well, i just got home today from Youth Conference, which was probably the funnest session i have ever been to. :) we had it at Dixie State College in St. George, and we even got to stay in the dorms there. ironically, i literally had the exact same dorm room that Kimberly had when she very first started at Dixie. what are the odds, right? last year (or was it the year before?), we had it in Alton, and all the girls had to sleep in the gym of the Alton church... i did not love that. this was much better! i roomed with a girl in my ward named Tara, but she ended up having to leave Friday morning, unfortunately.
when we got to Dixie at like 2 ish on Thursday, we checked in, then we all went to dinner at the "Red Rock Cafe", which is the Dixie cafeteria. i can't really recall what we did in between then and when we left for Tuacahn at 7 besides eat, but that's not the point. we got to Tuacahn around 7:30, which is when the "pre-show" started. it was actually a mechanical bull thing set up out in the plaza area, and you were supposed to pay $5 to ride it, which a surprisingly large amount of people did.
at 8, they started letting people in. we went to see "Footloose", which was--in a word-- mind-blowing. (that is one word, because it was hyphenated. ha.) the guy who played Ren was in, among other things, High School Musical 2, American Mall, and "So You Think You Can Dance?", which did not surprise me at all. this guy was incredible to the max. plus he was a cutie. ;) the rest of the people in the play were fantastic, too. i really dug the guy who played Willard, he just did a really exceptional job.
after the play got over (at like 11:00, no lie), we all headed back to the dorms and went to bed. i was so out.
day two was Friday, and we began the day by going to breakfast in our Sunday clothes, because we had a temple session to get to! everyone went to the St. George temple, and the girls did baptisms for the dead while the boys went to the visitor's center and watched the "Joseph Smith" movie. it took a really long time for all of the girls to get through the baptisms because there were so many of us (and we had to get ready afterwards, of course), but even when we got over to the visitor's center, the boys were still in the movie. eventually though, they did come out to go do baptisms while we watched the movie. and it was SO good! i cried a lot, but in a good way.
we didn't get out of the movie until like 1:30. we then went straight to lunch, and our leaders told us to change out clothes and meet back at the general spot at like 3. from there, we went on to the Staheli Family Farm (which is also where i went to the "Field of Screams" at Halloween, if you recall that) where we then experienced a series of team-building things. first, they had us go through the bottom part of a barn one by one, which had me worried at first, because... no one was coming down. soon though, it was my turn. i went in the door and saw that there were mirrors mounted on 3 of the support beams in the barn, and a leader standing by each one. the very first one was Kim Blake, and you may or may not know this, but i love her. she is Kelsie's step-mom, so that's how i know her, and she's still like one of my favorite people of all time. anyways, i saw her standing by this mirror and i heard the spiritual music that they were playing, and i was tearing up before i even got to the mirror. but basically the idea was that at each mirror, there was a piece of paper that said some words that you were supposed to tell yourself in the mirror. the first one was "I am a child of God." the second, "I know my Heavenly Father loves me." and the third, "I am an example of the believer." after the first one, Kim gave me a hug and i was just bawling. what can i say? i'm related to my mom. :)
after the mirrors, i was escorted up to the top part of the barn, where we were soon placed into random groups of like 14 or 15. and believe me, that was the short, short, short version. we then went on to go through kind of an obstacle course with our groups that required team efforts. but here's the real kicker: we weren't allowed to talk. like at all. we were allowed to communicate like with sign language and such, but no words. our first thing was a little rough, our second task took us probably like an hour and a half to do, and the last one was like nothing compared to the second. the whole farm experience in general a really, really great thing. the lady who ran it gave us a talk beforehand and was like "this will be a life-altering experience for you" and i was like yeah okay... but she was right. it blew me away how much of a difference it really made.
after we left Staheli Farm, we went back to Dixie, ate dinner, changed into our swimsuits, then headed for the St. George city pool. fun fun fun! that thing has a water slide like you wouldn't believe! gosh it was so rad. i went probably like 17 times. but somehow, even though there was a lifeguard at the beginning to keep people from going one right after the other, i was caught up to FOUR TIMES! seriously. i'm just going down the slide, and all of the sudden, i hear Starms hollering when he's coming down the slide, so i look behind me, and he's like right behind me. he didn't hit me the first time, but the second time it happened, he tried to slow himself down... but really, he just flipped around backwards and his head hit the back of mine, and his shoulder hit my back, which left bruises. the next time i went up, i told the lifeguard to not let Starms go behind me for like 15 seconds. anyways, Matt Vaughn and Daniel Bowman both caught up to me. i don't know how the heck i am such a slow slider!
so we all came back, then the leaders let us all hang out until like midnight. so i went to bed and stayed there. the whole time. at like 1 am, some leaders came to my room and told me i was in trouble, but i was so baffled! it turned out that some of the girls from Orderville 1st ward were like sneaking out to go i don't even know where, but they thought it was Orderville 2nd ward, which is me. that was a little bit scary, but it all worked out. and since i didn't have a roommate, my very own teacher Mrs. Terry (well... "Sister" Terry, since we were at a church thing. haha) helped me carry my mattress to another room where some friends were staying, so i didn't have to be alone. that was nice of her, i believe. :)
now for today. once again, everybody went to breakfast in their church clothes. right after that, we went to some workshops where we had three speakers. my favorite was Brother Gallagher... i personally think he should probably be an EFY speaker, he is so good! after his little lesson thing, we had our testimony meeting. that's always special. :) finally, we had lunch, packed up our stuff, i moved my mattress back to its original home, and then we embarked on our journey homeward.
moral of the story: youth conference was fun, and this is a ridiculously and almost painfully long post. good for me!
