"Hope Endures"

“Hope Endures" was the theme for this year's Youth Conference for the Lenexa Stake.
The weekend started off with the kids gathering in the gym to introduce the theme,
then a dance and on to our host homes. While in this meeting, Pres. Chambers said that not everything would go right. Well he was right. My groups' host home didn't know we were coming. Luckily for me it was someone I know very well and she and her family were really good sports about being woken in the middle of the night. I don't think I would have been so gracious. My group of girls felt really bad about it though. I tried to play it down somewhat to ease their minds about it, but inside I was a bit angry.

The activities continued on Friday with visits to the Independence Visitor's Center, Richmond Missouri, and the Liberty Visitor's Center

Ending with a dance for the evening.

Saturday we went to Harvesters to do volunteer work.

We packaged about 1200 loaves of bread.

We finished the conference at Adam-Ondi-Ahman. One young man said it was lame, but I think what he meant was that it is simple. The beauty comes from the simplicity of this sacred place.

We were able to listen to a wonderful speaker telling us some of the history of the place and things that would be happening in the future. She also talked about the armor of God. The armor of God contains many pieces and one of those is a breast plate. Kamian gave 5 great ways this breast plate protects our heart and the kinds of hearts we need to protect. These are to have a searching heart, a prayerful heart, a cheerful heart, an obedient/faithful heart, and a repentant heart.

Faith or Knowledge

Is it better to have faith in something or a sure knowledge of something? As I was reading in Alma chapter 32, this is a question that came to my mind. Of course when one starts to ponder on something it seems that more questions come. Does having faith allow us more agency? Does knowledge allow us more? Probably is a stupid question, but I'm just wondering about that.

Going Home

Coming back home was fun as well. We had to make a stop, nothing unusual about that except some of the local wildlife were out in numbers. We had some pistachios and so we fed them.

I know, I know, don’t feed the animals, but they were just looking at us with those beady black eyes and how can a person say no?

Laura was even able to pet one, but there was no way I was going to do that. For a second or two I was afraid one of them was going to jump on me.

We also saw some really pretty rainbows. They were complete arcs, something I don’t see every day and very vivid. Course the battery in my camera was depleted so I had to take the picture with my phone and through the windshield. They turned out okay considering.

The final “vacation” thing for me was stopping in Buford, Wyoming. The sign says it all. One more thing checked off the “Bucket List” for Bubba aka Rebekah. For mine it was Thomas the Tank Engine, jk. Still it wasfun to see a life size replica.

Temple Square

While in Utah we toured the conference center in Salt Lake City. Of course nothing was going on this particular day so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Well except of course all the missionaries that were giving tours. These are just random pictures that I took. We also spent some time at Temple Square.

This is the oldest picture hanging in the conference center.

Bridal Veil Falls

After the reunion was over we went to see Bridal Veil Falls. It was getting dark so the pictures aren’t that great, but the water fall was still wonderful to see. I had to laugh at Daryn while he was crossing over the “river” to get up close and personal with the water fall.

He was carrying CTR sr and trying to be so careful not to step in the water and he almost succeeded. About 3 feet from the opposite shore, his foot slipped and in the water it went.

Since he couldn’t have one wet shoe and one dry shoe, he decided just to slosh through the rest of the way and of crossing on the return crossing. Luckily they were dry by the next day.

Tribute to Ancesters

During part of the reunion we did our own little thing for a couple of hours. My dad was born in Provo and since it was his 75th birthday on Saturday, he wanted to see the house where he was born. It’s still there and fixed up very nicely.


I remember the last time we went to see it there was a plaque of some kind close to the front door and a certain bathroom fixture on the balcony. (That’s code for toilet).


The landscaping was beautiful.

After that we went to visit with Joe’s Aunt Janet who lives in Spanish Fork. While we were there we saw the Iceland Monument that is a tribute to some of the early settlers of the town.

It’s significant for Joe as his great grandparents were among them. Neither of us had ever seen the monument and it was thrilling to find their names on the marker.