What a Blast!

Last week I had the privilege of going to Youth Conference. The stake had asked Aaron to film and photo the event, but he didn't have the time to take off, so I used his cameras and played around. We'll see how the end result turns out when he edits it. The planning for the conference was a very stressful ordeal as Rheanna would come home from late Thursday night meetings with some other crazy fiasco, but the outcome was amazing.

We all camped out the whole time. Rheanna and I stayed in my tiny little backpacking tent. We used Aaron's queen mattress and filled it wall to wall with the bed. It was cozy, but warm. The stake presidency just laughed each time we had to crawl in or out of it. Next time, we'll just bring our big tent and not worry about wasting our space : )

They split the youth into tribes with tribe leaders (adults) and they did several activities together. Then throughout the conference they'd have competitions between them and other tribes. There were several reenactments like at a church pageant. These were done very well. The actors were just various people in the stake, but all knew their lines very well. They definitely brought the spirit. The climax being that we woke the kids up at 4 am on Friday with a mock earthquake and had them gather around the temple to witness the Savior coming to America, it was awesome.

It was great to be with the youth, but I also had a great time getting to know others in the stake better and hanging out with some great friends including Greg Miller, Bishop Hunt, Bishop Freeman and Paula Olsen. We live in an awesome place and know some fantastic people. It's amazing the bond that is created from serving together in the church even in these short temporary assignments together. Beyond the short stuff, I am fortunate to be serving with some awesome men. My counselors are two of my best friends and have become even better friends thru serving together and the others in the YM program are quickly rising to a similar level of friendship and none of it would have happened without the Gospel.

Living the Gospel and serving in the Church is so fulfilling and it really is a blast! The Church is true!