On July 29th, we left for SLC with the Youth. We stayed in the dorms at the Univ of Utah, ate in the cafeteria, and spent a lot of time at the Institute!
The first day we had a "mission Olympics" competition. There were lots of water games!
This was Megan's mission president, the one getting wet!
His name is Bryan Whipple.
Megan loved him and his wife!
Their mission was Indonesia.
The man in the green visor is in our ward. His name is Jed Manwaring.
Him and his wife Patricia, were over the New Zealand mission.
This game they had someone "walk across a bridge" without falling.
They had to walk about 15 feet.
This group is the Leeds, England mission.
This is the Bishop of our ward and his wife, Tom and Joan Morris. They are HUGE BYU fans.
They thought they were rebels by wearing their BYU stuff on Univ of Utah campus!
Yes, he even has BYU socks!
After the games, the kids were given their mission shirts. Each mission had different colored shirts, so they were easy to tell apart. Megan with some of her friends. She had a yellow shirt!
After dinner that night, we had Elder Snow from the 70's come speak to the kids. He was awesome!
He told them that the youth of the church were underutilized. They needed to get out of the stands, and into the game! The youth loved him!
The next day there was an MTC like experience at the Institute building. The kids went thru mini-classes to teach them skills to be better missionaries!
Some of the Bishops taught classes, and this is our Stake Pres, Pres Carr, teaching a class.
We also spent a lot of time in downtown SLC at Temple Square, Conference Center, Welfare Square, the Humanitarian Center, to name a few.
A group of our kids waiting for their Conference Center Tour.
Megan and I under the portrait of Charles C. Rich in the Conference Center.
He is my great-great grandfather, and Meg's 3rd great grandfather.
View of the temple from the top of the Conference Center.
On the last night, each mission had to put on a skit. They were given a Book of Mormon story, and a bag of unrelated props that they had to use. They had 30 min to come up with a skit to perform. It was pretty fun!
The judges were our Stake Presidency, dressed up as the 3 Nephites!
This is New Zealand. Their story was Samuel the Lamanite.
These people are the wicked people who try to shoot him off the wall!
This is Megan's mission, Indonesia. The young man in the pink bathrobe is the wicked King Noah.
Mike was responsible for all of the "technical stuff" and AV stuff that had to happen. Plus he made a power point of all the pictures that were taken to show to the kids on the last morning. He was busy!
Here he is setting up for Elder Snow's talk.
The final morning, the kids hiked Ensign Peak, where they were met by a man dressed as Brigham Young. He spoke to them about the early Saints and Brigham Young.
I couldn't hike all the way up due to my recent knee surgery, but went part way. I still got some nice pictures of the Salt Lake Valley.
We came home that night exhausted, but really glad that we went. The youth had a great experience, and had the opportunity to have their testimonies strengthened! I know mine was!
