The sun beat down Friday on a group of youth and adults as they made their way through a piece of land between Sylamore and Melbourne. Breezes were met with smiles, and a trek through water was a welcome experience as the participants in the 2015 Searcy Arkansas Stake Mormon Pioneer Trek simulated the journey their Mormon ancestors took from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Salt Lake City, Utah, to flee religious persecution.
After pulling their handcarts out of Lyons Creek and into a clearing, the 68 youths and 38 adults settled into a clearing to make lunch, which included meat, potatoes, vegetables and brownies placed over hot coals. As the meals cooked, people gathered together to watch several of the youth play stick pull, a pioneer game in which two people sit on the ground facing each other with their feet together and pull on a stick, trying to make the other person rise from the sitting position or let go of the stick. With their homemade, borrowed or thrifted pioneer-era clothing, the only reminders that it was 2015 were the modern-era shoes, the handful of adults with cellphones and the SUV hauling a trailer of portable toilets.
Participants in the pioneer trek were split up into nine families on Thursday before the trek began. Each family had a “ma and pa” — a married couple who volunteered to help lead teenagers throughout the trek — and about eight teenagers from 14 to 18 years old. Organizers wanted the teenagers to meet people from different congregations, and the families formed their own identities as the event took place.
The Searcy Arkansas Stake is made up of 10 Mormon congregations throughout central and northern Arkansas, including the Cabot Ward, Jacksonville Ward, Jonesboro Ward, Quitman Ward, Searcy Ward, Batesville Branch, Lonoke Branch, Mountain View Branch, Paragould Branch and Pocahontas Branch.
Organizers said they have a pioneer trek every four years so teenagers from the local congregations have a chance to experience it at least once. Planning the trek takes about six months, and the trek itself is three days long.
Dawn Brown, counselor for the stake’s Young Women group, said the trek was designed to help the youth strengthen their testimonies while learning more about their religion’s history.
“We want them to create their own relationship with their brother and savior, Jesus Christ,” she said.
The trek specifically emulated the journey of the Mormon pioneers that occurred in the mid-1800s. In this exodus, many families traveled with handcarts piled with all of their belongings. For the trek, each participant was allowed a 5-gallon bucket for personal items and clothing, and each family had a handcart to carry their buckets.
Participants said they had to prepare mentally, physically and spiritually before they started the trek.
“We had to sew our bonnets and skirts — we just went to Goodwill to get our shirts — and we had to be physically prepared,” said Paige Rowland, 16, of Beebe. “Spiritually and mentally, we had to be prepared for the weekend so we could endure through all of it. … I also researched the history of it. I knew the gist of it, that they pulled handcarts, but I had to dig deeper. I learned that the women had to do a lot of it by themselves, and the little kids helped as well.”
Some of the teens found out they were related to some of the original Mormon pioneers who took the journey from Illinois to Utah. Parker Sherwood, 17, of Rose Bud, said he discovered that he was related to original pioneer Benjamin Franklin Johnson.
“We were asked to look up pioneers to walk in honor of and to remember while we were pushing our handcarts,” Sherwood said. “I researched my grandparents and what they went through, and one of my great-great-grandparents actually crossed the plains.”
Ben Wahlquist, 18, of Drasco also said he had an ancestor on his father’s side who was a pioneer. Throughout the trek, Wahlquist said, he would think of his ancestor, and the journey made him appreciate what the pioneers went through.
“We have certain comforts here that they didn’t have,” he said. “I don’t think we could imagine doing without those comforts, but they did it with even less than what we have.”
For more information about the Searcy Arkansas Stake Mormon Pioneer Trek, visit www.searcystaketrek.com. For more information about the Searcy Arkansas Stake, visit the group’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/searcyarkansasstake.
Staff writer Angela Spencer can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or aspencer@arkansasonline.com.