From Tues. July 23-Friday July 26, Bob and I went with our Ward youth and served as a Tribal Leader for our Stake Youth
Conference entitled "Quest to stand firm in Christ". It was a great
experience. We were given eight youth from different wards to be their Tribal Leader. Throughout the day we would watch as different youth performed re-enactments
of Book of Mormon stories. Some of the stories were Lehi commanded to
leave Jerusalem, The Liahona, Nephi builds a ship, Lehi and Nephi's dream
of the Tree of Life, Abinadi prophesies, Alma at the Waters of Mormon, Ammon
and King Lamoni, Anti-Nephi Lehi's, Captain Moroni and the Title of Liberty,
Helaman and the Stripling Warriors, Appearance of the Savior; as well as others.
There were 22 re-enactments all together. There were also five “War
re-enactments”.We would meet as a group and discuss the re-enactments we just saw and liken them to our today's life. Each afternoon also
provided an hour and a half of fun.
Water activities such as a big water slide down the hill, tubing in the
river, water volleyball and more were enjoyed by all. Each
evening we had a faith building activity. Tuesday we had the Tree of Life
dream. They had to hold to the iron rod (which in this case was a rope to
follow) and were led to good people of the Book of Mormon who would encourage them to always hold to the iron rod and bad people who
would try to tempt them to leave the "rod of iron". Bob and I
were stationed at the Tree of Life at the end of the walk. We welcomed
them in and congratulated them for holding strong to the rod of iron. It was
right after they had to pass by the “Great and Spacious building”. The people
who were there were trying to get them to join them and leave the iron
rod. A lot of participants said they
were so glad to be away from that awful temptation and wicked feeling.
Wednesday was July 24th. was the day the pioneers entered Salt Lake City, so
we had a pioneer fireside. A member of the Stake Presidency spoke on the
faith we must all have like the pioneers did. We are all pioneers in some
way and must faithfully pave the way for others to follow. Thursday we
did a Faith Walk. We blind folded the 8 youth in our "tribe".
Then I would walk a short distance for a couple of minutes, then stop and
Bob would read a scripture about Samuel the Lamanite's prophesies of the coming
of Christ. We did that for about 25 minutes. Then we led them to
blankets set out on a field by a hill. A member of the Stake Presidency
told how the blind folds represented the 3 days of darkness at the death of
Christ. Then two ladies sang a song about Christ, then 3 narrators told
the scriptures of Christs' visit to the Nephites. When they read the
scripture in 3 Nephi 11:3-8 a man dressed as Jesus Christ (he looked like every
picture or movie idea I have of him; he looked so real) came walking from the top of
the hill down to us in the field. It was so spiritual! No one talked or
even whispered. It was profound silence. He greeted some of the
high counsel men who were representing the Nephites. Then he started to
walk among our crowd. It was amazing. Tears were streaming down everyone’s
faces. He would hold someones hands and look them in their eyes. It
was like he was saying "I love you." Then Jesus walked back to
the “Nephites” and ordained the 12 apostles, administered the sacrament and
then left. A member of the Stake Presidency bore his testimony and then
dismissed us all to go have Ward testimony meeting. No one moved for
several minutes. It was such a touching moment. Then we all slowly
began to stand up, hugs were given and we all moved slowly to our Ward camp
areas. No one talked. Testimonies were born and the rest of the
evening was a wonderfully peaceful time. On Friday we had the final
re-enactment of Morman's farewell and also Moroni coming to Joseph Smith to
deliver the gold plates to him. We had time to write our thoughts in
notebooks they provided for us. A great experience I will never forget.
We really feel privileged to have been asked to be a part of this great
event for the youth.
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