Moroni's Challenge

What do you get when you combine a beautiful outdoor setting with Book of Mormon theme, 160 teenagers, some Styrofoam swords, and wooden shields?  Battles from the Book of Mormon of course.  This was just one of the many wonderful activities that we had at youth conference last weekend.  

Bryce works with the young men in our Stake (a regional group for our church) and was very heavily involved in the planning for this year's youth conference.  The theme was Moroni's Challenge (See Moroni 10:4-5).  The youth had been challenged to read the entire Book of Mormon in about 3 months, and then at the conference certain key stories were reenacted by the difference wards and branches (local church groups).  Bryce was in charge of all of the theatrical elements of the event, and he prepared the sound recordings for the reenactments, designed and built the set, and with my help, provided the sound and lighting effects for the event.  He'd had a very busy couple of weeks putting it all together, but it all was worth it in the end.

My favorite part of the event was that I got to go with Bryce.  Normally I get to stay home with the kids and let him go and have fun with the youth, but this time he needed help running things, so we found somebody to watch our children for 3 days (Thank you Qingyi Yu and Jen DeGraw!!!!) and I got to spend the time with Bryce.

It was three days of little miracles that I will never forget.  There was sunshine when we needed it and thunderstorms, driving rain, and tornado sirens when we needed them (see 3 Nephi).  Everything went better than planned and I know that the Spirit was there to communicate to the youth how real the people and the stories of the Book of Mormon are.  I know that there are many important lessons to be learned from the Book of Mormon, but the most important lesson that I took home with me from the conference is that our Savior loves each and every one of us.  He knows us personally and invites us to come unto him.  When we do, he will wrap his arms around us and help us make our way back to our Heavenly Father again.