Youth Conference 2011

Way back in December a member in our Bishopric called us and asked us to come to church a little early. We were given a special assignment to plan and organize a Youth Conference for the youth of our church ages 14-18. We were excited ( mostly because I thought they were going to put us in the nursery!) and gladly excepted the challenge. Our theme was the 13th Article of Faith which for those of you who don't know the Articles of Faith are statements of what we believe in as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. The 13th Article of Faith states:

"We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."

So if you were given that theme what would you do? The Bishop also told us later that he wanted 3 main things in our conference:
1. Spiritual
2. Service
3. Fun

We decided that our motto would be "Live Like You Believe" which I can't take credit for I took the idea from Jenny Phillips at www.ideadoor.com.

We started planning, and praying and we thought that we would dissect the article of faith into parts and ask members of our church to talk about them or prepare a devotional with or without a object lesson or activity. We had people speak on the following subjects:
"Live Like You Believe"
"Seeking After Good Things"
"Chastity & Virtue"
"Enduring & Hope"
Then we had a speaker recount what the youth had learned that weekend, and share his testimony or thoughts and feelings about the 13th Article of Faith.

To fill in the fun we had a Minute to Win It Tournament and a Amazing Race as well has two team building activities, and a "speed friendship dinner."

For the service aspect we deep cleaned our church meeting house.
We also were in charge of two meals and then we asked another couple in the ward to be in charge of two meals (whew, so glad we did this!)
Also we had shirts designed and made for the event.

Overall it was a fabulous weekend! We were very impressed by the youth and how they were respectful, reverent, and helpful. We planned on giving out awards at the end based on their virtue, benevolence, kindness, if they were "good to all men", and their honesty, but really we couldn't pick just one individual or team who showed these attributes, THEY ALL DID! What a great group of kids, we really had fun with them. Here are some pictures from our weekend most of them are from our Minute to Win It Tournament which was hilarious!





Ball and Chain game, they had to hit the balls on the floor into a waste basket only using their hips to move the ball in the pantyhose that was tied around their waist. Pretty funny!


Defying Gravity Game-they had to keep up 10 balloons as a team for 1 minute

LOVE this picture! Aren't they cute!

Nose Dive - they had to dip their nose in vasaline, then catch a cotton ball at the end of their nose and walk over and shake it off into another bowl. You should have seen their faces when I told them that they had to put vasaline on their noses!

Chocolate Unicorn- had to balance 6 ding-dongs on their forehead

This Blows Game- using the air in their balloon, they had to blow over all the cups as a team

It should be noted that while Scott and I planned this we didn't have one fight! We did learn a lot about each other:

What Leah learned about Scott: This guy accepts no crap and procrastination isn't in his vocab, he gets it done now and gets irritated when people don't return his calls. He keeps things simple and doesn't worry or fuss about the details and believes that it will all work out in the end, (and it usually does).

What Scott learned about Leah: direct quote "she's HOT!" Also that she DOES worry about the details which DOES pay off in some areas. For instance I thought that the youth might want a snack in the afternoon, Scott thought that was over doing it, but they wolfed down those snacks. I also put down butcher paper and crayons on the tables during our meals (BIG HIT)

Thanks youth of the Pleasant Hills Ward! You were so fun to play with for the weekend.

I should totally mention that none of this would have been possible if Scott's mom didn't drive down to stay with all of our kids! She even wanted little Ian too! What a grandma huh! She even took Rylan to his soccer game for us! The kids had fun with her, and were sad when she had
to go home. Thanks MOM!