full house on GC weekend

This past weekend we had the coolest General Conference opportunity I've experienced yet.

We got to host ALL the youth in our ward for ALL the sessions!

It was crazy, busy, unhealthy, and SO much fun! I was worried about how we were going to pull off so many people in our house, but it all turned out well and I would definitely do it again. We love having people in our home and it was so cool to share such a spiritual and uplifting weekend with kids who are such good examples to us. They are all so strong and valiant. Almost all of them are the only members of the church in their schools and they have to stand up for what they believe every single day. They stick together and are really close, even though they're all so different from each other. We just love them and it was so fun to have them over.

Saturday went like this: Steve took the YM to a merit badge college-leaving at 6:15 in the morning-until the first session started. We fed the kids waffles before the first session, as promised :), then in between sessions played Farkel, Ultimate Frisbee, and had pizza. After the second session there was Twister before the YM had to leave for the priesthood session (which is from 8-10 out here--late night!). The girls stayed and watched The Testament before heading home for the night.

Things got even crazier on Sunday. We started out with blueberry pancakes and eggs, then in between sessions the kids played Apples to Apples and then had seminary. They have to do it on Sundays because everyone lives too far away from the church to have it during the week. After seminary we had tacos and added a couple young single adults, all four missionaries, and our ward's seminary teacher and his kids to our bunch for the second session. There were more than 20 people in our house! It kind of felt like an exclusive ward party or something for everyone under 30 :). After the second session, the missionaries and YSAs hung around for a quick game of Farkel. It was crowded and crazy, but we all still managed to listen and feel the Spirit, so I guess it was a success. :) At times I felt more like Martha than Mary, but for me it's good to have those Martha opportunities. I don't feel like I get enough of them sometimes. It felt so good to serve others and to open my home to youth who don't have anywhere else to watch conference and listen to our living prophets and apostles. I still loved the messages of conference and felt like I had all my questions answered. I can't wait to go back and read everything that I missed the first time around!

Here was Saturday:

Abby, Ben, Lexie

Alicia, Jon, Sarah, Jesse

Ian, Lance, Bryan, Timmy

And Sunday:

We loved every minute.

But holy moly, at the end of it, we were TIRED. :)