How Long...

I so happen to be watching the old cartoon classic X-Men series on Netflix right now...and LOVING IT. Man I use to love X-Men, I remember even having playing cards with the X-Men on them. I have to say, my favorite was Gambit. I remember going on the trampoline with a bunch of cards and throwing them around. :) Good times. Especially when I put a cape on :)

I'm so sorry to those who read my blog. I really dropped the ball about halfway through my EFY weeks. BUT what an experience it was. The closest thing to the mission I had ever experienced. I suppose the best way to go about updating is show pictures and explain on the way.

There's gonna be a few Variety Show vids in this blog (I can't fit them all in) but these kids are SO cool!

Beiber fever everywhere :)

Me teaching FSOY. Not to boast or anything but they freaking loved me :)

 This kid was a different challenge. He was hard to reach in the beginning but after using my Co-counselor and the other guys in my group, we were able to understand how to touch him better. He left early from EFY but not before promising to read the Book of Mormon and go to church. My boys have been helping him with the latter by going to church with him. So great!

 Best Snow Cone shack around. Not only because they are freaking HUGE. But the lady gives counselors free ones :) What can I say, people love us.

 

 The boys from that week agreed to give each other nicknames including papa, Jimmer, Swiss and my favorite Shwa.

 

And my beautiful girls. One was from France and another from Ukraine. Both with beautifully thick accents.

(Here's a story from the week that I wrote but never published) (There was this story that was really memorable and the one about the less active mentioned above). So I was back at BYU this week for EFY and was blessed to have the older group again. I seriously love the 16-18 year-olds. I feel like they have a strong grasp of where they are at in life, testimony or not, respecting their parents or not. They are just trying to figure out what kind of person they want to become - with all the peer and parental pressure. So here are the stories of the week. (Sorry I didn't take as many pictures).

Monday one of the BC's (Building Counselors or people who manage the counselors) comes up to me and tells me to have one of my boys call his parents asap. I asked what was going on and they told me well his grandpa just passed away. I then asked if he knew yet..they said no. oooh.. I hated being put in that situation. So I went up and found him at about the same time another BC found him and gave him a phone to call his parents. We were at lunch so I stayed back with him and after he got off the phone he was pretty distraught. I gave him a nice long hug and then we walked it off. Went to the restroom and had him splash his face with water before we went out to get lunch. It was a pretty hard hit for the little guy so we kinda stayed off to the side away from the group. I passed him a scripture at FHE that night:

Isaiah 41:13

He put the sticky note in his scriptures and I continued to keep my eye on him that night, and for the rest of the week. Tuesday he seemed to break out of his shell a bit at the dance which was great to see. Anyway, to wrap up this story I've got to tell you a bit more about this kid. He is very soft-spoken, like literally he speaks softly, he is a Sophomore at UVU at the age of 16 and is just a sweet older brother to his siblings. He gets up Thursday to bear his testimony and although it was super difficult to hear, it was very heart-felt, every piece of it. Later he got up to bear his testimony a second time, as did some of the other kids in the group. This time he told everybody about his grandpa passing away earlier that week, and how he told no one because he didn't want to affect anyone emotionally. When he got back to his seat, one of the girls (who you might call the bombshell in the group) scooted her chair back and put her head on his shoulder real sweet-like. Carrying, and rubbed his back as he put his head in his hands. So so so so so presh, my co-counselor and I could hardly stand it.