Youth Conference

Yesterday and today, I went to a 20 Stake Youth Conference.  It was very well attended (there was probably close to 4500 youth there).  The conference was held on the BYU-Idaho college campus.

Friday, we meet as a ward group and carpooled to Rexburg.  The opening speaker was Sister Elaine Dalton from the General Young Women Presidency.  Her talk was fabulous.

After listening to Sister Dalton, we walked to the upper fields, ate dinner, and then participated in a few activities.  Around 8 pm they had a dance outside on the upper fields.  The weather was perfect.  It was fun to sit and watch all the kids running around and dancing.  There were a lot of fun leaders there.  It was great just to sit and visit with them.  The dance ended at 10 pm and we headed home for the night.

Saturday, we left at 7:45 for Rexburg.  The morning opening speaker was Dale Murphy (who used to play baseball for the Atlanta Braves).  It was cool to hear about some of his different experiences as a major league baseball player and also a Mission President.

After listening to Dale Murphy, all 4500 of us went on a "temple walk".  It was amazing to look ahead of you, and behind you, to see mass numbers of people heading to the temple.  When everyone arrived, they had a helicopter that circled the temple several times and took pictures of everyone surrounding the temple.

After the temple walk, we ate lunch in the upper fields.  After lunch (and during lunch) you could hear a buzz of people talking about which break out session they were going to attend.  (You could choose to attend 2 different breakout sessions.)  The one that was getting all the "buzz" was for the speaker Kory Kunz (who just happens to be my brother-in-law).  Here is a picture of Kory visiting with many different people before he spoke.

 Kory's talk was well attended.  There were probably about 2000 people there.  He did such a great job speaking.

The concluding speaker was Elder David A. Bednar, from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  Instead of giving a talk, he opened it up for questions.  There were 4 microphones located in the auditorium that youth were able to walk to, and ask him questions.  It turned out really well.  The youth asked some great questions and (of course) he did an amazing job answering them.  It was very spiritual and educational.

When the conference was over, Riley and I went to Applebee's with Kory, Madi, and Isaac.

It turned out to be a great couple of days (even in spite of the fact that I had to do A LOT of walking on my stupid sore foot).