WARNING: THIS IS A VERY, VERY, VERY, LONG POST. READ AT YOUR OWN...RISK?
Wednesday- This morning some of our other girls gave another devotional about being an example of the believers in spirit. Something that was actually in the lesson that I thought was really cool was this:
"Dare to be a Mormon;
Dare to stand alone.
Dare to have a purpose firm,
And dare to make it known."
(Thomas S. Monson)
The girls talked about not being ashamed of who you are, and not being afraid to stand up for what you believe in. There was also an awesome story to go with it:
"As a 17-year-old, I enlisted in the United States Navy and attended boot camp in San Diego, California. For the first three weeks, one felt as though the navy were trying to kill rather than train him on how to stay alive.
I shall ever remember the first Sunday at San Diego. The chief petty officer said to us, “Today everybody goes to church.” We then lined up in formation on the drill ground. The petty officer shouted, “All of you who are Catholics—you meet in Camp Decatur. Forward, march! And don’t come back until three!” A large number marched out. He then said, “All of you who are of the Jewish faith—you meet in Camp Henry. Forward, march! And don’t come back until three!” A smaller contingent moved out. Then he said, “The rest of you Protestants meet in the theaters in Camp Farragut. Forward, march! And don’t come back until three o’clock!”
There flashed through my mind the thought, “Monson, you’re not Catholic. You’re not Jewish. You’re not a Protestant.” I elected to stand fast. It seemed as though hundreds of men marched by me. Then I heard the sweetest words which the petty officer ever uttered in my presence. He said, “And what do you men call yourselves?” He used the plural—men. This was the first time I knew that anyone else was standing behind me on that drill ground. In unison we said, “We’re Mormons.” He scratched his head, an expression of puzzlement on his face, and said, “Well, go and find somewhere to meet—and don’t come back until three o’clock.” We marched away."
The company devotional was given by Kristen, and it was on how we study our scriptures. She compared it to water skiing, snorkeling, and scuba diving. I thought that was pretty interesting.
Water skiing is like skimming the scriptures, not really reading them. Snorkeling is when you read and understand the scriptures. Scuba diving is reading and understanding and pondering. At first you may be water skiing, but as you read them more often, and come to understand and love them, you will be scuba diving before too long. Don't give up, and keep a continual routine going. Set a time aside every day to read them. I know this works, and I have come to have a testimony of the scriptures. I have been reading them slower, and thinking about what the characters went through. I have started in the Book of Mormon, because that is the book we are going to be studying this year for seminary.
All right, here comes one of the best parts of the day for me. The morningside given by Bro Smith. It was on influencing others by living right. He said every time you do something right, there is a CELESTIAL CHEER going on up in heaven. So he had us do one. Here is how it goes. He told us to get completely silent, and then he would count down from 3. When he got to zero, we would stand up and cheer as if we just found out that we made it into the Celestial Kingdom, the highest degree of heaven. The first time we tried it, nothing really happened, because we didn't really know what to expect, or what to do. But the second time, oh my gosh. It was DEAFENING! A little under 400 people, teens and adults, all yelling at the same time. It was amazing. You could feel something in that room. You could actually believe that you had made it in. That was what kept me going through the whole day. It gave me such a good feeling. Imagine hundreds of thousands of angels all cheering for YOU. Doesn't it make you feel something?
Then we were off to classes. By the way, the speakers for yesterday were Sister Cindy Bezas and Brother Rick Taylor. Those speakers were for my classes. There is also another speaker, Sister Lisa Olsen, whose classes I went to today, along with Sister Bezas's again. My classes today were called: The Joy of Journaling, You are Limitless, not Limited (stand for who you are, and don't limit yourself to other people's standards), The Word of Wisdom, and Each Life That Touches Ours for Good (friends). The last class, by Lisa Olsen, was my favorite. Not because it was the last one, but because she gave a talk on something I really care about: friends! Love you all! This includes family too!
After classes we had free time, or the music party. Savannah, Ashlyn, and I all went to the music party again. We did that during our free time every day until Friday. It was a lot of fun. This medley included: Our Savior's Love, I Feel my Savior's Love, Because I Have Been Given Much, Come Follow Me, I Need Thee Every Hour, Jesus the Very Thought of Thee, More Holiness Give Me, it was a medley of hymns.
We had dinner and then we got together with our company to come up with a cheer, and to decorate our banner. I was in charge of helping with decorating the banner. We put our company's name on it, Contend With Anger, and Hollie did a cool painting of an angry, depressed person with a not allowed sign over it in red. She is a very good artist. To add some more decoration, we splattered paint on the banner with all of the colors. Meanwhile, the guys and the other girls were working on the dance and song. The genius boys that they are, they came up with a song about the single's ward, to the tune of Don't Stop Believin'. I will get our lyrics to you later. It was so fun, though. The counselors weren't allowed to help us at all.
We then carried our flag and walked with our group to the game field. All of the groups were there, and some were already playing the games. We had to wait our turn to show the judges (Bro and Sis Smith, and some counselors) our cheer. When we did, we put our flag in front of them, and we did our cheer. They laughed at our cheer, not because we were bad, but because we had some funny parts in our cheer. Our walking-out cheer was "Contend! Contend! Contend! With! With! With! Anger! Anger! Anger! Contend With Anger!" at the top of our lungs!
It was our turn to play the games, and the first one was the EFY relay. We had three points that we hd to run to, and we had to run to the first point as an "E", the second as an "F", and the third as a "Y". We had to yell it as we were running. Our group won! We were competing against another group throughout all the games.
The second game was Crossing the Sweetwater, and it was based on the story of the pioneers. It is a sad story, about 3 young men who helped the people in their wagon train across the river in the middle of winter. They got everyone across, and they died shortly after. What they did was very brave, and they will always be remembered for it. It is one of my favorite pioneer stories. So to play, we had to pick 3 people to be the "rescuers". We picked 3 of our strongest guys. They were the only ones who could go across the "river". The rest of us had to pretend we couldn't walk, and they had to carry us over to the other side. They pretty much piggy-backed everybody. That was the easiest. The rescuers could only go one at a time with another person, nut they could run back and get ready with another person. It was a really fun game! We ended up winning that one too. I think that one was my favorite out of all the games.
The 3rd game was called DVD Players. It was like Red Light, Green Light, but the counselor had different symbols, like on a remote control.
Slow motion: they move forward in slow motion
Pause: they freeze
Previous chapter: they hop backward until the next symbol
Next chapter: they hop forward until the nexy symbol
Rewind: jog backward
Fast forward: jog forward
Play: walk normally
Special feature: strike a dance move!
We didn't end up winning that one, but what made it fun was the most energetic and hyper counselor was directing it. He is very cool. He was also one of the ones who was helping with the musical program party.
The last game we played was called Murder, I think. I won't explain it in full detail, but you sit in a circle, and someone is the murderer. Everyone closes their eys, and the murderer starts by squeezing the next person's hand a certain amount of times. It goes around the circle, and the next person squeezes the person next to them one less, and if the person before you squeezes your hand once, you are dead/out. If you want the rules/whole game info, email me, or leave me a comment. It was super fun. That one wasn't a competition game.
At the very end we had a cheer-off. Everybody who made it to the finals got to do their cheer in front of everybody else. We had made it to finals! There was a few groups to each age group. Our group was part of the 14-15 year-olds. They started with 4th place for each group, and slowly went up, and our name still wasn't called. At second place, I could tell that everybody was holding their breath, and then 1st place was announced, and we stood up and cheered! We had won! As we were sitting, some scary dark clouds had come in, and there was lightning and thunder. It was pretty AWESOME!
Apparently some of the people in our group had made a "bet" with our counselors, that if we won the cheer-off, they would have to go on a date. Our counselors had never had a group that had won before, so they thought that they weren't going to have to worry about it. WRONG! I will tell you what Jason has planned for her later...
Our night is not over, and I will try and keep it short. Tonight was also Pizza Night! Everybody got to do it! Earlier in the week, we had payed Kristen, and she had ordered pizza for us. She also bought cookies, drinks, and chips. Those lasted us the whole week. Don't worry, it didn't go bad. :) We chatted about lots of things. We had good bonding time. During that time after we were finished talking, Kristen gave a devotional on the Atonement. Through the Atonement, we can repent of our sins, and be forgiven. The Atonement is very important because without it, we wouldn't be able to return to live with Heavenly Father.
So, today was a ver fun-filled day! Thanks for taking time to read!
Miss and love you
Happy Sammich
