EFY

Hello everyone! I went to a spectacular place last week called "Especially For Youth" at Snow College in Ephraim, Utah. That is like seven miles from the Manti temple. It takes a couple hours to drive there from my house.

Anyway, Dad took Ashley and me there early last Monday (July 13th). We arrived around 11:30 I think. On the way, we got a McMuffin and hashbrown :P Mmmmm. I would have that for breakfast everyday if I could do it without gaining weight or dieing. So we spent a while trying to find the place, and then when we did and we went inside, it was packed. There was a huge line wrapping around the cafeteria place. Dad had to leave because he had to get back in time for work. So Ashley and I stood in line for twenty minutes before finally getting our ID thing, CD, DVD, EFY t-shirt, and key to our apartment place. They then told us how to get there and we started on our way. Since Dad had to leave, we walked to our apartment together. My bags were really heavy and I was walking lop-sided. After walking for maybe six minutes, a very kind lady pulled up and offered to give us a ride. We were so grateful. She took us to the apartment, my room was on the bottom level and Ashley's was upstairs. I went into my room, and was surprised to see two sofas, a kitchen, two bathrooms, and three bedrooms. I didn't realize that it would be like a house, but I guess people do actually live there. I was the first person there and I didn't know which bedroom to choose, so I just sat down on the sofa and waited for someone else to come. A few minutes later, a girl named Michaela arrived. We sat and talked for a while. She's from Colorado and has an awesome accent. She said her closest neighbor was 20 minutes away. Wow, mine is two minutes away. After having a nice chat for a while, two more girls (Lexi and Tessa) arrived who came together and started putting stuff in their room. Michaela and I decided, since there were two of us and we were both being friendly, that we should share a room together. After voicing this, we proceeded to unpack our stuff. We had to bring our own blankets because there were no sheets on the bed. I spent a while unpacking while two other girls arrived, Bailey and Kiersten. After spending a while unpacking and putting on our EFY shirt, we talked for about ten minutes and then went to go meet with our company. We were confused when it said for Bailey and me to meet in one room, and the other four in a different one. We had assumed we would be in the same company. We did as the paper said and so Bailey and I proceeded to go into room number one. Girls arrived and soon we had eleven girls in there and our counselor, Kimberly. She talked to us about rules and how everything works.

After that we went and met with the boys in our company and played some games with them. Then we went to a devotional. We met with our Session Director, Bro. Smith and he was HILARIOUS. He's just as funny, if not more, than Jon Bytheway. He's awesome. He talked to us for a while. At the devotional that evening, someone asked if anyone played the piano. Unthinking, I said "yes" and then when I saw a gleam in that lady's eyes, I started to say "no" but she asked me to play the prelude music and opening hymn. I didn't like the idea of playing in front of 500 people, but Mom taught me to never say no, so I did it. I was told that I sounded wonderful. =D That night, all the youth played a bunch of fun games and had fun hanging out with each other. We then went to bed. They were having a football camp the same week there, so a lot of football players were knocking on our windows and flirting with us.

The next day, everyone had to wake up early to be ready by 7 AM. They have two bathrooms and two mirrors for six girls to fight over. That wasn't very fun. We had our morning devotional with the girls and our counselor. We met with the boys after that and had our gospel study and then read the scriptures for about ten minutes by ourselves. We had a morningside by our session director and then our classes. They gave us a choice of six classes and we could choose any four of them to go to. I went to "Truth Amid Confusion" "Prayer: No Cell Phone Needed" "The Desire to Fit in, the Faith to Stand Out" and one about how to be prepared for today's world. They were all really good, but I wish I would've went to one about the seven things Christ said on the cross that means something or other...I heard it was really good. During lunch, I went to the EFY choir, and I went there during break too. We were going to learn a program and perform it on Thursday. I also tried out for the Variety Show, which is just a talent show. I wasn't going to at first, because all I was doing was playing the piano, and most people don't like to sit there and listen to the piano. It's boring, except I like going to recitals because I think they're fun to listen to. Unless they play Beethoven or Mozart or Bach or a song from one of those three hundred year old dead guys, I think that music is BORING. Jon Schmidt's music is awesome though. Well, I found out that I didn't make it the next day. Oh well, I didn't think I would anyway, so I wasn't very disappointed. Okay...anyway back to free time. So after free time, we had dinner and then went to meet up with our company. We hung out for a while and then went to the dance. They taught us some dance moves which were wonderful. I had a great time at the dance. Even though all the lights were on, it was still fun. We had a dance contest which was awesome. After that, a guy told us to stand up. He started saying "now let's stop and see if we feel the spirit now" and I started thinking oh great, now they're going to give us a surprise devotional during a dance but then he said "It's so great that we can feel the spirit while having fun, you might even say that it's the best of both worlds" Everyone screamed as "The Best of Both Worlds" by Hannah Montana came on and everyone started dancing and screaming. Even though probably very few of us actually liked her, we still loved dancing like crazy and singing. It's funny how everyone knows the words to the song :] It was a great night and we were sad when it was over.

The next day, I was the last to get up. One of the showers in our dorm wouldn't turn off, so it wasted all the hot water. I got to take a cold shower. The water was so cold that it hurt to stand in it. I felt more sympathetic to Grandma and Grandpa Stevens who don't get much hot water in Mongolia. For the next couple of hours, I couldn't stop shivering. We had our devotional thing as usual and then went to breakfast. After having the morningside with our session director, we had our four classes again. I went to "Prepare to Meet the Savior" "Obedience and Freedom" "Emergency Prayparedness" and "Comparison: A Dangerous Habit". The "Emergency Prayparedness" was the best. The teacher was talking about how he's an ambulance guy, except he doesn't come in the ambulance, but he like helps them...IDK. Anyway, he was saying "only in Utah can you ask the ambulance driver to give you a Priesthood blessing" He also talked about how he gave a lot of Priesthood blessings to people. I remember him talking about one girl who had flipped over her truck. She was covered in blood. Even though he knew who she was, he couldn't recognize her because of all the blood. The people said that she broke her jaw and face bones at the very least. He gave the girl a Priesthood blessing, and she was able to leave the hospital four hours later with nothing broken. He then mentioned (and I forgot how we got on this subject) how his son had gotten pulled over by the police two weeks ago. He said "the great thing about living in a town as small as mine is that I knew he got pulled over before he even got home. This was two weeks ago, and he hasn't mentioned it to me or his mother. And do you know what's even funnier? He's in this room right now." He told his son to stand up, and he happened to be right in front of me. Everyone was laughing really hard and cheering. His son said "Hey Dad, yeah I've been meaning to tell you. I actually got pulled over three times. The first time was a warning, the second was because of my bulb, and the third time the officer said it really is my final warning". That was great. His dad then started talking about Priesthood blessings again. He talked about how his son had flipped over his four wheeler on the street four years ago. The four wheeler flew up into the air and then crashed on him and bounced off. His son had to stay in the hospital for three weeks, and for the first twelve hours, he was told over and over that his son would most likely die. His son had to learn to do a lot of things over again. When he got out of the hospital, a doctor told them that none of the doctors would've been surprised if he died the first night. When the four wheeler crashed on him, it hit him so hard that it bruised his heart. Ouch, my mom shuddered when I told her that. Prayer is amazing.

That night we played games again which were really fun, and then we went to our dorms and had a pizza party with ice cream, lemonade, and grapes.

On Thursday, we had to wear church clothes all day. We had the usual morning routines and then went to do young men and young women activities. The young women went into a chapel where Bro. Smith talked to us. He had us all laughing a lot, I wish I could listen to him more. He then was talking about how everything testifies of Christ. Like the seasons, Fall represents the fall of man, Winter is the apostasy, Spring is the resurrection, and Summer is Salvation. There are twelve full moons a year, which represents the twelve witnesses of Christ. Bro. Smith then said that women are representations of Christ. Eve was the final and grand creation. Women create beings with blood, water, and Spirit, and so does Christ. I learned more about women representing Christ that I won't say on here, but it was really interesting and made me think more about stuff. We did gospel stuff after that and then had lunch. After, we watched the Variety Show. The people in it were really good. A girl named Britten played and sang a song she made up on the piano. It started out all serious, but it was just about going to Subway to get a sandwich. It was so funny. Girls danced in the dark with glow sticks taped on their bodies so they looked like stick figures. A girl played the recorder with her nose, guys danced, and a bunch of other cool stuff. The last people to perform were these five guys who sang. I forgot what they're called. One sings baritone, another is tenor, then base, then there's the main singer, and then the guy who does beat boxing for the percussion. They sound amazing. After they were done, everyone stood up and started cheering for them to sing one more song.

When the Variety Show was over, I got to perform in the EFY choir. That was kinda funny. We started late at first. One of the speakers was talking ultra slow, so we started singing a song a measure or two late, so soon half of us were singing the high notes of one point in the song, and the other half were still singing the lower part of the song. We kinda meshed together at the end and the people I talked to said they didn't notice anything which was good. At other parts where there were solos, people in the choir kept on forgetting and would start singing before they had like five nudges and dirty looks from the conductors. It was a mess, but I thought it was funny. I was glad when it was over.

After that, we had testimony meeting which was delightful and illuminating.

My feet hurt like crazy at the end of the day from wearing these new heels I got all day. My feet were red and my heels were bleeding and I had a blister on my toe that had popped. Another toe was oozing blood. Too bad those shoes are too dang cute to not wear again.

The next day we had the usual devotionals and then we went to a few For the Strength of Youth classes before lunch. We then did a service project by coloring big maps of towns for kids to play with and put their dolls and cars on. During our free time, we went and got ready for the formal dance. I showered and spent forever with the other girls doing hair and makeup. We went to dinner and then did pictures with the company. We took a lot. I didn't feel like taking any pictures because I'm a bit pictured out. I'm probably going to have a million tags on facebook though. We went to the dance then and had an awesome time. I danced with tons of people and had a good time. This guy named Brandon wouldn't dance, so I made him get up and dance with me. I had him twirl me and spin around and all that fun stuff. After the dance, we had our last devotional by Bro. Smith. We then sang the EFY medley, the As Sisters in Zion/We'll Bring the World his Truth (click on it and listen to it, it's so amazing!!!!!!!! It makes me want to cry!!!!!), which is one of my favorites. We all put our arms around each other and were swaying while singing. I wanted to cry. After that, we had a devotional as a company. We were all sad because we were going home the next day. I hugged everyone, and the boys gave really good hugs. When we got back to our dorms, we saw that some of the boys had written us notes. :]

The next day, we woke up early to leave. After everything was packed, I went to the company spot for a while because the boys were there. We talked for a while. When Mom spotted me and pulled her car up, I gave all of the boys hugs. I miss them so much, they are amazing. We went back to my apartment to get my stuff and Ashley. We then headed home (after driving back once because I forgot to turn in my key). On the way home, I slept.

When we got home, I got on the computer and then took a long nap with my kitty, Charlie. I got tickets off the Internet, so Mom, Hannah, Emma, Ashley, and I went to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I thought it was very good, much better than the fifth.

The only thing I didn't like about EFY is that I couldn't go to bed until 11 PM and then I had to wake up at 6 AM. I fell asleep during scripture study every day which I feel really bad about. I was still awake enough to read at least three chapters, but still I was dead tired. Everyone was by the last day.

On Sunday, I went to church.

On Monday, I went to work sadly, and it was so weird being there in an environment like that after being at EFY and Girls' Camp for the past two weeks. I felt sick the whole day because I really wanted to be back at EFY.

Now Amanda and Jordan are at EFY right now and I'm so jealous, especially since Amanda texted me while I was typing this up (and just now too) saying: "Aaaaa the dance was soo much fun!" and "I know! And me and a guy named bryant both like each other!" I'm going to cry, I want to be back there so bad. It's really changed the way I think and act and makes me want to be a better person.

Bye everyone. Spread the word about how AMAZING EFY is.