youth conference 2017

How’s that for a little spooky, adventurous-sounding??

Ha!

Ok, so it’s not totally abandoned, apparently some people bought it, and lend it out for things like this, but still…spooky-ish, am I right?

Last time they went I wasn’t working in the Young Women program so I just sent off Max and Elle with their leaders, and thought it was a little interesting that it was in a high school, but it was kind of cool to get to be there in person this year and see that it was a pretty perfect venue.  (and the people who bought it let the church use it for free, so that’s always a bonus)


This is where we ate, just to give a little more feel for the place:

It was pretty impressive…such good dancers.

After dinner and the luau, we headed inside where everyone was divided up into different groups.  I was asked to be the photographer so I got some shots so show some of the activities:

Relays…

Glow-in-the-dark volleyball:

Some other kind of relays:

There was also a Skittles game and a game where you had to pass an object down a row of kids…hard to explain and no picture…

Then they had a big meeting to kick off the rest of the time we’d have there.

The theme of the conference was FOCUS and I love that every activity was trying to help the kids realize how important it is to Focus on what’s most important.

I think especially in this world filled with so much technology and so many things that stimulate all our brains in so many different directions.

Then it was off to the big dance:

As I looked around at those close-to-500 youth I couldn’t help but feel so lucky my kids get to be surrounded by them all.  That gym was filled with pretty great kids.

And pretty spectacular leaders.

I was just there to “help” on the sidelines (and take pictures), I didn’t do any of the planning and organizing, which made me particularly grateful for all that those stake leaders did to pull this off.

I know it is no easy task!

Little by little the kids filtered back to their sleeping quarters…

…the classrooms in this old high school.

…and the leaders slept out here in the hallways.

My friend Kristie was pretty smart to bring her whole cot get-up 🙂

My spot is over there with the green blanket on top above…comfy little spot if I do say so myself.

We stayed up late talking…one of my girls was sweet enough to bring some hand-warmers for me which kept me toasty in my sleeping bag all night.

The next morning we had breakfast and individual ward devotionals followed by a huge service project making hygiene kits for needy kids in our local hospitals.

The girls wrote sweet notes to go in each of them.

Then it was lunch:

Followed by everyone rotating to different spots.

We listened to a few really excellent speakers:

And my favorite thing was that they made up an “Escape the Room” based on the Book of Mormon.

This is the only picture I got because our team was so focused on getting out of the room the quickest.

I could not believe how clever the leaders are who put that together.  It was very well-done.

We gathered at the end for one last speaker for everyone together.  It was an older couple who just got back from serving a mission.  They had so many great stories to tell, helping us all remember how important it is to FOCUS on what’s most important in life.

The closing ceremony involved a bunch of dancing storm troopers who felt the light of the youth and changed their hearts…

The youth council were jedis.

Everyone separated to clean their hearts out, pack up cars, and we were off.

Love that I got to be up there with this girl of mine.