A few weeks ago while I was walking with a friend, she told me of a program they once did in their ward to get the sisters walking.I loved the sounds of it and would like to start something similar on this list since this year marks the 150th anniversary of the Handcart companies crossing the plains to get to ‘Zion’. They called it ‘WALK TO ZION’ and they literally walked near their homes or in their homes, the equivalent of how many miles the handcart companies walked, keeping track of their personal miles.
I looked up some info on the Mormon Handcart companies and found the following stats:”Across Iowa they followed an existing road about 275 miles (443 km)to Council Bluffs following a route that is close to current U.S.Route 6. After crossing the Missouri River, they paused for a few days at a Mormon outpost in Florence, Nebraska (modern-day Omaha) forrepairs, before beginning the remaining 1,030-mile (1,658 km) journey along the Mormon Trail to Salt Lake City.”So they walked 1305 miles total.That’s a lot of miles!
GOALS
I figure we can choose from 2 goals…
1) ‘walk from Iowa’ = 1305 miles’
2) ‘walk from Florence Nebraska’ = 1,030 miles
We are blessed, we can walk it at our leisure in better weather conditions, we can go home after each walk, we can walk with good clothing, sturdy shoes, water, food, A/C if we have a treadmill…We also have no time constraints like the pioneers did– they had to make it to SLC before the winter cold weathers set in. And yes, we are starting out even later than the Martin and Willie Handcartcompanies. They were the worst off of all the handcart companies. Many died along the way, from all the companies. We are not going todie… we are going to take better care of these wonderful bodies we have been given.