Youth Conf. Cont.

I took pictures on Thursday but they are all oriented wrong to use here on my blog. We went to an ocean water lagoon in Carlsbad, down towards San Diego. That is the place that we had the most "fun". We rented two ski boats that came with a certified ski instructors/drivers, equipment for wake boarding, vests and gas, two sea doos and a big tube for pulling behind the boats. The kids really loved this day, most of them had not had the opportunity to do this kind of activity before and all want to become "River Rats" now!

We went back to the church for a big Pizza feast, and more volleyball and dodge ball and two more speakers. Once again the kids were so wiped out from all the sun, water fun & exertion but they were so respectful and attentive. We had a seminary teacher from our Stake and also the Stake Patriarch. There was something for everyone and I think they all heard something that will stick with them. Then back to the Davis's pool for one last dunk. At about 10p.m. we all gathered together and had a kneeling prayer, beginning our fast before our special day at the temple.

Our concluding day was spent at the LA temple. Two more Young Men joined us on this last day, they had been on vacation with their family. This brought our total to 31 youths. We needed 10 Priesthood holders for the temple, too. It was a large group that day. We got to do over 200 family file names for a family in our ward. The temple workers in the baptistery separated the names into batches of 20 and clipped them together. They handed the sets of names to the kids to hold while they waited for their turn in the font. They also told us to show the kids how to read the cards and see when and where the people were born, to look at the names and think about the individuals that they were going to baptized for. It was a very special experience. The kids really got a grasp of this being an individual ordinance for a real person. It was really effective. At one point I was standing by the bench where the kids were waiting to enter the font and Kenny and Paige said, "Sister Wilson look, what we found;" showing me their cards, "here's the father and his son, and Paige has 4 of his daughters!" They were really excited!

Tito's Tacos

Then we took them to a place called Tito's Tacos in Culver City, not far from the temple. This is a LA temple trip tradition of our ward. 150 tacos and 30 burritos later they were full and recuperated from fasting "all day!" Then we took them to the Pantages Theater in Hollywood to see "Fiddler on the Roof" which I loved. These kids saw "Wicked" last year and it's hard to top that one.

Then we took them all to their individual homes

for a good night's rest!