WHAT A GREAT WEEKEND!!!! It was my last Stake Youth Conference that I will have ever attended as a youth in the church...now onto Relief Society/Singles' Ward activities. I had such a great time. I have the fondest memories of Young Women's and will cherish them forever!!!
On Friday night, we had a nice dinner while we watched each ward from the Stake show their talent. My favorite was Kaufmann ward, who put together a swing dance. It was obvious that they put a TON of work into it, and it was done very well! Others played musical arrangements, showed videos that they made, and one ward even had this genius idea--You know that primary song that goes, "Whenever I hear the song of a bird, or look at the blue, blue sky...?" Well, imagine about 40 hands floating in the air, joining together to create a couple of ears, a bunch of birds flying around, and drawing out other phrases of the song. It was so cool! What they did was wear white gloves, and used a black light while the rest of the gym was pitch black. SO COOL! The dinner was a spaghetti/salad/alfredo dinner. Yummy. And afterward, we finished the night with a fun dance. I didn't dance as much as I talked to all of my friends and leaders whom I hadn't spoken to in far too long! I had a great time! A "funny" of the night: My brother, Randy (16), asked what I was telling my friend, Jaycie, at the dance, because he looked over to where we were sitting in the corner and saw her crying. I explained that we were having an intensely spiritual conversation about overcoming temptation hahahaha. I can't help myself! I was born to be a missionary! I really hope I get to go on a mission!!!!
On Saturday, the Stake held a service project for the Special Olympics. The youth assisted the special-needs children onto the track, assisted them with getting their race shirts and numbers, cheered them along the way as they competed, etc. From what I hear, it was a very spirtual experience, as the special-needs children were very sweet and innocent. I myself did not attend this event, but did join them for the next activity. Although I missed out on the wonderful service project, I was actually quite fortunate in that I did not get the awful sunburn that every other youth in the Stake received while outside with the Special Olympics. I also had about an hour to get ready in my church clothes at home while everyone else had only 30 mins to get ready and all in the same, tiny bathroom at the church! Haha. But I do regret missing out on a spiritually-lifting experience!! When we all met back at the church at 3pm, we began the GAME ABOUT LIFE....
The game was made to be a "Mormon version" of the board game, Game of Life. It began by going through a veil (the front doors of the gym) that represented how when we came into this world, we forgot everything about our pre-mortal existence. We received a card as we walked in that told us how we spent the first 18 years of our life (to speed things up). Some people got a card that said how they attended seminary every day, or how well they did in high school, or informed them about a scholarship that they received and other things like that. From there, we went to college. We registered for any classes we wanted to take, and applied for/received the job that we would work for. I started off by getting my Associates degree, and got a job in child care, which is funny because that's almost exactly what I'm getting into right now! From there, we went to the Singles' Ward! We got a dorm and a college roommate, and lots of school loans. Ugh. Then we got matched up with our spouses! I was SO lucky. My husband was extremely handsome, perhaps the cutest guy there! He was very tall and super strong--a football player. :) He was also very nice, and both of his real-life parents liked me, which was a bonus. Hehe. He wasn't too smart, though, unfortunately, and neither was I, so we got into 220, 000 dollars of debt. It was awful! As we went through life, the odds were against us, as things like being unable to have children, having to adopt, having our children die in a terrible accident, our house get hit by a tornado, my husband lose his job, my father suffer from a stroke while WE had to support him financially...it was awful! We were buried in debt with no hope of ever recovering!!! When we got to our 60s, I went back to school to get my Master's degree, and began working as a Special Care Worker, earning 75, 000 a year. It was great and we were finally able to start paying of some bills. After a terrible roll of the dice, we were sent to court because apparently our marriage had gotten to the point where it seemed the only option was divorce! After lots of time and money and talking with the "Bishop," we "solved our marital problems" and stayed married! We began to use our Blessing Cards (earned from paying Fast Offering, adopting children, helping out our dad, and so on) to help us get out out of financial crises, which was great! But right when life started to get better, I died of terminal cancer. Pbbbpb. After I died, I waited in the "Spirit world" (outskirts of the gym) and waited for my husband to die and join me because I couldn't move on in eternity without him. FINALLY he died in a car wreck, and our lives were evaluated. We did well as far as getting married in the temple and staying married and getting our education, but somehow we forgot to go on missions and to pay our tithing, so we lost a lot of points. Then we went to the Celestial Kingdom and lived happily ever after; i.e. off to the kitchen to eat pizza and salad and brownies!
We then attended workshops about physical and emotional health, getting our education, how to do well in choosing a career, how to do family history work, and, my favorite, how to stay strong in the gospel as a teenager (taught by really awesome and super cute college boys via texting! We'd text them a question and they'd answer it really well using their own life experiences! It was fun because they were our ages!). All of the classes were very helpful and inspiring!
We ended the night by discussing the Game About Life and its events, as well as hearing a few testimonies from selected leaders and youth. My favorite point that was made was taught by a Sister Pool, who is a very kind, elderly woman who put the game together for us. I appreciated her perspective because it was ORIGINAL, something that I hadn't made a connection to on my own! I mean, everything else that we learned in the Game About Life was stuff I'd always known-- like how all that matters in this life is getting our education, getting married in the temple, raising our families unto the Lord, faithfully keeping all of the commandments, and thereby receiving Heavenly blessings that we carry with us into Eternity. Things like money and worldly accomplishments do not matter at ALL in the end! That is all very good and things that we all need to remember. But Sister Pool brought up something that I wasn't expecting.She said that during the game, many of the youth had been displeased with the groups that they had been placed in, and so they traded wristband colors with other teams. She said that because of this, many people in the game ended up as single throughout the whole game, as the person that had been chosen to be thier spouse (unknown to all of we players) was on the wrong team. (I almost switched my band with another team color, too. So glad I didn't!) She explained how, in the game, the people who chose to switch teams knew, to some degree, that they would suffer a consequence for their decision. But they DIDN'T know how it would affect the other players! Likewise, she continued, people in today's society who choose to be immoral and have sex before marriage know when they make that choice that they will endure some kind of consequence, but they do not realize how it affects others. The child, for example, was born before it should have been. It's another way of "playing God" with life, as murder is. It wasn't able to be born to a family who was sealed in the temple. It also affects other family members, especially the grandparents of the child, who have to help out the couple who made the mistake as they were not entirely prepared for the responsibilities of parenthood. It was such a good point, and really helped me to better understand the importance of remaining abstinent before marriage, and to always remain clean and chaste.
So that was my last and wonderful youth conference!!! I really enjoyed it! I wish I didn't write so much but I wanted to make sure I wrote down every detail for my own memory's sake. :)