A Morning of Chaos

This past Friday I had a fantastic volunteer opportunity here on campus. Without much competition, this was definitely the greatest experience I have had all Semester, and possibly this entire school year.

So BYU has this fantastic volunteer program set up called Y-Serve and through their office you can basically find something to do in any field of service. Like seriously there are a ridiculous number of service opportunities. 

I've done a few things through Y-Serve before, but I haven't really gotten terribly involved this year (reference previous posts about the brilliant idea I had to take 18 credits and work 20 hours a week) and I have seriously been missing out. 

So I'm a little bit unsure exactly how this all got started a few weeks ago, Michaela saw a sign somewhere and came home and told us about it and one thing led to another and fast forward to last Friday at 8:30 a.m. with Michaela, Tanisha and I standing in the chilly wind in front of the Wilk holding big cardboard signs that say "Central 1" and "Franklin 13."

Pause for a minute so I can explain the idea of what we were doing. The program that we volunteered with is called Project Youth and their goal is to educate 5th and 6th graders and get them excited about higher education. https://www.facebook.com/byuprojectyouth <--excuse my brief advertising. Basically the whole idea of this particular event was to just show the kids some cool stuff on campus and explain to them what college is about and what kind of opportunities exist here, and then to get them really excited about it. 

There were 1,200 5th and 6th graders who came to campus, and each of the volunteers had 2 groups of 10 students that we were in charge of for the morning. Naturally, my group was one of the last to come and by that time they were about to jump out of their skin they were so excited to be here and also to be off of the busses. My kids were from Central (elementary school, middle school...? eh, not really sure..).

By the time they arrived, we were already late for our first mini-lecture, and due to a typo on the schedule we ended up at the entirely wrong building, so by the time we found it, it was supposed to be over. However, the professor really wanted to give a brief snippet at least, so we combined with 2 other groups and spent five or ten minutes doing hand motions to the William Tell Overture. 

Then we had our campus tour. Now there are two things that I didn't really think about when brainstorming ideas for the tour. First, when I took my tour of campus I really didn't feel like I saw anything besides the outsides of a few buildings, and we were in a golf cart. Second, 6th graders, despite the fact that most of them are about the same height as I am, do not walk nearly as fast as college students. Especially 5'0 college students who are perpetually late and seem to plan their schedules with classes all the way across campus from each other (so me).

Because of this we only really got to explore one section of campus. I let them look down the stairs to lower campus right by the FOB (the little building by the Tanner), and then I took them inside the Tanner (I have a small bias because it's one of my favorite buildings, but I probably would never have discovered it if I hadn't worked there). We just went down to the second floor atrium and looked around, but there are flags hanging on the walls from every country that is represented at BYU, so I had them identify as many as they could.

After our tour we trekked over to the Wilk and they got to sit through another presentation by some Chem students. That was probably their favorite part of the whole thing. They got to see things glow and explode and whatever else it is that all those Chem people do in their free time. Next came what was probably the most chaotic event of the whole day: all 1,500 of these kids gathered in the Concert Hall in the HFAC so that they could hold a huge rally and get the kids excited. They succeeded. There was lots of noise and dancing and excitement and all around happy times. It was great :)

Basically this was just one of the coolest experiences. What a great opportunity to be able to do service and get to hang out with some pretty rad 11-year-olds.

I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

So for those of you who maybe aren't as familiar with the practices of the LDS church, every 6 months the General Authorities of our Church hold a General Conference broadcast from Salt Lake City, where they give talks and share doctrines and insights according to the promptings of the Spirit. 

This is seriously one of my favorites times of the year and I love the chance to be able to hear the word of God from the mouth of His prophets. For the first time in my life I watched both Saturday morning and afternoon sessions on my own, which was a very different experience from watching with my crazy, chaotic family. Then today I got to watch both sessions today with my wonderful roommates and friends, which is such a great bonding experience for us. 

Really I have two purposes here. First, I want to bear my testimony that I KNOW that God lives and that he loves us and that Jesus Christ was sent to the Earth to Atone for our sins, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true and restored Church on the earth today. 

Second, I want to share some of my favorite moments from conference. There were a lot of amazing things said and I have 23 pages of notes to prove it, but here are some of the things that stand out most to me today looking back at the past two days of spiritual uplifting:

Every person who spoke bore a very strong and poignant testimony that they KNOW that Christ lives and that this they belong to the true Church. 

It is very important for us to live true to the faith, to defend it and stand by it, even if we are standing alone. 

Christ's love is so amazing and so powerful, and there is nothing like it on this Earth, but if we strive to do our best we can partake of it and we also have the opportunity to share the love of Christ with others through service. 

There are so many opportunities waiting around us for service. We are surrounded by those who need our attention, our comfort, our support and our kindness. By reaching out to help them we are showing our love for them and for our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. 

Our foundations should be on the Rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ The Lord.

We need to lay up our treasures in HEAVEN and not focus so much on worldly goods and belongings. 

The keys to basically everything, and the priorities that we should have in our life are DAILY prayer, DAILY scripture study, WEEKLY church attendance and WEEKLY FHE. 

Family, family, family. FAMILY is SO SO SO important. Basically everything hinges on having strong family relations and doing our best to keep family ties, both with living relative and ancestors who have passed beyond the veil. Seriously if there is ONE theme I would tell you that I heard this time it is the FAMILY IS THE KEY to everything. EVERYTHING. And that if we have a good relationship with Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, we can have even stronger families. 

Also, the BOOK OF MORMON is so INCREDIBLY powerful. For so many reasons. It has the power to PROTECT families, to protect us from the whirlwinds of life and to bring us closer to Christ. 

We cannot afford to stray from the path of righteousness. We need to be firm in the faith and keep on the path to the Kingdom of God. 

LOVE GOD and LOVE YOUR NEIGHBORS. Seriously, just LOVE EVERYONE. Because we are ALL children of God and we all came to this Earth to be tried and tested so that we can return to Him. 

Lastly, I just want to share something that my friend said while we were watching the final session of Conference this afternoon: "The story of Christ's Ressurection is the MOST IMPORTANT story in the HISTORY of the UNIVERSE!" -Jake Rolfson

This is true. It just is. 

I have had so many spiritual experiences this weekend listening to the word of God as it was preached by living prophets and apostles of Christ. They know it is true. And so do I. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is 100% true. I have no doubt in my mind about it. I love the Church, so so so much. 

There are so many more quotes and lessons that I want to share, and I gladly will with anyone who wants to hear. But know that I have a testimony and I KNOW that the Church is true. We live in a very special time on this Earth where there are so many terrible things happening in the world. But these terrible things are nothing in comparison to the AMAZING BLESSINGS of the restored Gospel. 

IT IS TRUE. 

I know it. I live it. I LOVE IT!