Laura's Loopy Life: Youth Conference

Youth Conference was awesome this year. We went to Camp Timberlane near Price, which is where we went for Girls Camp last year, so that was fun for memories. The theme was "Spiritual Survivor". Basically we learned a bunch of different physical survivor skills that ultimately corresponded with spiritual survivor skills. We were broken up into like 8 tribes with about 12-15 people in each tribe. On the first day we did rotations where we learned a bunch of different skills that we would then do as a competition the next day. As part of the competition the next day we had some of the youth come and convince us that some people in their tribe were seriously injured on the hike they went on and they needed us to come and help. So off we went. As it turned out some people did have some serious conditions and it wasn't until we reached the end of what seemed like a 20 mile hike, that I found out that one of the people who had had problems was one of my YW. She has asthma and had had an attack and didn't have her inhaler, and had gotten heat exhaustion. She had originally not even wanted to come to Youth Conference so I was feeling terrible that this had happened. I had been praying that she would be given some kind of experience that would strengthen her testimony. And then it hit me that this was possibly it. Her dad has not been active in the church for many years and I don't think she'd ever had a priesthood blessing in her entire life. So I asked her if she'd like one and she refused. To make a long story short, she made it down the mountain but still felt terrible and sick. She rested in the Stake cabin for a couple hours. In the meantime our bishop and his 2nd counselor had come up to join us for the evening. I went and talked to her again and asked her again if she'd like a blessing and told her that the bishop and Jake were here and could do it since I was afraid that maybe she hadn't felt comfortable earlier because she didn't know any of the male leaders very well. With tears running down her cheeks she said yes. So they gave her a blessing and within a half hour or so she was up walking around feeling fine. What an amazing priesthood miracle it was! We then had the usual final night testimony meeting. The spirit was so unbelievably strong. It lasted probably about 3 hours because there were so many youth that got up. The whole experience of Youth Conference was actually very physically exhausting. The energy level for everyone almost the entire time was not very high because we were so physically drained from all of the activities and being out in the sun. But it's that draining of physical energy that can sometimes bring us that much closer to the spirit. The whole thing was an amazing experience that I won't ever forget.

Aisha giving me a piggyback

We also did a rotation of team-building exercises. Heidi Hinckley (one of the YW Presidents in another ward who had just gotten called and I happened to know her because her husband works with Matthew) and I were in charge of one called "Helium Stick". The object of the game is for the group to lower the stick to the ground with the stick resting on the top of their fingers. The trick is, everyones fingers have to be touching the stick at ALL times. If someones fingers aren't touching they have to start over. Easier said than done! It is possible, but it is very hard and you have to be working together very harmoniously as a team in order to accomplish it. We only had one group do it. The others didn't even come close. The reason it's called Helium Stick is because the stick actually seems to float. The reason for this is because people are so concentrated on keeping their fingers touching the stick that they're ultimately pushing UP on it. It was funny to see peoples reactions as they watched it go up instead of getting it to lower to the ground. (One more side note: The tall guy in the back on the left side is one of the YM leaders in our ward. He just moved in a few months ago and just got called into YM. We figured out while on our hike that we graduated from the same high school only a year apart, we had about 20 or so of the same friends, but somehow never knew each other. He'd always looked so familiar to me and now I know why!)

The beautiful view from the hike. As you can see in this particular part, there were no trails. We pretty much walked straight up the side of that mountain. It was a little scary at times.

We had quite a bit of free time as a ward and the girls made good use of it....giving makeovers to the boys. The boys were good sports about it and it was really fun.

Cute little Tyler. He had plenty of hair to work with.

Justin

Here's Dallas holding "Antlers". When we went to this campsite the year before for Girls Camp there were these HUGE bugs that flew around all over the place. They had very long antennas that were probably 1 1/2 times the size of their bodies. Well, last year at Girls Camp Dani accidentally referred to the antennas as antlers! So for the rest of the time that's what we called those bugs and by the end we had actually learned to like them and even considered them our mascot. :) We were all excited to see "Antlers" at Youth Conference but for some reason they were very scarce this year and they were very tiny. It was funny to see how widespread the nickname Antlers became. It seemed like everyone was calling them that. Dallas bonded very well with these bugs and even got them to do this weird bobble-head thing. It was hilarious!