Tighten Your Grip

The whole stake - or what Toby could fit in the picture.

Toby and I had the awesome opportunity to help out with our stake youth conference this year. It was a Moroni's Quest year (we reenact the Book of Mormon) and the theme was Tighten Your Grip. It was pretty awesome. I was in awe of all the different people that had to help out to make it happen. We went to Wyoming and camped in the same place that we had built the Nauvoo temple for trek 2 years previously.
Toby was the high councilman over everything, so he was everywhere, helping out with everyone. I was asked to help out with the reenactments and the costumes. It was a lot of fun!

The first night, we reenacted the Tree of Life - wish I had pics of the iron rod, it was cool!

Our ward getting ready to watch another reenactment.

 

In case you don't know what a cuddle puddle is.

Megan was a Lamanite for one of the many battles

King Benjamin's tower we built - yes, that' right - we built it and yes it was used by King Benjamin and Samuel the Lamanite.

What Abanadi looked like after he was burned.

Proof, that we were all there together.

The flour war.

Our ward after the flour war.

We had lots of 'commercials' in between scenes with some cool musical numbers. These guys played these garbage cans like drums. It was awesome!

What our camp looked like.

Toby always does a hand stand contest wherever he goes. He's never lost.

Megan's up there on the right, next to King Lamoni

Me and the 'magic' team. These are the ladies that made everything happen. Script, costumes, logistics - they ran everything.

Megan's tribe

  One of the coolest experiences of the whole weekend was being with the 'Stripling Warriors' (the 2 youngest boys from each ward). I happened to be with them to help get them all dressed and give them weapons, but then I got to hear Helaman (Pres. Squires) talk to the boys. It was amazing. He stayed in character the whole time, and afterwards at testimony mtg said he can't recall everything he said because at one point it wasn't him talking. He called the boys his 'sons' and reminded them of the testimony of their mothers and as long as they had as much faith as their mothers, that they would not be harmed. Then he asked one of the boys to pray before battle. That boy happened to be from our ward and we talked to him after, and he was pretty emotional as well and said he had no idea what he said in the prayer. It was one of the most spiritual experiences I've had. Definitely won't forget about it.

Helaman talking to his sons.

Praying

Ready for battle

It's hard to see, but the Stripling Warriors are lined up at the bottom of the hill, ready to attack.

The other neat experience we had, was doing the Pre -Savior Experience.  This was something Toby specifically was in charge of, and gratefully, it went off without a hitch. Each kid was blindfolded and a audio recording started talking about the Savior's life. There were words and songs. When certain parts came, like Jesus healing the blind, the kids tribal leaders would touch each kid on their eyes. We also had a crown of thorns, a nail and a beam (and lots of other things) for each kid to feel as well while they were listening to the audio recording. It was a pretty neat experience to be up on the stage watching all the kids. By the end, nearly every kid had a wet blindfold from crying. At the end of the audio, the kids were led over to a field to sit down - then they heard Heavenly Father's voice 3 times announcing the Savior, then the kids were allowed to take off their blindfolds. When the did they say the Savior(our stake President) standing on the hill. He came down and touched each youth. It was a pretty cool experience.

Our ward.