Leadership Retreat

So, every year the young men & women from our ward go on a "Leadership Retreat" to the Whitear Rec center to plan the activities that they would like to do for the ENTIRE year. It's a very diplomatic process... all the youth come with ideas, we write them on a whiteboard, pick a theme for the year then vote on the 12 combined activities they want to do. The ones that don't make it to the final cut can then be used as class activities throughout the year.

The church wide theme for the youth this year is Joshua 1:9

Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thow goest.

Our stake theme is from Ezekiel 34:16

I WILL:

SEEK

that which was lost

BRING

that which was driven away

BIND UP

that which was broken

STRENGTHEN

that which was sick

Our Bishop is really really involved with the youth. Each year he makes them bracelets with the themes on them so that they remember what they're working for. They're kind of like those yellow 'Live Strong' bracelets only ours for this year are blue/ white and say Be Strong on one side and SeekBringBindupStrengthen on the other.

The youth decided to combine each of these themes for 12 things that they can focus on for each month of the year: I WILL- Seek, Bring, Good Courage, Bind up, be Strong, be not Afraid, be not Dismayed, Strengthen, be Prayerful, be Obedient, Serve and have the Lord thy God with me.
They chose some really great service activities as well...we sure do have some amazing youth! But this whole planning meeting was just the business end of this "retreat". We had a beautiful fireside from our ward Councilman and his wife but the remainder of the time there was spend HAVING FUN!

We got there around 5 on Friday and spent the entire evening playing ping pong, basketball, this pool table game that someone in the ward invented that allows ALL the youth to play at once called CRUD. I lost a lot of games of CRUD. But it was way fun. However, I do have mad Ping Pong skills and killed at that. Bishop announced that we would come together for "Family prayer" around midnight but we ended up doing that closer to 1am. After prayer all the girls had to stay upstairs, all the young men down. So, what do girls like to do at 2am? We painted fingernails. That's why I look like I do in the picture below;0)

We also took pictures of the Leaders that fell asleep early with fun little signs...Amber had been pretending she was a Leprechaun earlier (notice her all green pajamas) so...

Down to business- getting ready for the planning

It really was a fun place to be and was surrounded by BEAUTIFUL scenery.