Youth Conference-2008

So, on the 3rd-5th of this month was our stakes youth conference. It was pretty much fun, although there were some not-so-fun things that happened. Notice our cool matching T-shirts? They Say "M=P, Mission Possible", and the back says "fear not, Isaiah 41:10". I like them. First we did our service project! We cleaned up the exterior of four of our ward buildings. Pulling weeds, planting flowers, and whatever else needed done. I don't really know who any of the people in this pic are. I don't recognize them. But I thought it shows well what we were doing. =)

This is Chelsea, myself, Nannie, Micah, and Trevor resting in the shade.

This is TJ. He was the only kid who didn't wear a t-shirt. I think he told me why, but I don't remember what he said. =/

The woman on the left holding the branch is Nicole. She is one of the most awesome young women's leaders ever! She is SO much fun, we all love her. She is one of our Stake YW leaders. And I don't really know the other lady.

This is Travis and Bret standing on top of the dumpster. They were squashing rose branches so that we could fit more.

After the service project, when we were all REALLY hungry we had a BBQ at the park. It was so nice and relaxing. The girls mostly relaxed on the grass or under the pavilion and talked, and the boy mostly played around and through a football around. Then we ate! This is the only picture we have of the BBQ because my photographer (aka mom) went home for most of the time during this, as our house is right across the street from it. Oh yeah, and this is Travis cooking hamburgers. =D He actually isn't a youth anymore, so he came as a youth leader. WE were all really glad he did because he's an awesome guy. We'll miss him when he leaves for his mission next month.

After our BBQ we headed out for Moab. Or a campground close to it.(is it Moab mom?). We got to our camp, which had no trees, and set up our tents in the sun. Then we got to play around in the Colorado river while lunch was made. It was so cold and refreshing! It's a really deep river. We learned that on average it's about thirty feet! The boys even made a chain and dipped one of the tall ones down in to see if he could reach the bottom. He couldn't obviously. He isn't that tall! (They did it right there on that ledge in the picture.)

This is our camp. Well, the girls half anyway....

Isn't this a lovely picture?

This is Chelsea, myself, and a foreign exchange student from Mongolia, Nancy (her Mongolian name is much more cool). We three pretty much stuck together the whole time. We made a good threesome, because we were the ones who didn't stay up late, or act crazy, or flirty, etc.... Nancy is going home soon, and we'll miss her.

This is us and my mom after our river rafting! It was quite fun. A little cold, but fun. Some of the girls were crazy enough to jump in the river (when our guide said it was ok to do so), four of them did. And I can only remember one boy who did it voluntarily. The other that I know of got pushed in. So, I guess sometimes girls are more crazy than boys. We actually have pretty good guys in our Stake. Always good and helpful for the most part.

This is Nathan, and I think Bret. Not a very good picture. Everyone was really cold standing around here. This is where we stopped for lunch.

There are just a few more things that i want to mention.

When we got back from the rafting it warmed up a bit. And then, while we were standing around talking, and waiting for dinner, it just got really windy. It was so quick, it took us a minute to notice. But tents started to collapse, or get their torn, and we had to run and rescue them. Eventually we just had to collapse them ourselves so they didn't get ruined in the wind. The only ones that stood firm were my wards good old spring bar tents. The oldest and best tents in the camp. It started to rain then, and really rain. We had to rescue stuff from the collapsed tents that we didn't want to get wet, and then go hide in cars or under pavillons, or a few still standing tents. Chelsea, Nancy, and adorable little girl named Sierra, and I stayed in my moms van to wait it out. We even ate our dinner (chili cheese dogs that they managed to cook in the nasty weather) in there.

We had invited a special speaker to come and talk to us. He had come all the way from Salt Lake for us. We couldn't have him come to our freezing, wet, muddy, windy camp to talk to us. So we went to Moab and listened to him in the Stake center there. His name is DJ Bawden, and he is a sculptor artist. And oh so amazing! He has done many many works for the church, and personally met five prophets. Gordon B. Hinckley came to his garage to see a sculpture he was working on! His story is amazing. A modern day miracles kind of story. It's to long for me to tell, so I'll just leave it at that. This is a good website if you want to see his work or learn more:

http://iconmonuments.com/

Another thing I want to mention is how many little tamarisk beetles were around there! They were so annoying, and everywhere. They would get all over you, on your clothes and in your hair. Yuck! Luckily they are harmless. They were transplanted a few years ago, I think they are native to Japan. They eat only Tamarisk trees, which are causing some problems. They were planted to hold the soil together around the river. But now their taking over. They grow fast and the roots go deep. And they each drink up to 200 gallons of water a day! http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/utah/misc/art23040.html

I just wanted to mention that.

But anyway, altogether it was pretty fun, even though my mom and I went home early the last day, and the weather could have been better.