efy: year two. week six.

Ogden, Utah!

Week six of this summer was a stay-at-home session, which means the youth come from 9am to 9 pm. Normally this would be awesome but I loved the youth so much this week that I wish they stayed all week long overnight.

If there was a word to explain this week it would be unity.

I had 16-18 year olds and they were all obsessed with each other in completely platonic ways. (well, I'm positive there were a few crushes amongst them...). But they were all friends instantly and it was difficult to separate them at the end of each day and especially the end of the week.

Each week at efy we help the kids come up with company and individual goals. Well actually, we're not allowed to help, we just have to lead them in a discussion until they finally have an idea or ideas. This particular week was awesome because of the goals they made, which are goals I had never heard of in all my weeks/years(!!!) of efy.

Their company goals were:

1: To perform something in the Variety Show on Thursday as an entire company in front of everybody else at efy. This was accomplished. See the video farther below.

2. To read the entire Book of Mormon as a company in sections. I took charge of this just to help them organize it and did the math and it turned out being about 7 to 8 chapters a person. So for example, one person had 1 Nephi 1-7, and a different person had 1 Nephi 8-15, and so on. Then they were to email me by Thursday night a short summary of their sections, but then share individual thoughts, feelings, things learned, questions, and testimonies of their section and The Book of Mormon. Then I gathered these all together, put them in order of the book, and created and printed a pamphlet (with help from some non-efy friends!) for each of them to have. It was awesome. The blessings from doing this were measurable. Pictures of this farther below.

Here is their 1st Place award-winning skit (this is not the variety show performance) they created for games night. You will notice their inspiration came from the opening narration monologue of the movie Hercules:

And here they are rehearsing for their Variety Show performance during free time and lunch and dinner. They needed all that time to work on it to accomplish their goal. They decided to do a dance to the song "I'll Make A Man Out Of You" from the movie Mulan, sung by Donny Osmond. But they made a mix and inserted the "Dougie" into the song . The "Dougie" is some famous dance move/song that I had never heard of before. But it was a huge hit.

Showtime!

Here is their wildly successful performance. Watch it!:

I was super proud of them.

These two were dancing just a little bit too close for efy comfort so I had to come between them!

Here is the pamphlet we made.

A few excerpts/comments from various youth throughout the pages:

"When I started my reading for this challenge I had a question for Heavenly Father. Right away it was answered. In 2 Nephi 22:2 it says, "God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid." I live in fear a lot: fear of being wrong, not being accepted, fear of the future, etc...However, regardless of the past, I will now put my trust in God and not be afraid, because He is my salvation." - Hannah

"This challenge has helped my testimony so much. The message that stuck out to me the most was to have total faith in the Lord. he will always have your back and come through to His word, just like he did for the Nephites throughout these scriptures. The times that we have in our life will be so tough. But if we are relying on the Lord, choosing the right, and standing steadfast, then the righteous will always withstand the temptations of the devil. I know that each of us was placed on this earth at this time for a reason. I know that my Redeemer lives. I am so grateful for His hand in my life. I see it every day." - Katie

"In 3 Nephi 10:10, it says, "And their mourning was turned into joy and their lamentations into the praise and thanksgiving unto the Lord Jesus Christ, their Redeemer." This shows that sometimes you have to be at the lowest of the low in order to get back on track and become humble. But Jesus Christ knows each of us and knows how to get us back. The Savior will show us the way if we let Him." - Brad

They each got their own and were so proud of themselves for accomplishing this. They now have this amazing resource they can turn to to remind them of the things they learned individually and as a group. Their testimonies of Jesus Christ were fully strengthened from this project as was evident to me in so many different ways (verbally and visually) by the end of the week.

I am #1. Just kidding.

And p.s. the following video should be titled

"How To Become an Instant EFY Celebrity."

Ladies, back off! He's leaving on a mission in six months.