Monday at EFY

All this summer I have been being an EFY counselor. It has been a fantastic experience. I have learned so much. I loved going to EFY as a participant. I started looking forward to next year the day that is ended. Being an EFY counselor has been 1000 times better. I grew spiritual and learned valuable lesson. Those lessons came not only from my fellow counselors, BCs, coordinators, teacher, directors and their spouses but also from the youth themselves. I was also better able to learn from the spirit.

So what do we do at EFY an why do we do it? Here are some photos, thoughts and explanations. Some of my explanations are the reasons that made sense to me others are what they told us. There are also random thoughts I thought I would throw in. Lets start with Monday.

MONDAY
Check-In
This is when the youth say "I'm here. Um, now what do I do" It is intersting to see how nervous some are. Thats ok though becasue we give them things for braving it. The things are a handbook (this thing is actually cool. It doubles as a journal, hymn book, agenda and study guide), a lanyard, nametag, cd, dvd and shirt.

Meet Your Counselor
After they spend sometime practicing patients we divide them into groups. Normally each councelor has about 10 youth. Here we do a get to know you game (Mine involved starbursts), out line the rules, set personal goals and I gather up the information I need. In my case this came to involve taking pictures so I could write down there names and study who they are. These are some of the pictures I took for that reason. Aren't my girls lovely.

Meet Your Company
This is when my girls meet the other counselor groups in our company. There is always at least one boy counselor and one girl counselor. Here we do more get to know you games, make a short cheer, tell the kids what our company name is and from what scripture it was taken.
Orientation
Here we gather as an entire EFY session. It is when the youth first meet the session director and are told about things like the BIG FIVE. The BIG FIVE are the rules that when broken the youth will be sent home with out question. This is also when the counselors perform the legendary EFY dances.
Dinner
If you want to eat first on Monday you had better hope your counselor can dance because that is how they decided who gets to go next. This dance competition is held in front of the entire youth so hopefully your not to self conscience. If you're a counselor you probably aren't.
Session Director Lesson
This is basically the spiritual part of family night. The lesson is taught by the session director to the entire session
FHE Games
I like these games allot. These are played in a company. One of my favorite games was Anteater. In this game 3 or 4 youth are pulled from the company. They are the "Anteaters". Their job it to tag the other youth or the "ants". The other youth start at one end of the field and try to get to their "ant hill" at the other end of the field. Once the game starts the only safe side of the field is the ant hill. If the ants are tagged as they try to get to the ant hill they must lay on their backs with their feet in the air.

Then the other ants try to rescue them. It take 4 ants to rescue a fallen ant. The 4 rescue ants must carry them back. While an ant is attached to a fallen ant they are safe unless their are more then 4 ants attached. In order to win all the ants must make it back to the hill. It is a fun game.

After they play the game for awhile we sit down and ask them what they have learned. They come out with all sorts of things. Then we have them find examples of what they learned in the scriptures. As counselors it is our job to direct them. One question I would ask is it was more fun to sit in the ant hill and watch or was it more fun to go save the ant. They always say it is more fun to save the ants. When they do I turn them to D&C 18:15-16
"15. And if it so be that you should labor all your days in
crying repentance unto this people and bring save it be
one soul unto me how great shall be your joy with him
in the kingdom of my Father!
16. And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that
you have brought unto me into the kingdom of Father,
how great will be your joy if you should bring many
souls unto me!"
After that I asked them how they could apply it in their lives. So I will ask you too.
How can you apply that lesson in your life?
After they think about we move onto the next game and do the same for it.
Goal Setting
Goals are important things to have. They help you get the most out of life. Because we want our youth to get the most out of EFY we have them set personal goals. We also set company goals. That we do during this time. There are four areas the the youth set goals in. They are physical, mental, social and spiritual. We as counselors are not to set the goals. We collect there thoughts and compile them into to one goal that seems to cover what they hope to achieve. Then the youth agree with it or not. Through out the week we review these goals.
Counselor Devotional
After we do goal setting we break off into counselor groups. Mondays devotional is on recognizing the promptings of the spirit. I think this one is important to have on Monday because the youth will have many opportunities to feel the spirt and be prompted by it. We want them to realize where those feeling and promptings come from so we teach them.
Personal Scripture Study/Journal Time
It is rather selfexplainitory. We have it though so the youth can learn the good habbit. Why is writting in your journal important. It helps you remember the feelings you have and put them into words. Then later when you read them again you can feel the same feelings you had. This is important becasue we want the youth to take home what they have learned and felt at EFY.

Prayer Meeting

This is with the session. It is when a few of the youth share something they liked about the day and then we have our clossing prayer. Then the youth go home

So...What do we do when the children go home?

EFC!!!

This is when we share some of the things we liked about our day, ask questions and get insturciton. It is also where we are aloud to give hugs.

Carlucci's

When I first got to Utah in May, Ceptember and I went to grab a treat at Carlucci's in Salt Lake. It is a little cafe. Admittedly the prices were a bit up there but the food was good and it was a one time only treat. I had been craving cheesecake so that is what I got.


Ceptember came for her favorite. The fruit tart. Doesn't it look yummy?

Anyone know of a hidden treasure place(s) to eat.

Pebbles In My Pocket

This is the scrapbook store of scrapbook stores to me. I can remember going here before I reached my first set of double digits. They have all sorts of fun things. They also have stuff designed specifically for LDS people. I could spend hours in there store looking at all there cool ideas and merchandise. It will be hard to stay away while I live in Provo. For those of you who didn't know They have a blog. The blog tells about them but it also has some cute ideas.
Anyone know of other fun scrapbook stores in the Provo area?

A Roof Over My Head

For the last four weeks I have been volunteering as an EFY counselor throughout Utah. I have loved it. But that's not what this post is about.
Being me, I didn't realize until the day before I left for Utah that EFY does not give volunteer counselors a place to stay. GULP. I was stressed but a little voice inside my head said Go ahead and get on the plane. It will be taken care of. So off I went. I had no clue where I was going to stay and the people I had called to see if they knew someone who would let me stay with them had no idea either. Finally I got a call form my wonderful Dad N.. My cousin Bre had been going to School in Logan and I could stay with her. That was a major blessing. Three weeks down two more to go. Of course, after Logan is all taken care of I get an e-mail asking if anyone needs a place to stay while in Logan for EFY. Nope but what about Sandy. So I called the session coordinator and she said they would find me a place to stay Sunday night. Sunday night comes around and I still don't know where I'm sleeping that night. What if no one takes me? I can't afford a hotel for two weeks. Ahh. Not until the very end did someone say they cold take me. That week I also found a girl who would take me for the week after.
Why am I telling you this? Because there is a principle. I did not know how things would work out. I only knew that ths was what I should be doing. I also had to put forth the faith that Heavenly Father would take care of me before it was evident how he had planned for that to be accomplished. My help also came from others.
Just like in life we have to put forth faith before we can understand. Sometimes when we are told to do something it seems like help is not going to come but it does and most often trough other people.
I am thankful for being taught this principle.

Utah

I have always wanted to live in Utah. Now I get to. But lately Utah seems even better then it I thought it would be. Want to know why? Hope so because I want to tell you.
Craft stores
Yummy places to eat
BYU sports (FOOTBALL!!!)
My grandparents are here.
My cousin Emily from Australia is going to school in Utah
Church related things are EVERYWHERE
My sister, her husband and their soon to be here baby boy are moving here in a week.
My Cousins Tressa and Mindy are here (maybe they will let me babysit some time).
I have lots of aunts, uncles and cousins here. Some very close by and others just a few hours away. (I haven't lived so close to family since I was in kindergarten)
My Aunt Kim and Uncle Roger from Australia are coming in October and I will be here for it. (I think we ought to go to General conference together since they will be here for it)

I could go on but I will leave it at that. I am so happy and excited and being all of those things makes me thankful too.

A lesson form a sport

For any of you who have seen me at a sporting event you would know that I like them.....allot. Why do I like sports? Apart from the fact that it is fun to see a good, out of no where tackle, people celebrating, the feel the energy, and the great shots made by unexpected players, I like sports because their are lessons to be learned for both the athlete and the spectator.

Recently John Bytheway published a book called Sports. Life lessons form court, field and gridiron. My grandparents just happen to have it and I have been reading it. I'm not done. I haven't even made it to the football section, but here is one of the quotes. Its found on page 38 and Spencer W Kimball said it.

"I have special luck with my shots tonight, the ball goes through the hoop again and again, and the game ends with our high school team victors against the college team. I am the smallest player and the youngest one on the team. I have piled up the most points through the efforts of the whole team in protecting me and feeding the ball to me. I am on the shoulders of the big players of the Academy. They are parading me around the hall to my consternation and embarrassment. I like basketball. I would rather play this game than eat"

Obviously he must have been a good player. I think that in life if we want to be truly good at something we have to want it more than anything. Like food. This made me think of fast Sunday because fasting is not one of my favorite things. But I should want to obey the law of the fast more than eat food so I will have to be better at it.

Make Up Your Mind

At the moment I am in Provo. I have also decided that that is where I am going to stay for a bit. At least the fall semester. Yes, I was planning to go to Tucson for the fall but that changed so now I am going to stay here. I think I found an apartment that I like. I went to visit it today and it seemed nice. It also has a pool and a game room. I don't know who any of my roommates will be but in the same apartments I have a friend from Tucson so if my roommates are horrible then I will hide there. Or I could hide at my Grandma and Grandpa L's place because it is only a block or so away. The ward is rumored to be great but I think most people would say that about there ward. My hopeful apartment is also right by campus so while I am not a student there I will still be able to enjoy most of the fun things that BYU has to offer. Now all I need is a job and a way to get my stuff in TX here.