Youth Conference.... ALSO-- Better with cheese!

So Youth Conference was the Friday and Saturday before we left for our Family reunion. It was a little hectic as we were planning on leaving Monday.  Mark is Stake young Men's president now so he was involved in this one at that level.  It was a little different than your typical youth conference.  Since Last summer the stake has been helping the wards teach the youth how to do name indexing online as a way of being involved in family history work.  This is a process whereby anyone with an internet connection can help transcribe old records such as marriage, birth, death & census records into a typed digitally accessible format to make researching our family history easier.  The stake set a goal of 500,000 names.  That goal was reached within a few months so the stake President raised the goal to One Million names.  The stake encouraged not only the youth but all ward members to get involved.  I even learned how and did several hundred names.  I really liked it.  Made me feel like I was doing a little something when I don't feel I have time to get into the serious research side of things.  

The Stake did reach it's goal of 1,000,000 names indexed.

The Youth's efforts for the year culminated in this 2 day conference.  The stake wanted to include the 12 & 13 yr olds in some of the activities since they, also, had been involved in indexing.  

Friday The kids met at the church where the stake presidency cooked them breakfast: eggs, ham, pancakes. yum. They boarded buses that took them to Salt Lake City.  They watched the New Joseph Smith movie shown in the Joseph Smith memorial building theatre that used to show the Legacy and Testament movies.  They had lunch at a park and then the younger kids boarded the buses and came home.  The older kids went to "This is the Place State Park" where they had lessons in pioneer manners & Pioneer dance customs.  Then they had a BBQ dinner followed by a dance.  They learned about dance cards and the girls were given one and had to get it filled out before the dance started.  Mark was a little disgusted with the dinner because he had told the event planner 100 people more would be attending than actually attended.  (They had to come up with a number early and guessed a little high..)  There was another stake from Idaho there as well to participate in the dance and dinner activities at the same time as our stake. Mark was aware of that.  They had turned in their own numbers separately.  They started rationing the food near the end and by the time Mark was getting his plate at the end, they were out of meat.  He asked the server what was going on, why was the food so low.  She honestly replied "Oh we had to use some of your food for another event"  She probably wasn't supposed to tell him that.  It was very frustrating for Mark.  He hated the way they served dinner too.  They had one little banquet table set up to serve several hundred people so it took FOR-EV-ER (Sandlot voice....) to feed everyone.  Because it took so long to feed everyone they then told Mark "We're going to have to cut the dance short"  

Who knows Mark well enough to know just how annoyed he was at this moment?  

He was pretty sure they weren't going to cut his bill short.

Carly, however, was well-fed & blissfully unaware of the difficulties.  (Girls ate first in pioneer tradition) She had a great time.  She danced with several of her friends from school and she excitedly told me, "a really cute boy from the Idaho stake asked me to dance!! Guess what his name was??? CHEESE!!!!!!! can you believe that? well, it's not actually his real name, just his nickname but all of his friends call him that.  I can't even remember his real name but he was really cute and nice and more interesting than some of the weird boys from my school that were asking me to dance!" (stern look from judgmental mom: Quick breath for Carly) "Oh, I am not even kidding mom, they ARE weird! I'm not talking about Izak or Craig, They're cool but Qu*** and A*** are so weird! But can you believe that guy named Cheese? you gotta put that on your Blog okay? cuz' you know.... CHEESE.... Can you believe it?"  (*names omitted to protect the innocent)

I remembered a few dancing weirdo's from my youth and consented that she was not being rude, that there probably were, in fact, some strange boys in the stake and patted her on the back for dancing with them in spite of  her discomfort and for being Nice to the annoying nerd boys.  Sometimes nerd boys are capable of making the leap to interesting, handsome and successful given enough time....  Sometimes.

Saturday they went to the pool and swam, had a BBQ in the park and a fireside to cap it off.  All ages were invited to those activities on Saturday.  Rachel was glad she got to go & had a good time.

This is her friend Izak. She and Izak were in preschool together.  They've been good friends since 5th grade.  Nothing remotely romantic here.  He's good people though. I wouldn't mind if after his mission things changed.  CAn you imagine the cute factor of the wedding video since I have pictures of them together from ages 4 and up!?  so cute!  If she ever reads this I will get it for sure "Mother PUH-LEEEZE!!!!!"

But for now... I'd like her to enjoy dancing most with this guy right here.  The Best guy ever! Even Better than Cheese!

F .Y.I     I FIRST met Mark at my FIRST youth conference in the Palm Springs Stake in Palm Springs California.  I thought he was so funny, so nice, but I had no idea I had just met my future husband.  It was his last youth conference. I was 14.  He was 17.  He gave me and my sister and 2 of my friends a ride in his Mustang.  so cool!   I didn't meet him again til I was 19 and THEN I knew. 

ADDENDUM:  8/3/08  After reading this post Carly requested that I add some more about how cute and adoring and charming Cheese was.  I asked her if she had to choose a cheese that most described this boy and she immediately responded "pepperJack... HOT cheese!" Oh man. 

Hot cheese.  I never thought I'd hear that to describe a boy.  WE are giggling right now as I type coming up with a cheese scale for boys.  How was your date Carly? Oh this one's a keeper mom, he's a Pepperjack!'

Mild cheddar: on the boring side

Medium cheddar: somewhat interesting

sharp cheddar: sarcastic yet a headturner, you know the cocky football star type.....

Gouda: Fun, interesting, easygoing

Swiss: A nice Holy Peter Priesthood type

Roquefort: THe longest date of your life:  The stinky cheeseman

Pepperjack: The whole package baby! Good looking, I mean HOT, interesting, charming, sweet, nice, but mostly HOT!