This year, John and I were asked to be "Pa" and "Ma" for the youth conference of the Ann Arbor Stake. I'm not exactly sure who submitted our names, but I do wonder if new people are chosen because they simply have no idea what they are getting into!
We should have seen the warning sign that it might be slightly disorganized when it was a week before youth conference was to begin, and we had basically received no information about anything. We knew that we would be in charge of a "family" consisting of 8-15 kids, that we would be camping, and that we were in charge of a Family Home Evening activity one night. That was it.
Being planner me, it wasn't easy having little to no information or guidance, but I did my best, getting together some swag for our numberless group of kids, preparing an FHE (not really knowing how long it was to be or what was expected), and John raided our long-lost camping equipment, bringing anything and everything, not exactly sure what would be needed. A couple of great things about going: our friends, the Barneys, had been asked to chaperone as well, and Glo was allowed to come.
It was a sacrifice however. Months before, John had been signed up to work in Altoona for the weekend which meant $6,000 to our credit-counseled lives. And, an even greater sacrifice was giving up tickets to a once-in-a-lifetime Journey/Def Leppard concert at Comerica Park (the pain of missing this was compounded when we saw a youth walking around with a Journey t-shirt who was leaving early to go to the concert). However, we accepted the assignment because in all honesty, we were extremely grateful to be asked and trusted to do something like this after a 12-year drought of no invitations.
When we arrived at the named campsite on one of three papers we had been given previously, we had no idea where to go. When we stopped at the ranger station and asked a ranger, she hilariously (to my mind) responded that we weren't the first people to ask where the "LDS kids" were....and she had no idea where we were supposed to go. The Barneys arrived just after us, and when they saw that there was no direction, they were livid.
A short but helpful explanation of the Barneys. He was a pilot in the Air Force. He has obviously been a squadron commander, and she has been a squadron commander's wife. Organization is a key quality to their lives, and they have little tolerance for (as my grandfather used to say) sloppy work. John and I can totally get behind those traits as well, however the Barneys are vocal about their feelings (more about that later) whereas John and I like to keep our thoughts and complaints between us.
So in true Air Force/Scout/commander fashion, John and Ryan fashioned signs out of some old cardboard boxes they found (using a Sharpie that I had brought--you can ALWAYS use a Sharpie, right?) and made signs for incoming parents, telling them where to drop off their kids.
And we had been told to have 20 minutes of get-to-know you games for our families which would be comprised of kids from differing units in the stake. An hour and a half later....
After an hour, having stretched my games to their limit, John turns to me and asks, "Do you have anything else?" Oh boy, I knew it was going to be a long 48 hours. And the next activity was Capture the Flag between families, but the people in charge hadn't thought about what that game actually needs (open fields), so it fizzled within ten minutes. More time to fill with kids I didn't know.
As it turns out, the stake youth committee had decided that they didn't want to do Trek, but they wanted an outdoor adventure. They chose the theme of Lehi's Journey which meant we did hiking through the woods, and we built boats, and we slept outside...all components of Trek. So, we basically did Trek without calling it that, but without the bonnets and skirts, thank goodness. Add to all of this craziness the fact that it was one of the hottest and muggiest weekends in Michigan--temperatures in the 90s with humidity hovering around 85%. I was thankful that one of my big swag gifts to the kids was Eddie Bauer water bottles.
So let's imagine over 100 kids, sitting around in the heat with nothing to do, and there is one grill to cook all the hamburgers.
And oh my gosh, the bugs. All that humidity and water leads to families of mosquitos also hosting their own conference, and they obviously ate better than we did. There were times my clothes were soaked just from bug spray.
So some nitwit decided at some point that we would work together as families during the day, but that we would camp as wards at night. So when we were told last minute that we were supposed to have s'mores with our families around the campfire, and we were told this after it was dark, and we couldn't find our family members around camp because they were scattered like seeds on the wind, I wanted to throw up my hands, go home and binge watch some Downton Abbey. And when night time came around, I couldn't sleep to save my life.
As it turns out, many adults seem to have this problem. I don't know if it's the insane heat, or the noises, or the cots (one of the saving graces of the weekend), but I could NOT get to sleep. Of course, the girls talking incessantly through the night didn't help at all. At 1 a.m., John yells through the tent, "Guys! (He probably needs to rethink his naming of teenage girls after years spent at Scout camp...) Go to sleep!" His admonition did little to change things. Then, at 2:30 a.m., Ryan Barney yells through his tent with his commander-iest voice ever, "GIRLS! IT'S 2:30 IN THE MORNING!" After that we heard nothing, but when the rain started coming down at 5 a.m., I had to be content with two and a half hours of sleep.
I can't tell you how disappointed many of us were to see cold cereal, yogurt and juice in the morning for breakfast. We were wet, dirty (no showers allowed) and hungry. My mind hearkened back to the Normandy Encampment where any age Scout was up, bright and early, making eggs on large cookstoves. I mean, the girls would be fine on a strictly carb breakfast (although as if they weren't sleep deprived enough, the carbs would certainly be putting them back to sleep within an hour), but we had teenage boys who had wolfed down three hamburgers the night before, and they had only stopped there because we made them stop.
Next, another surprise. Our morning activities would take place next to the lake, but we had to transport all of our kids there (no hiking, for once). Kids were literally being stuffed into every nook and cranny available to move them (our vehicle having only three seats in the back). And they were told to bring everything they would need that day. I'm sure at this point, my eye rolls were becoming obvious.
The activities were actually decent, but perhaps because they were planned by individuals who weren't involved with youth conference. There was a Liahona activity which meant trying to get to a set point using instructions of number of steps and directions. I actually enjoyed watching this one because the kids were just so bad at it ;-). There was a metal-working activity which could have been really fantastic but there wasn't enough time to create a bracelet in just 30 minutes. And being tired, and a bit frustrated with the other tired Young Women, Glo was rather vocal in her criticisms of how poorly organized the metal-working activity was (it doesn't help that she's actually taken classes like this at Interlochen). And there was an archery activity with an accompanying spiritual thought by our resident Institute director. No joke, his little lesson was the first time I'd felt the spirit during the conference, and to my credit, I had been really trying to feel the Spirit having never gone to youth conference as a kid but having heard how amazing youth conference is.
This is where I will take us aside for a moment to describe a couple of kids in our "family" (and I use quotes around that word because the Kennedys would never have a child like some of these in our own, true family). For the most part, we had semi well-behaved kids in our group, although many of them were non-participatory, choosing to sit on the side and do nothing most of the time. But we had these two "winner" boys, Colton (that might not be his name--I can't remember) and Max. They came together from the same ward, and they were a force to be reckoned with. Colton had a cast on his arm, and when we were playing our get-to-know-you games, one of the questions was, "What is the craziest thing you've ever done?" Colton responded with "jumping off a bridge". When I jokingly asked him some follow-up questions, it came out that he had jumped off the bridge with no water underneath it. He'd just jumped off...and broken his arm. Max was his willing accomplice in most activities, although Colton, being of a rather heavy and sedentary disposition, didn't like to do anything difficult or sweat-inducing, so at times, Max had to leave him behind.
Back to our archery activity. Brother Elms had done a great job of talking about Nephi's broken bow, and then the kids were allowed to shoot arrows (always a favorite at Scout camps, right?). There were all the usual rules about firing, and when not to fire, and "the range" and such. At the end (and we only got this story later on), Colton and Max asked if they could take an arrow. The archery master said no. So they stole one. When they were then asked if they had stolen one, they answered no. So fast forward an hour. We are sitting at our boat building activity as families, and Max has blood pouring down his chin. Like, he's soaking napkins. He won't tell anyone what happened. John finally pulls him aside to look at it, seeing as he's already losing enough blood to our resident horde of mosquitos, and sees a perfectly round hole in his chin....the exact size of an arrow tip. Yep, Colton also stole a bow and shot Max in the face with an arrow. It looked even worse than it might have because Max happens to be a very dark African American, and the fascia below his skin is a light pink, and the blood is obviously bright red. As someone who appreciates color and art, it was actually quite lovely to see the colors juxtaposed together, and horrific at the same time.
At this point, I was so ready to give up, but thankfully, Mark was scheduled to arrive with his boat building activity.
So Carrie Cook, the stake YW's president, comes up to me and Amber Barney and asks, "Do you know what time Mark is supposed to arrive?"
Without skipping a beat, Amber looks straight at her and says, "Did you ever tell him when he should be here?"
Obviously, Amber had had it too with how poorly things were running. I just wanted to crawl into my hole and die, but I just smiled while Carrie insisted that she HAD given Mark a time and that she could prove it by looking through her text messages with him...which she did.
What a surprise to discover that she couldn't find any text where she gave him a time....
I told her that I didn't know, but I would be happy to call him (instead of texting him like she was going to do after telling me that he is terrible at responding to texts #truth). Thankfully, he was on his way.
And in a moment of heaven-sent happiness, Mark was completely ready for the activity and led it like a champ. No joke, I wanted to just hug him and start crying and have a complete melt-down in his wing-like arms.
Mark had spent the better part of the last couple of months contacting various businesses in the greater Metro Detroit area, finding just the right components to make a cardboard boat. The pieces had been stored in our barn, and he and Allison had loaded up her mom's truck that morning with everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. Mark had large sturdy cardboard boxes, less-sturdy ones, cardboard rails, styrofoam, pool noodles, everything. And he had been told there would be eight families, so he had everything proportioned correctly. And there were large plastic sheets and duct tape. And he knew just what to tell us what to do to get things ready for kids, and he knew how everything was going to run. He was seriously amazing.
He gave us a time limit as families (an hour) to build our boat. I kid you not, it was the first activity that ALL of the families were working as families (without different kids wandering off to other families because their friends were there). We were in the hot, miserable sun, but we worked our tails off! Some families built paddle board type boats, others went creative, and us? We build the cruise liner of all boats. It was incredibly difficult, and fun, and awesome!
Mark was then prepared to lead the regattas. Distance tests. Speed tests. And like other situations where Mark has worked with kids, they listen to Mark. He was upbeat and positive and helpful and encouraging and....ultimately just a really cool kid.
Our boat, The Leafhi, didn't win any awards, but it was the boat the kids wanted to play in at the end. I mean, you can go out on the paddle board alone, or six of you can crawl into the Leafhi and head out into deep water. I didn't take many pictures of the weekend, but I did take pictures of our kids in the boat...and what great pictures they are!
Maddy Christie is a Laurel from our ward, and she was in our family as well. Her face literally made these pictures the amazing pics they are (LOL over and over!) as The Leafhi was sinking!
Thankfully, Mark has spent enough time with boats and kids that as he watched them sink, he said to me, "Count the heads." I didn't know what he was talking about until he started counting the heads above the surface of the water and noticed one was missing. He then yelled out to the kids to find Maddy, and she promptly reappeared. In his calm and collected manner, he just said, "Yep. There she is," and moved on.
Afterwards, we were allowed to play in the lake which, if I'm being honest, I don't know why we had to wait 24 hours to do in the first place. I did notice that I was the only adult female to get in the water. Why is that? There were women there with much better figures, but they just sat on the shore with their feet in the water. I don't get it. I wish they would have let us stay there longer, but it was over way too quickly.
The activities definitely stayed better though through the evening. We made scriptural dioramas using Peeps. I thought this would be a thumbs-down activity, but it actually was really fun for the kids. Again, we didn't win an award, but I felt like my little family was definitely winning at finally working together. And Glo was a great leader, getting the kids to work together on the project. It's like she's been to college, or something, and has a little bit of maturity that they don't ;-)
We also had a lovely moment with the scriptures. Some angel in the stake had cut up two entire copies of the Book of Mormon so that the pages were each individually mounted on colored paper. We were then each given four of those pages to read quietly and afterwards record our thoughts in our journals. After an hour, we as a group would have read the entire Book of Mormon. I kid you not--I was astounded by the creativity of that idea. As it turns out, neither Colton or Max had ever read the Book of Mormon, and I'm not sure Colton is exactly literate, so it was a challenge for them. But it was lovely to see the stronger members of our family sitting by some tree or on some bench reading. And we pulled the kids away a bit early for a little family meeting where we could share our favorite scripture from our readings along with any thoughts. I didn't get the deep responses I was hoping for, but at least Max and Colton could see other kids who valued the scriptures. And everybody got a short nap afterwards ;-)
We hiked some more back to camp. So much hiking.
Finally, that night, the stake was planning a special activity that hadn't even been shared with us leaders (wait, I take that back, nothing was really ever shared with us). We gathered together as dusk was happening, and several of the stake leaders shared their testimonies with us. Then, we were told to be silent as each person stepped forward to take hold of the rod of iron. It was a rope that led into the darkness, and we could see a mist a little ways forward but that was all. It probably took close to an hour to get everybody through since they timed the entrances so everyone could have their own, individual experience.
We leaders were some of the last to go, and again, I was hoping for that amazing spiritual experience from youth conference, so I took it very seriously. By the time I started down the path, it was completely dark out, so if I didn't hold to the rod (rope), I would indeed be lost. There were mists of darkness where I just closed my eyes and kept going because no amount of eye-opening would help me. It was scary too when small, sinister voices came close to my ears along the path, tempting me with things that were meaningful (seriously, I was tempted to leave the path for a shower). But the crowning moment was when I turned a corner and before me was the centerpiece tree of our campsite, covered with thousands of lights. And under the tree were all of the families from conference.
I must admit that I felt a bit of anxiety because the rope didn't go all the way up to the tree but stopped probably 15 feet from the tree, and I wasn't sure where I was supposed to go or where my family was. But there, in front of the tree, were President and Sister Olsen, our resident Lehi and Sariah throughout camp. And as I neared the end of the rod, I could hear my good friend, Jennifer Olsen (aka Sariah) saying, "You're almost there. Just come to me." I literally ran into her arms, followed closely by bear hugging President Olsen.
And then I heard Glo calling to me to come join our family under the tree. And it was something beautiful, sitting under those lights, eating our fruit snacks, realizing what it will really be like someday in the eternities.
And in that series of beautiful moments that day, all the frustration and disorganization and rebellious kids left me, and I just had a feeling of divine and blissful peace. I literally didn't want to go back to our tents or leave that idyllic moment. It was really beautiful.
So that night, we got five hours of sleep which compared to the 2.5 hours from the night before felt like heaven. But we were up super early, packing things up, so that we could YEET out of there when told to.
Breakfast was being served at 8:00. When it was almost that time, I announced to our ward that it was time to head over. Amber said rather loudly, "Is it just cereal again?", and unfortunately, one of the stake leaders was in one of our tents (don't even get me started on how many rules that is breaking), and she just unloaded on us for complaining. I stepped back, because I didn't have a complaint and I hadn't been the one to say anything, and I let her and Amber duke it out (which they did). The leader said to Amber, "Have you actually ever planned anything for this many people?" and I knew she was in trouble because being a commander's wife, I'm sure Amber has done this and so much more.
I headed straight over to breakfast and was standing in line when that same stake leader confronted me, in line, telling me that Glo's bad attitude was a reflection of me, and how embarrassed she was that people from her own ward were acting so poorly. Amber and Ryan were standing there, and instantly came to my defense, reminding the stake leader that all of the kids were complaining (one of her children was in our family, and she was one of the loudest complainers). I was left in tears, telling her that she was completely ruining the spiritual feelings I was having from the conference. By this time, John had come to the line and told her that her confronting us in front of all the kids was completely inappropriate, and that if she wanted to talk to us, she should do it somewhere else. She stormed off.
At this point, John said to me, "We need to find the stake YW president and clear this up. We can't have the people in the stake thinking badly of us." So we sat down with her. She acted as if she didn't have any bad feelings towards us, and she was embarrassed by her counselor. However, I will admit--she's a "cool kid" so she might have been playing it off. I don't know. Anyway, John ended up apologizing to the offensive stake leader (basically for living and any other offenses), and she said to tell me that she was sorry. I made her a pie for her birthday, and I celebrated her daughter's birthday in YW. Who knows where this will go, but hopefully we did enough. The crazy thing though is that she came after ME versus going after the Barneys. As John said the other day, it's like I'm a lightning rod for angry women in the church.
So the final event of the conference was testimony meeting. Our stake president told the kids that he didn't want to hear any testimonies about friends they had made, or anything about their families, but he just wanted their testimonies to be "short statements of truth". I felt kind of bad about this, because thinking about it, kids like Max and Colton don't have testimonies that deep yet, but any good feelings they had from conference might be manifestations of the Spirit...which they weren't supposed to share. A lot of kids got up and basically said all of the same things since they were told not to share any specifics or stories, and as John said, he couldn't tell which kids actually meant what they were saying, and which ones were just repeating maxims.
I sat in the back, baking in the sun, with my hair ten times its normal size, and I knew that I was going to be asked to share my testimony. It was funny though, because President Ward spoke so slowly that it sounded like he said, "I'd like to ask these people to bear their testimonies: Brother Orr, Sister Smith, Brother Orr, Sister Kennedy." So I thought I'd be fourth in line. But what he really said was, "Brother or Sister Smith, Brother or Sister Kennedy." I'm actually glad that I misunderstood it, because I definitely would have deferred to John who would have jumped at the chance to bear his testimony. But instead, I ran up there, wondering what had happened to Sister Smith and the second Brother Orr ;-)
I honestly wish John had hit the record button on his phone, because it would definitely be easier to just transcribe what I said considering I don't remember much of it, but here goes:
I shared my experience from the night before with Sister Olsen. Why did it mean so much? Because I've never had a Lehi or Sariah calling me to the tree. There's never been a parent who has paved the way and is calling to me. It's always been me by myself, or working together with John to cling to the rod ourselves. And when I came out of the forest, I worried that once again I would have to figure it out--where was I to go, where would I sit, was there anyone I knew there? But just as I let go of the rod, I could hear Sister Olsen's voice calling to me. "You're almost there. Come to me," and it was one of the sweetest moments of my life.
I then told the kids that growing up in the Ann Arbor stake, there were a lot of horrible things happening in my home, things that my ward and stake leaders knew nothing about. And I imagine there were kids at the conference who had some of the same experiences. They were experiencing struggles and trials at home and other places that nobody knows about, and they might feel very alone. They might wonder who is calling them to the tree. Who will be there for them?
And I told them that we, their leaders, are here for them. That they may not have the support at home, that they may feel alone, but we are there, at the tree, calling them those last few feet after they feel that they have done everything they can to get to the tree itself.
I bore my testimony of the scriptures and of Christ, and how he understands all the pain that they are going through.
And besides me crying, there was hardly a dry eye among the 100+ kids and leaders there. It felt like one of those few sacred moments I have had in my life where it feels like the air is so thick with the Spirit that Satan can't even enter or be in attendance. It was such a blessing to be able to share my testimony even though I'm sure it wasn't quite what President Ward was looking for.
And so, just like in life, it's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day misery of life, and to complain, and to see the insanity, and to just want to give up, but with a little spiritual perspective, the important things become clear and we are left knowing that our Heavenly Father loves us.
We should have seen the warning sign that it might be slightly disorganized when it was a week before youth conference was to begin, and we had basically received no information about anything. We knew that we would be in charge of a "family" consisting of 8-15 kids, that we would be camping, and that we were in charge of a Family Home Evening activity one night. That was it.
Being planner me, it wasn't easy having little to no information or guidance, but I did my best, getting together some swag for our numberless group of kids, preparing an FHE (not really knowing how long it was to be or what was expected), and John raided our long-lost camping equipment, bringing anything and everything, not exactly sure what would be needed. A couple of great things about going: our friends, the Barneys, had been asked to chaperone as well, and Glo was allowed to come.
It was a sacrifice however. Months before, John had been signed up to work in Altoona for the weekend which meant $6,000 to our credit-counseled lives. And, an even greater sacrifice was giving up tickets to a once-in-a-lifetime Journey/Def Leppard concert at Comerica Park (the pain of missing this was compounded when we saw a youth walking around with a Journey t-shirt who was leaving early to go to the concert). However, we accepted the assignment because in all honesty, we were extremely grateful to be asked and trusted to do something like this after a 12-year drought of no invitations.
When we arrived at the named campsite on one of three papers we had been given previously, we had no idea where to go. When we stopped at the ranger station and asked a ranger, she hilariously (to my mind) responded that we weren't the first people to ask where the "LDS kids" were....and she had no idea where we were supposed to go. The Barneys arrived just after us, and when they saw that there was no direction, they were livid.
A short but helpful explanation of the Barneys. He was a pilot in the Air Force. He has obviously been a squadron commander, and she has been a squadron commander's wife. Organization is a key quality to their lives, and they have little tolerance for (as my grandfather used to say) sloppy work. John and I can totally get behind those traits as well, however the Barneys are vocal about their feelings (more about that later) whereas John and I like to keep our thoughts and complaints between us.
So in true Air Force/Scout/commander fashion, John and Ryan fashioned signs out of some old cardboard boxes they found (using a Sharpie that I had brought--you can ALWAYS use a Sharpie, right?) and made signs for incoming parents, telling them where to drop off their kids.
And we had been told to have 20 minutes of get-to-know you games for our families which would be comprised of kids from differing units in the stake. An hour and a half later....
After an hour, having stretched my games to their limit, John turns to me and asks, "Do you have anything else?" Oh boy, I knew it was going to be a long 48 hours. And the next activity was Capture the Flag between families, but the people in charge hadn't thought about what that game actually needs (open fields), so it fizzled within ten minutes. More time to fill with kids I didn't know.
As it turns out, the stake youth committee had decided that they didn't want to do Trek, but they wanted an outdoor adventure. They chose the theme of Lehi's Journey which meant we did hiking through the woods, and we built boats, and we slept outside...all components of Trek. So, we basically did Trek without calling it that, but without the bonnets and skirts, thank goodness. Add to all of this craziness the fact that it was one of the hottest and muggiest weekends in Michigan--temperatures in the 90s with humidity hovering around 85%. I was thankful that one of my big swag gifts to the kids was Eddie Bauer water bottles.
So let's imagine over 100 kids, sitting around in the heat with nothing to do, and there is one grill to cook all the hamburgers.
And oh my gosh, the bugs. All that humidity and water leads to families of mosquitos also hosting their own conference, and they obviously ate better than we did. There were times my clothes were soaked just from bug spray.
So some nitwit decided at some point that we would work together as families during the day, but that we would camp as wards at night. So when we were told last minute that we were supposed to have s'mores with our families around the campfire, and we were told this after it was dark, and we couldn't find our family members around camp because they were scattered like seeds on the wind, I wanted to throw up my hands, go home and binge watch some Downton Abbey. And when night time came around, I couldn't sleep to save my life.
As it turns out, many adults seem to have this problem. I don't know if it's the insane heat, or the noises, or the cots (one of the saving graces of the weekend), but I could NOT get to sleep. Of course, the girls talking incessantly through the night didn't help at all. At 1 a.m., John yells through the tent, "Guys! (He probably needs to rethink his naming of teenage girls after years spent at Scout camp...) Go to sleep!" His admonition did little to change things. Then, at 2:30 a.m., Ryan Barney yells through his tent with his commander-iest voice ever, "GIRLS! IT'S 2:30 IN THE MORNING!" After that we heard nothing, but when the rain started coming down at 5 a.m., I had to be content with two and a half hours of sleep.
I can't tell you how disappointed many of us were to see cold cereal, yogurt and juice in the morning for breakfast. We were wet, dirty (no showers allowed) and hungry. My mind hearkened back to the Normandy Encampment where any age Scout was up, bright and early, making eggs on large cookstoves. I mean, the girls would be fine on a strictly carb breakfast (although as if they weren't sleep deprived enough, the carbs would certainly be putting them back to sleep within an hour), but we had teenage boys who had wolfed down three hamburgers the night before, and they had only stopped there because we made them stop.
Next, another surprise. Our morning activities would take place next to the lake, but we had to transport all of our kids there (no hiking, for once). Kids were literally being stuffed into every nook and cranny available to move them (our vehicle having only three seats in the back). And they were told to bring everything they would need that day. I'm sure at this point, my eye rolls were becoming obvious.
The activities were actually decent, but perhaps because they were planned by individuals who weren't involved with youth conference. There was a Liahona activity which meant trying to get to a set point using instructions of number of steps and directions. I actually enjoyed watching this one because the kids were just so bad at it ;-). There was a metal-working activity which could have been really fantastic but there wasn't enough time to create a bracelet in just 30 minutes. And being tired, and a bit frustrated with the other tired Young Women, Glo was rather vocal in her criticisms of how poorly organized the metal-working activity was (it doesn't help that she's actually taken classes like this at Interlochen). And there was an archery activity with an accompanying spiritual thought by our resident Institute director. No joke, his little lesson was the first time I'd felt the spirit during the conference, and to my credit, I had been really trying to feel the Spirit having never gone to youth conference as a kid but having heard how amazing youth conference is.
This is where I will take us aside for a moment to describe a couple of kids in our "family" (and I use quotes around that word because the Kennedys would never have a child like some of these in our own, true family). For the most part, we had semi well-behaved kids in our group, although many of them were non-participatory, choosing to sit on the side and do nothing most of the time. But we had these two "winner" boys, Colton (that might not be his name--I can't remember) and Max. They came together from the same ward, and they were a force to be reckoned with. Colton had a cast on his arm, and when we were playing our get-to-know-you games, one of the questions was, "What is the craziest thing you've ever done?" Colton responded with "jumping off a bridge". When I jokingly asked him some follow-up questions, it came out that he had jumped off the bridge with no water underneath it. He'd just jumped off...and broken his arm. Max was his willing accomplice in most activities, although Colton, being of a rather heavy and sedentary disposition, didn't like to do anything difficult or sweat-inducing, so at times, Max had to leave him behind.
Back to our archery activity. Brother Elms had done a great job of talking about Nephi's broken bow, and then the kids were allowed to shoot arrows (always a favorite at Scout camps, right?). There were all the usual rules about firing, and when not to fire, and "the range" and such. At the end (and we only got this story later on), Colton and Max asked if they could take an arrow. The archery master said no. So they stole one. When they were then asked if they had stolen one, they answered no. So fast forward an hour. We are sitting at our boat building activity as families, and Max has blood pouring down his chin. Like, he's soaking napkins. He won't tell anyone what happened. John finally pulls him aside to look at it, seeing as he's already losing enough blood to our resident horde of mosquitos, and sees a perfectly round hole in his chin....the exact size of an arrow tip. Yep, Colton also stole a bow and shot Max in the face with an arrow. It looked even worse than it might have because Max happens to be a very dark African American, and the fascia below his skin is a light pink, and the blood is obviously bright red. As someone who appreciates color and art, it was actually quite lovely to see the colors juxtaposed together, and horrific at the same time.
At this point, I was so ready to give up, but thankfully, Mark was scheduled to arrive with his boat building activity.
So Carrie Cook, the stake YW's president, comes up to me and Amber Barney and asks, "Do you know what time Mark is supposed to arrive?"
Without skipping a beat, Amber looks straight at her and says, "Did you ever tell him when he should be here?"
Obviously, Amber had had it too with how poorly things were running. I just wanted to crawl into my hole and die, but I just smiled while Carrie insisted that she HAD given Mark a time and that she could prove it by looking through her text messages with him...which she did.
What a surprise to discover that she couldn't find any text where she gave him a time....
I told her that I didn't know, but I would be happy to call him (instead of texting him like she was going to do after telling me that he is terrible at responding to texts #truth). Thankfully, he was on his way.
And in a moment of heaven-sent happiness, Mark was completely ready for the activity and led it like a champ. No joke, I wanted to just hug him and start crying and have a complete melt-down in his wing-like arms.
Mark had spent the better part of the last couple of months contacting various businesses in the greater Metro Detroit area, finding just the right components to make a cardboard boat. The pieces had been stored in our barn, and he and Allison had loaded up her mom's truck that morning with everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. Mark had large sturdy cardboard boxes, less-sturdy ones, cardboard rails, styrofoam, pool noodles, everything. And he had been told there would be eight families, so he had everything proportioned correctly. And there were large plastic sheets and duct tape. And he knew just what to tell us what to do to get things ready for kids, and he knew how everything was going to run. He was seriously amazing.
He gave us a time limit as families (an hour) to build our boat. I kid you not, it was the first activity that ALL of the families were working as families (without different kids wandering off to other families because their friends were there). We were in the hot, miserable sun, but we worked our tails off! Some families built paddle board type boats, others went creative, and us? We build the cruise liner of all boats. It was incredibly difficult, and fun, and awesome!
Mark was then prepared to lead the regattas. Distance tests. Speed tests. And like other situations where Mark has worked with kids, they listen to Mark. He was upbeat and positive and helpful and encouraging and....ultimately just a really cool kid.
Our boat, The Leafhi, didn't win any awards, but it was the boat the kids wanted to play in at the end. I mean, you can go out on the paddle board alone, or six of you can crawl into the Leafhi and head out into deep water. I didn't take many pictures of the weekend, but I did take pictures of our kids in the boat...and what great pictures they are!
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| The kid in the back wasn't in our family, but who doesn't want to take The Leafhi out?? ;-) |
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| It appears that all is well. |
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Afterwards, we were allowed to play in the lake which, if I'm being honest, I don't know why we had to wait 24 hours to do in the first place. I did notice that I was the only adult female to get in the water. Why is that? There were women there with much better figures, but they just sat on the shore with their feet in the water. I don't get it. I wish they would have let us stay there longer, but it was over way too quickly.
The activities definitely stayed better though through the evening. We made scriptural dioramas using Peeps. I thought this would be a thumbs-down activity, but it actually was really fun for the kids. Again, we didn't win an award, but I felt like my little family was definitely winning at finally working together. And Glo was a great leader, getting the kids to work together on the project. It's like she's been to college, or something, and has a little bit of maturity that they don't ;-)
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| That's Glo in the hat ;-) |
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| Abinadi in front of King Noah |
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We hiked some more back to camp. So much hiking.
Finally, that night, the stake was planning a special activity that hadn't even been shared with us leaders (wait, I take that back, nothing was really ever shared with us). We gathered together as dusk was happening, and several of the stake leaders shared their testimonies with us. Then, we were told to be silent as each person stepped forward to take hold of the rod of iron. It was a rope that led into the darkness, and we could see a mist a little ways forward but that was all. It probably took close to an hour to get everybody through since they timed the entrances so everyone could have their own, individual experience.
We leaders were some of the last to go, and again, I was hoping for that amazing spiritual experience from youth conference, so I took it very seriously. By the time I started down the path, it was completely dark out, so if I didn't hold to the rod (rope), I would indeed be lost. There were mists of darkness where I just closed my eyes and kept going because no amount of eye-opening would help me. It was scary too when small, sinister voices came close to my ears along the path, tempting me with things that were meaningful (seriously, I was tempted to leave the path for a shower). But the crowning moment was when I turned a corner and before me was the centerpiece tree of our campsite, covered with thousands of lights. And under the tree were all of the families from conference.
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| Sister and President Olsen, the night before, preparing us to head into the wilderness. |
And then I heard Glo calling to me to come join our family under the tree. And it was something beautiful, sitting under those lights, eating our fruit snacks, realizing what it will really be like someday in the eternities.
And in that series of beautiful moments that day, all the frustration and disorganization and rebellious kids left me, and I just had a feeling of divine and blissful peace. I literally didn't want to go back to our tents or leave that idyllic moment. It was really beautiful.
So that night, we got five hours of sleep which compared to the 2.5 hours from the night before felt like heaven. But we were up super early, packing things up, so that we could YEET out of there when told to.
Breakfast was being served at 8:00. When it was almost that time, I announced to our ward that it was time to head over. Amber said rather loudly, "Is it just cereal again?", and unfortunately, one of the stake leaders was in one of our tents (don't even get me started on how many rules that is breaking), and she just unloaded on us for complaining. I stepped back, because I didn't have a complaint and I hadn't been the one to say anything, and I let her and Amber duke it out (which they did). The leader said to Amber, "Have you actually ever planned anything for this many people?" and I knew she was in trouble because being a commander's wife, I'm sure Amber has done this and so much more.
I headed straight over to breakfast and was standing in line when that same stake leader confronted me, in line, telling me that Glo's bad attitude was a reflection of me, and how embarrassed she was that people from her own ward were acting so poorly. Amber and Ryan were standing there, and instantly came to my defense, reminding the stake leader that all of the kids were complaining (one of her children was in our family, and she was one of the loudest complainers). I was left in tears, telling her that she was completely ruining the spiritual feelings I was having from the conference. By this time, John had come to the line and told her that her confronting us in front of all the kids was completely inappropriate, and that if she wanted to talk to us, she should do it somewhere else. She stormed off.
At this point, John said to me, "We need to find the stake YW president and clear this up. We can't have the people in the stake thinking badly of us." So we sat down with her. She acted as if she didn't have any bad feelings towards us, and she was embarrassed by her counselor. However, I will admit--she's a "cool kid" so she might have been playing it off. I don't know. Anyway, John ended up apologizing to the offensive stake leader (basically for living and any other offenses), and she said to tell me that she was sorry. I made her a pie for her birthday, and I celebrated her daughter's birthday in YW. Who knows where this will go, but hopefully we did enough. The crazy thing though is that she came after ME versus going after the Barneys. As John said the other day, it's like I'm a lightning rod for angry women in the church.
So the final event of the conference was testimony meeting. Our stake president told the kids that he didn't want to hear any testimonies about friends they had made, or anything about their families, but he just wanted their testimonies to be "short statements of truth". I felt kind of bad about this, because thinking about it, kids like Max and Colton don't have testimonies that deep yet, but any good feelings they had from conference might be manifestations of the Spirit...which they weren't supposed to share. A lot of kids got up and basically said all of the same things since they were told not to share any specifics or stories, and as John said, he couldn't tell which kids actually meant what they were saying, and which ones were just repeating maxims.
I sat in the back, baking in the sun, with my hair ten times its normal size, and I knew that I was going to be asked to share my testimony. It was funny though, because President Ward spoke so slowly that it sounded like he said, "I'd like to ask these people to bear their testimonies: Brother Orr, Sister Smith, Brother Orr, Sister Kennedy." So I thought I'd be fourth in line. But what he really said was, "Brother or Sister Smith, Brother or Sister Kennedy." I'm actually glad that I misunderstood it, because I definitely would have deferred to John who would have jumped at the chance to bear his testimony. But instead, I ran up there, wondering what had happened to Sister Smith and the second Brother Orr ;-)
I honestly wish John had hit the record button on his phone, because it would definitely be easier to just transcribe what I said considering I don't remember much of it, but here goes:
I shared my experience from the night before with Sister Olsen. Why did it mean so much? Because I've never had a Lehi or Sariah calling me to the tree. There's never been a parent who has paved the way and is calling to me. It's always been me by myself, or working together with John to cling to the rod ourselves. And when I came out of the forest, I worried that once again I would have to figure it out--where was I to go, where would I sit, was there anyone I knew there? But just as I let go of the rod, I could hear Sister Olsen's voice calling to me. "You're almost there. Come to me," and it was one of the sweetest moments of my life.
I then told the kids that growing up in the Ann Arbor stake, there were a lot of horrible things happening in my home, things that my ward and stake leaders knew nothing about. And I imagine there were kids at the conference who had some of the same experiences. They were experiencing struggles and trials at home and other places that nobody knows about, and they might feel very alone. They might wonder who is calling them to the tree. Who will be there for them?
And I told them that we, their leaders, are here for them. That they may not have the support at home, that they may feel alone, but we are there, at the tree, calling them those last few feet after they feel that they have done everything they can to get to the tree itself.
I bore my testimony of the scriptures and of Christ, and how he understands all the pain that they are going through.
And besides me crying, there was hardly a dry eye among the 100+ kids and leaders there. It felt like one of those few sacred moments I have had in my life where it feels like the air is so thick with the Spirit that Satan can't even enter or be in attendance. It was such a blessing to be able to share my testimony even though I'm sure it wasn't quite what President Ward was looking for.
And so, just like in life, it's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day misery of life, and to complain, and to see the insanity, and to just want to give up, but with a little spiritual perspective, the important things become clear and we are left knowing that our Heavenly Father loves us.
Thanks for the great recap of our trek like experience! I’d do it again in a second with you as my trek buddy!
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