I Will Stand as a Witness, Unmovable: Briargate Ward Youth Conference 2013

Oh man, I've been blog-lazy!  My sister, who is my most avid reader, keeps asking when I'm going to post again.  She misses The Chaos, and I am grateful for her reminder to post!  I blame all my laziness and antisocial behavior on the marathon training.  I am just SO tired.  I will be honest, I do not love it and am really ready for it to be over.  But I'm in the homestretch, only 2 weeks until race day and today was my last long run before the race, so I am feeling good...other than feeling like I have arthritis in all my joints from running for too long and a stomach that never wants to eat again...I am feeling good.  But I digress...that will have its very own post come race day.  It's time to play blog catch up! 

Last weekend our ward held its youth conference.  The theme was, as the post title indicates, "I Will Stand as a Witness, Unmovable" and had a missionary theme.  Usually youth conferences are only for 14 to 18-year-olds, but because our ward youth group is so small, the Beehives and Deacons (12 and 13-year-olds) were invited, too (otherwise there would have been a total of 3 young women, since we only have four in the older age group and one couldn't be there).  The youth did most of the planning, and we had a special couple, the Mills, who were in charge of getting it all together based on their suggestions.  It was nice to be able to be involved without being in charge.

It was an incredible weekend!  They were divided into 2 mission "districts" and were each assigned a companion for the two-day conference.  Over the days they were able to: perform service at the Bishop's Storehouse (a food bank for LDS families), shop for and make their own breakfast and lunch on a missionary budget ($2/day!), have some companion study and prep time with a companionship of current missionaries serving in Colorado Springs, learn how to cook some easy-to-make/low-budget foods, attend a couple of fantastic workshops where they learned first about sharing their testimony and then about inviting the Spirit to teach as they teach the gospel, play some "p-day" (missionary preparation day) games, attend a ward member's home for dinner, have a mock-investigator discussion at another ward member's home based on all they had learned over the two days (it was kind of hilarious watching these stalwart LDS families pretend they didn't know anything about the church--hahaha!), hear a beautiful message from the Colorado Springs Mission President and his wife about what they can do now to prepare for their missions, and then have a testimony meeting before the closing ice cream party.  Whew!

It was a densely packed, amazing weekend that I know strengthened the kids' faith.  I was SO thankful Zac was able to be a part of it.  He was already excited to one day serve a mission, but now he is practically counting down the almost-two-thousand days until he gets to go!