What a Busy Weekend!!!

Wow!!! Such a busy weekend! Seems like everything happens all at the same time. As many of you who have been following my blog lately know, this weekend was the Bead Soup Blog Party reveal. I've been hopping around everyone's blogs to see what they did with their soup. I have seen some really beautiful and impressive pieces. There are so many talented people out there.

The other thing that went on in my life this weekend was a church youth conference and two, yes, TWO firesides. Wow! I pretty much spent my whole weekend with the youth, which is fine. Gives me an excuse to spend time being at the same activities as my two youngest boys. Heck, one of them will be leaving real soon, in fact, if I'm not mistaken, this was his last youth conference :(
The youth conference was on missionary work. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, our sons are encouraged to go on a two year mission. When they turn 19, they are eligible to go. The girls can go too, but they have to be 21, and they go for 18 months. These young men and women prepare their whole lives by learning as much as they can about our Savior, Jesus Christ, so that they can teach His Gospel. Some of the things they do to prepare, is go to church on Sundays, youth activities usually on Wednesday nights, and attend Seminary. Here in Louisiana, our youth get up early each school day and attended Early Morning Seminary before school starts. Each year they learn about a different area of the Gosepl. They study the Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, and this year Church History.

The activity they were involved in this past Saturday was called Mini MTC. MTC stands for Missionary Training Center. When someone in our church has been called to serve a mission, they go to the MTC in Provo, UT, or one of our other MTC's throughout the world. Here they learn many things. If they are serving a foreign speaking mission, they learn the language. They also learn how to present themselves in different cultures. Depending on where they are going to be serving, they can spend anywhere from just a few weeks, to several months in the MTC.

At the activity we held on Saturday, the kids were "called" to a country on their mock mission. One of my sons went to Samoa, and the other went to the Netherlands. There were other countries represented--Spain, Germany, France, England, Australia, Brazil, Paraguay, and El Salvador, were some of them. My son's told me that they learned a little bit about their countries including the culture and how to say some things in the native language. After awhile, they rotated and went to an area where they learned to sew on buttons, iron, tie a tie, and sew a hole up. Something that everyone should know how to do even if they don't serve a mission.

Everyone who attended had a really nice time. We had over 200 youth and youth leaders from Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana in attendance. I would like to thank everyone who put in so much time to make this activity a very successful one.