Unto All Nations

Youth Conference '08!!

Look at this great bunch of kids!

I chaperoned, along with another lady and two men,

this wonderful group of guys and girls. 

We were assigned to a "country" and ours was Russia.

We are the Russian Family.

Thursday night we got our assignments (my niece Domonique is in my group) and $25 cash to spend any way we liked on food that represents our country.

All of us went to Albertsons and picked ingredients to make potato pancakes and Neopolitans, then headed to our host home (below) to get cooking!  They did great!  While we were finishing up, the kids jumped in the pool and then at 9:30 p.m. we headed over to Victory Gymnastics (where my kids take gymnastics and the Stake YM Pres owns it).  There was a ton of food, a bazillion boxes of pizza and hours of gymnastics crazy fun.

After gymnastics, 12:30 a.m. is way too early in the night to go home, so we went to a 'party house' and the kids swam, ate, and hung out until 3:00 a.m. with other countries.  We then headed to our "girl" host home and tried to get a little sleep which for me was cumulatively only 45 minutes!  ughhh!

Friday we had workshops at the church at 9:00 a.m. then headed to a park for water fighting fun.  It was such a hot day that nobody had any problem with getting soaked. 

Then . . . off to Dodger Stadium!!

Here is a picture of my girls (minus one) watching The Sound of Music on the way to L.A. 

why does this keep underlining??

Our fun group of girls on the way into the Stadium with my co-chaperone Jenelle Smith.  I'm missing Emily because she went in the boy's car so we could all fit in my car (save gas and parking fees!)

The heat never did wear off.  It was in the 90's at 10pm.  Crazy!!  We all left the game early to head over to the dance.  They danced the night away until 1:00 a.m. and of course that was too early to go home (even though we're deliriously exhausted), so we went over to the Gates' house for more swimming fun.  Another three-o'clocker! 

Luckily Saturday morning didn't have to start until 10:00 a.m.

We had an awesome devotional about service and kicked off our service project which was helping an orphanage in Malawi.  A member of the Stake YM Presidency is from there and his mother has opened 7 orphanages/schools and is in desperate need of help.  There are 1 million orphans within a population of 12 million people.  So tragic!

I had to get this picture of my nephew Shaun using a sewing machine! 

Here's my cute Russian daughter Emily cutting fleece blankets

Here are two more people in my Russian family:  Domonique and Thomas Lang (Jake's son). 

I made them squish together for the photo . . . they really weren't cuddling up. 

It was an awesome service project.  Veta Chipembere's mom is going to video the children receiving all the stuff and we'll have a fireside to show the youth how well it was received.  They are going to be blown away!  

After the service project was an awesome, traditional, 3-hour testimony meeting.  Always full of emotion and wonderful to see that side of these crazy teenagers!  

I got home at 7pm and was so happy to see my little kiddies, and even happier to get some sleep.  Completely exhausting.  Completely fun.  Completely worth it.