping bag, praying that my tarp would hold up and that I wouldn’t get wet. I fell asleep and then woke up later because my head was wet. Half of my pillow was out in the rain. I folded the wet half of my pillow under and snuggled down deeper inside my sleeping bag and went back to sleep. I woke up again later because my feet were wet, as well as my right arm. When I checked I realized that the whole left side of my sleeping back was completely soaked through. I was freezing and wet, but I wiggled to the right side of my sleeping bag was still dry, and figured I could rough it until morning. That was, until I felt the water continuing to soak through my sleeping bag and creep over until my back and arm were soaked again.

I felt so helpless, because I knew there was nowhere I could go. There were no extra sleeping bags, and no shelter unless I wanted to go sleep in one of the bathrooms (which I very seriously thought about). I really didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew I couldn’t stay there, or I would freeze. So I sat up and unzipped my sleeping bag. There were a bunch of people with flashlights walking around, and at first I was confused. Was there a party going on that I didn’t know about or something? Immediately, my Ma, who had been sleeping right next to me, rolled over and asked me if I was okay. Someone with a flashlight came over to me, and when he and my Ma saw how hard I was shivering (Ma later told me I was shaking so hard I looked like I was having a seizure) she sent me with the guy with the flashlight, who promised he could put me in a car where it would be warm and dry.

My dry shoes, which I had put on when we got into camp, were soaked, because the hadn’t gotten put under my tarp, so I had no dry shoes to wear. The guy with the flashlight told me to wear them barefoot and to just carry some dry socks with me. He took me over to the cars, where Dave Bagley came running over to help. When he recognized who I was, he put his arm around me and led me over to a truck. I asked him how many other kids were in trouble and he gestured to the ten or so SUVs we had just walked past, “Every single one of those is full.”

He put me in the passenger’s seat and turned the truck on and got the heater running. I tried to dry my socks out while I sat there, because I had forgotten that they were the socks that I had been wearing in my sleeping bag. Then I changed out of my wet shirt and put on my sweatshirt, which was damp, but it was the driest warm thing I had. Another girl was brought to the truck, and they put her in the back, so I ended up climbing in the back with her so we could snuggle up and stay warm.

They gave us a sleeping bag to use as a blanket, and we huddled under that, and then shared it with another girl they brought in. Several times people came to check on us, and a couple of ladies offered to get dry clothing for us from our campsites. One of the girls in the car with me offered to give me some of her dry socks, since mine were wet, so one lady went off to get her some dry clothes and the socks. Then I told one lady that both pairs of my shoes were soaked, and I was going to ask her to just bring me some ziplock bags from my bucket so I could put them over my socks before I put them on in the morning, when she said, “Oh, I have some extra shoes you can wear. What size are you?”

“Seven and a half or an eight.”

“They’re seven and a half. I’ll be right back.”

And maybe two minutes later she reappeared with an extra pair of dry shoes for me. Me and the other two girls spent the next hour or so talking and laughing it up, both at our situation and other random things before we went to sleep.

I drew an analogy from this experience that made me grateful to have been cold and miserable for that one night. When I was lying in that sleeping bag, I felt vulnerable and helpless. I felt like there was nothing left that I could do, and that no one could help me. But when I sat up to look for help, there were all these angels around me, seeking out those who needed their help. Life is a lot like this. There are times when we come to a dead end, and we don’t know what else we can do, and we feel trapped and lost. Then, out of nowhere, God sends angels to help us, and that doesn’t mean just the angels in flowing robes that come down from heaven. It’s the angels in disguise, who come to us through the people we know and love.

For me, my angel was Hannah, during my sophomore year. I felt lost and alone and vulnerable because I didn’t have any friends, and that was the hardest thing in the world for me. Then, after I had done everything I could do, tried to be friendly and make new friends and things along that line, he sent Hannah to me. She was the answer to my prayers, and we are still good friends to this day.

And that’s another I learned while I was sitting in that truck, talking with those two girls. Friendships don’t always last forever. Sometimes friendships last no longer than a few hours. I became good friends with those two girls while we sat in that truck, and I got so close to my family on that trek. Now that that storm and trek are over, I may never see those people ever again. But that’s what I learned. Sometimes people are sent to us so we can learn something from them, and that is why we meet them. That is why Britta was sent to me when we first moved back here to Utah. She was my best friend when I had no one else, and once I was back on my feet and I had made new friends at school, it was her time to go, and that’s why our friendship came to a close.

The friendship we had and the love we had will never be regretted, but things must change for us to move on. If she hadn’t moved out of my life, I would have excluded my other friends and not appreciated them more.

Let me finish this letter (which had turned into a novel, sorry!) with a few of the angels that people saw while we were there. First, the girl that we carried on our cart, was walking up into Martin’s cove, when she saw all of these people along the way, cheering her on. When she got up into the cove, she saw her great-great grandmother that she was trekking for. She hugged her and said she loved her and was proud of her and wanted her to do her genealogy work for her.

Next, a boy spoke of how, when he heard the story of the four boys who carried the people across the Sweetwater River, he thought of his older brother, who died a couple of years ago from cancer. He said that when he stopped to look at the statues that were dedicated in memory of those boys, he heard his brother’s voice in his ear whispering, “This is our legacy, this is what we need to pass on…”

The experience that touched me the most though, was Hope Rose’s testimony. When she was seven years old, her mom passed away, and it was very hard on her. When she began that last ascent up Rocky Ridge without her Ma and Pa, she looked up to the top of the trail where they were waiting for her, and looked over to where her Ma was standing.

There, standing next to her Ma, was her real mother. Her mother was beckoning to her, and when she reached the top, her mom hugged her and said how proud she was of her and how much she loved her and that she was sorry she never got to say goodbye. I bawled my eyes out when she told us about this, because I knew it was true.

The spirit of God, like a fire, is burning. The latter-day glory begins to come forth. The visions and blessings of old are returning, and angels are coming to visit the earth. We’ll sing and we’ll shout with the armies of Heaven: Hosanna, hosanna to God and the lamb, let glory to Him in the highest be given. Henceforth and forever, amen, and amen.

That’s all I’ll write for today, but I just want you to know that I love you and I think about you every day.

All my love,

-Katie Jo