Youth Conference 2006

My last youth conference, a stakewide conference, occurred in 2006. Along with David Christensen, Andrea Hughes, and one other girl, we got in our bishop's car and drove up to Logan for our conference at USU. David was talking with Bishop Clark about his son Walker in college.

We were taken to the dorms where we were sleeping. I was amazed at the primitive set-up--a bed, a desk, a closet, and communal bathrooms. We were informed that we weren't allowed to go to the girls' dorms. At one point I was talking with Tyler Gowan about how I didn't think I could live in college without a TV; Tyler said all he would need was a DVD player. (As it turned out, I actually watched very little TV in college.)

Our theme for the conference was "S.T.A.N.D."--"Stand Tall and Never Doubt," and we all got navy blue shirts with "STAND" written on the back. I realized that half of my youth conferences had a "stand" theme, the others being "Stand in holy places" and "I never stand alone."

I actually remember surprisingly little about this conference. I know that those who had just graduated were allowed to come (this was just a few days after school ended), even though they were eighteen. I remember that one of Peter Moosman's friends was up at USU for school already, so he and Jackie Gubler hung out with her.

At one point, we had a service project where we had wooden toys that we were coating with mineral oil. They were sending them to Africa, and they told us that in some African languages, no word for toy existed. I spilled some oil on my STAND shirt and my green shorts, and I worried about getting it out. I think I remarked feeling like one of Santa's elves.

At one point, I had gone to a shower stall, and once I got out of the shower, I realized I had forgotten my towel. So I shook myself off like a dog, then put my clothes on. I went back to our room, and I got in the closet to take my clothes off and dry off. But at that point, my clothes had already absorbed all the water, so I was dry but my clothes weren't.

There was a dance with our stake and two other wards, one of which was from Wyoming. I was awkward beyond belief, and I wasn't going to dance. I sat by myself in a corner away from people. If I didn't want to dance, that was not the thing to do, because it made me more conspicuous. People tried to drag me out. A young women's leader from the Wyoming ward was talking to me, and I told her I was a werewolf, and she said, "You're a werewoof?" I was amazed that an adult didn't know how to say "wolf." She told me that when I cross my t's, I should cross them near the top of the letter rather than in the middle, and it would make me feel better about myself. Girls kept asking me to dance but I refused them. Then I was standing near my bishop, and a girl who was a little homely asked me to dance. I was going to decline, but Bishop Clark made me. Mark Millard felt sorry for me for dancing with that girl, and I had noticed she smelled of B.O. (I feel like a terrible person for saying these things.) Then I had to find the other girls who had asked me so they wouldn't feel bad. I found most of them, but not Latecia Pope in time, and she was mad at me.

Later we went swimming and doing other things in the rec center. I was swimming in a pool where Connor Doherty was. When we left, a twelve-year-old by was walking back with his shirt off (having just come from swimming), and Jenelyn Perry said she was shocked because she only saw him from the back and thought it was a girl at first.

Then we drove back on a Saturday. Andrea was sleeping in the front seat, with her head tilted back and her mouth gaping open. Bishop pretended to put things in her mouth. In the backseat, I was on the left, David was in the middle, and the other girl was on the right. In his sleep, David was basically leaning his head on the girl's shoulder; Bishop asked her, "Is David getting fresh?"