Youth Conference

It has been a busy summer so far.  Now I have time to play catch up.


On June 24-26 we had a multi-stake youth conference at Western Kentucky University.  Kyle is the stake YM president and was in charge of a lot of it and on the planning committee with all of the other stakes to put it together.  Needless to say, he was busy all year and especially coming up to youth conference getting all of the details done.  Anyway, the day finally arrived for  us to drive to Western for the conference.  We said good bye to Zachary, Brinkley and Hannah, leaving Hannah in charge of her brother at home, and off we went.  Kyle had to be there early so he left at 5:30 am. I was meeting up with our ward youth to load up my car with youth and their belongings.  I got my car full of girls and we were off.  On our trip we laughed and talked and the girls made up a rap.  I wish I could find what they wrote.  It was pretty funny.  When we got to Western, "the Hill Toppers" was written on several things and one girl asked what was a Hill Topper and why would they call themselves that?  We found that out very quickly.


We got checked in to the dorms and headed for the Opening Assembly.  This is where we found out all about the Hill Toppers.  The hall that every Assembly was held was at the top of the huge (did I mention it was huge?) hill.  Then to get in the building we climbed hundreds of stairs.  I kid you not!  And I now have the calf muscles to prove it.  We were almost always going up hill no matter where we were headed.  All of the classes were at various places up this hill.  The only down hill time was going to the dorms after classes or heading to the dining hall.  That may sound okay, but it wasn't very fun to walk up hill after eating dinner to get to anything else. I know, enough about the hills... moving on.


The theme for Youth Conference was Be Strong from Joshua 1:9.  The youth theme for this year.  The kids spent the first day (Thursday) taking various classes by local leaders as well as from Brother Dietlein of the YM General Board and Elder Cornish, a member of the Sixth Quorum of the Seventy from the North America Southeast Area.  They had some really great experiences in the classes they took.  One of the favorites was by Brother Halverson, our local CES Coordinator.  He talked about the Atonement and made it real for the kids.  I don't think they will ever forget that class.  Elder Cornish talked about everything having a worth as well as a cost and to not just chose what you want now and give up what you want most.  It was a good class as well.  He also just let the kids ask him questions that were on their minds and I think he gave the kids a lot to think about. 

It stormed on Thursday afternoon, so the outside games were cancelled, so everyone got cleaned up, went to dinner, then walked up that huge hill to the auditorium for a Concert.  The thing about that hill is that is was a beast to climb, but it was always well worth it once we got to the top.  The concert was by Jason Deere, Dan Truman, and the guys from a group called Due West.  They sang songs from the CD A Nashville Tribute to Joseph Smith.  They also sang songs from a new CD coming out for missionaries.  They talked about their missions or conversions and shared their testimonies.  Then just for fun, Due West sang their new country hit for us.  It was a great moment for the kids to feel the spirit through music and to just be entertained.  Even the people that weren't  country music fans thought it was great. 


 After the concert came a dance.


It was very weird for me to watch the dance.  There were kids dancing, but a lot of girls in one group and boys in another.  The girls wanting to be asked to dance and the boys to scared to ask. Girls choice had more people dancing as well as the line dancing.  It was a packed gym with around 800 kids.  Great to see so many youth together.


Friday morning we had another assembly by Shane Hadley CES Coordinator for southern Kentucky and Madison stake in TN.  After that, more classes, lunch and then a service project.  The original service project fell through, so at the last minute, we did a canned food drive for the Bowling Green KY area.  The kids did a scavenger hunt around campus asking locals about charities in the area, another group was in a building contest to see who could build the best thing with the canned foods, they had kids writing about what they thought poverty meant and they also had a group of kids writing uplifting letters to go with the canned goods to the local shelters.

They passed out the Mormon Helping Hands shirts for the kids to wear.  I didn't have my camera or much free time, but I did manage to get a couple of shots from my phone of the kids during the service project.



Afterwards each stake went their separate ways for testimony meetings.  In ours there were kids who had talked about questioning the truthfulness of the church and thinking it would be easier to leave the church but after the youth conference and what Brad Wilcox had taught them, they knew the church was true and no longer wished to not be Mormon just for a day so life could be easy.  After a great testimony meeting we headed home.  We began our journey by stopping at Sonic.  It was happy hour.  I can't pass up happy hour.  We weren't the only ones there either.  Most cars from our ward stopped as well as from other stakes.  At the beginning of YC, brother Halverson told the kids to remember what they felt at YC and to fly home and I think they did.


Hannah did a great job holding down the fort while we were gone.  She let Zachary borrow her Kindle and he read all of the Percy Jackson books, while we were gone.


Coming soon... Girls Camp.