Youth Conference 2005

When I was sixteen, we had a youth conference theme of "We Are All Enlisted" and we spent it at Camp Williams.

We arrived and had an orientation with a pseudo-military theme. We all got tan t-shirts that said "We Are All Enlisted" on the back and had this logo on the front:

I wasn't too fond of the whole army theme for youth conference. They gave us camo bandannas and I refused to wear mine. We all went into barracks and picked a bunk to use, then they had us all fill out cards with questions that would be handed in to the bishopric and they would answer them. I wrote, "Why does symbolism in the scriptures change? Satan appeared as a snake in the Garden of Eden, but the Israelites were healed by looking at a brazen serpent. Lot's wife turned to a pillar of salt, but what about the phrase 'the salt of the earth'?"

Then we had a meeting where we heard from Brother Sainsbury from the Woods Cross High seminary. He asked all of us to say who our favorite latter-day prophet was besides Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and Gordon B. Hinckley. I was going through a phase where I thought "double u" was a dumb name for the letter, so when it was my turn I said "Spencer double v Kimball." David Christensen looked at me and laughed silently when I said that, seemingly in amused approval. Then Brother Sainsbury told the pioneer story about the three eighteen-year-old boys who carried the people across the frozen river. Then he had the three guys closest to eighteen--Mark Millard, Jordan Morley, and Andrew Jones--carry everyone, including the leaders, across the room. I was terribly embarrassed that they would have to carry my heavy body across the room, because I was probably the fattest one there, so I "swam" across the carpet, pretending I was swimming across the river. Brother Sainsbury said I couldn't do that, but no one pushed the issue. (I'm pretty sure those pioneers didn't carry every single person in the company, so me crossing by myself was fair.)

I can't remember when we had our devotional with the bishopric, but it might have been that first night. They read our questions, and Brother Weight said, "This one is deep," and read mine. David told Jordan it was my question, and I felt mildly betrayed that he had seen what I wrote. The leaders' consensus generally seemed to be that the symbols were used as teaching tools as different audiences. Brother Seminario said, "People who are salt of the earth are really good people," and I didn't see where he was going with it. I had done my own thinking about the question, so I piped and said, without admitting it had been my question, "I think they might be the same symbolism, but we just have to think about it. For example, the serpent on the staff might represent a triumph over Satan."

We had some game nights in the same building where we had that devotional. We played Catch Phrase. Tyler Gowan's clue was "I Love Lucy," so he said "The TV show with the heart." The leaders got mad at me when I said "geezer" for one of the clues (maybe it was "Over the Hill"). We also played Apples to Apples, but it was a special edition where each card had a pair, such as "Salt and Pepper" or "Sweet and Sour." It wasn't as fun as regular Apples to Apples, but I was delighted they had a "Ginger and Mary Ann" card.

Our first night I had a horrible time sleeping. It was as though I had taken a two- or three-hour nap during the day, but I hadn't.

I don't quite remember the sequence of the various activities we did, so I will just remember what happened.

• Some of the guys wanted to take water balloons and water guns and ambush the girls. Nathan Loveridge thought it would be funny to do it while singing "We Are All Enlisted," our conference theme, but Jordan Morley said yelling would be more appropriate. Nevertheless, Nathan tried to memorize the lyrics to the hymn. However, I think only Andrew Jones and one other ended up actually ambushing them with water.
• We played water kickball, where there were wet tarps at each of the bases. People would laugh at me when I would fall to the ground to try to slide. I didn't know what else to do, though, because sliding in on my feet seemed highly dangerous. We had been sitting on the wet grass, and I was highly self conscious about having wet pants, so much so that I didn't even want to bring it up, even though others brought it up about their own pants. I was wearing green shorts.
• We went to various training activities with pretend scenarios. I didn't want to participate in the activities. I think there was one where they had to get people over a wall, and they opted to send me over first. I actually don't remember getting over the wall, I just vaguely remember something like that happening. One girl in our group said, "I bet the Marines are fabulous at this." I think she said that at a station where we pretended to get over the remnants of a bridge. I think I "died" on that one. I don't really remember, but it seems like I was wading in the water.
• Peter Moosman came later. He asked me where Mark (Millard)'s stuff was so he could have his bunk by him.
• We had a service project weeding and cleaning up the grounds.
• We spent some time at a pool there, and I was wearing a white t-shirt, and I remember feeling self-conscious because, of course, a white shirt becomes see-through when wet. I think we rode in Bishop Clark's truck to and from the pool.

Our last morning, the girls had put Oreos all over our bathroom in retaliation for the water fight, so we had to clean it up. We kind of resented having to clean up when only two guys had been responsible in the first place.

Then we went to Woods Cross High's track for our stake track meet. It was a track meet for all the other youths in the stake, but ours was the only one that had it part of youth conference. I was a little envious that all the other wards got bright-colored shirts, when we only had our drab tan shirts. The sleeves said "North Salt Lake Stake Track Meet 6-25-05."

I did shot-put, because I thought that was the only thing I could do and it wasn't really competitive, and everyone was required to do something. I didn't do tell well; Mark Millard did pretty well, but he didn't win. There was a fourteen-year-old boy who was telling us all the proper technique, but he was doing worse than the twelve-year-old girls, so we didn't pay him much mind. Dave Finklea, one of the leaders, tried on one of our track shirts, but it was too small for him. Alexa Ulmer participated in the relay, being one of the people representing our ward, and I was shocked and frustrated that she was walking on her brief leg of the relay, because she only had to run a very small distance, like only a small portion of the track. I kind of regretted that I hadn't signed up for the relay.

For some reason, Dave Finklea took me home, but we had to stop at the house of someone he knew on the way back, and I felt very uncomfortable. I noticed they had patriotic sugar cookies on their counter.