Youth Conference Water Activity

Youth Conference 2009

I went to Youth Conference this year. It was so much fun. We have wards and branches all over SE Alaska that are all apart of the Juneau Stake. We all meet up in Juneau. Most of us take the ferry (Alaska Marine Highway System). Some places however are so remote that they have to fly in float planes. It was such a blast and I was so impressed with the quality of the youth. It's neat to see their friendships that they develop with kids from other areas. This friendship extends on in to the school year. They get all excited to see each other throughout the school year during sporting events and other competitions and festivals. 

This was our schedule:

Wednesday: 4 a.m. ferry was suppose to depart Ketchikan. However, they had a maintenance problem and we didn't depart until Wednesday night at 9:00 p.m. 

Thursday: 5 p.m. arrived in Juneau, check-in and received name tags

                  Dinner was at 6 p.m.

               Dance started at 7 p.m. and went until 11:00

Friday: Breakfast 8:00 a.m.

      Workships 9-12

      Lunch 12:00

      Service Project 1:00-4:00

              Dinner 6:00

              Formal Dance 7:00-10:30

Saturday: Breakfast 8:00

                  Workshops 9-12 (Me and Sandy Tippetts had to do a workshop Sat. morning. We                        were assigned the topic "Garbage In Garbage Out" I think we did a good job.  

                 The youth told us it was one of their favorites.

               Lunch 12:00

               Water Activity 1:00-4:00

                 Dinner: 6:00

                 Testimony meeting 7:00-8:00

                 yearbook signing 8:00-10:00 (They make a simple yearbook each year with a profile  picture of all of them.)

Sunday: We attended Church with our housing families wards.  

               Then we left on the ferry at 6p.m.

The ferry is one of my favorite parts. The return ferry was 36 hours. It is pure guiltless laziness as I like to refer to it. It also gives you time to visit with the kids and other chaperones. I became better friends with so many from our time on the ferry. It is really cool. The ferry stopped in Sitka, then Petersburg, then Wrangell, and then Ketchikan. It's neat to say your good byes at each port. The group of youth get smaller with each stop. 

Tuesday: 4:00 a.m arrived in Ketchikan

   

Youth Conference Dances

Youth Conference Service Project

We met at the church. They arranged for Gray hound buses to transport us to the area where we were going to be working.

They divided us up into groups.

Group 1: filled buckets with sand and loaded them onto a little barge boat.

Then a guy brought the boat across the lake.

Group 2: unloaded the buckets from the boat and dumped them into wheelbarrows.

Group 3: brought the wheelbarrows down a trail and dumped them.

Group 4: raked the trail and compounded it.

We worked for 4 hours. It was a lot of work, but it also was a lot of fun.

Every day they provided breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the church.