Chart Your Course

Last weekend I had an opportunity to be a councilor for the Cambridge Stake Youth Conference. I did it last year and had so much fun. This year we had it at Bently College.

The youth of my stake are so great.

This year my counter part was Kirsti.

We were team Teal.

We had such a great weekend. There was spiritual feasting available to all who were willing. There was a lot of excitement, including a missing kid. Of course he was in my group. He disappeared in the night Thursday. Friday he wasn’t in his room when I went to get him for breakfast. I searched all the other rooms and figured he had gone down to breakfast with another group. We took the group down but he wasn’t there. Kirsti and I went back and searched every room in the dorms while the kids went to workshops. He was nowhere to be found. We turned the matter over to the stake leaders who contacted parents and filed police reports while we focused our attention back on the other 10 kids in the group. I got back just in time to listen to the work shop by Kevin Rollins (ex-CEO of Dell) who spoke to the guys.

What an incredible hour! It really was penetrating to hear him speak and the spirit pierced my heart as he spoke gospel truths about “Charting Your Course”. I really felt the love that God has for us and felt His desire to bless us with the good things in life. The Lord has indeed given us the tools needed to be successful in this life. Here are the main points he taught.

1) Dream Big

-God wants to bless you with great things

2) Work Hard

-Don’t do the minimum to get by

-Don’t quit. Things get hard… keep going!

3) Plan to Give Back

-Because we have been given much we too must give

4) Don’t Worry About Who Gets the Credit.

-Always do your best work

5) Maintain a Life Balance

-Busy people do more

A gage for weather your life is balanced can be asking your self the simple question - Are You Happy?

Then we took all the kids out to an island in the Boston Harbor.

What’s a boat ride with a reenactment of the Titanic scene

We got there and the planned activities were canceled do to the extreme weather and lightning storm so we hung out inside the fort for a while to wait out the storm. Then tried to salvage the activities once the storm passed.

Unfortunately I had to send a couple kids home who were trying to ruin the experience for everyone else at this point.

Luckily this is also where the missing kid emerges. He couldn't sleep because his roommates were being too loud so he switched rooms. Somehow he got into the RA room and no one has a key for that room. We did try to get in and pounded the door and yanked on the handle. He managed to sleep through the pounding on doors and screaming his name repeatedly as we ransacked the floor.

Then the kids favorite part…. The dance!

They came to get down and they did.

The next morning we had a great scripture study followed by a talk from our Temple President, Pres. Hutchins and then a powerful testimony meeting. It was great to hear how these kids had been inspired and touched as they felt the spirit.

It was a great weekend!