At the time, I was the Young Men’s President in our ward, I was the spearhead in our organization to get the youth ready and prepared to participate in this event.  All of our Wednesday night activities were canceled and the YCC practices were put in their place.  Each week we would gather the youth of the stake and practice singing and dancing.  This went on for 6 months.  There were times, I must admit, that the practices seemed to drag on and on.  Finally, the event was upon us and we went to the Twin Falls County Rodeo to put the final touches together.  As we practiced the week before the dedication, it seemed like the groups would never come together and get it right.

The day finally came and the youth of each stake went and performed with excitement and will energy.  The Youth Cultural Celebration was a huge success.  How lucky I was to even be a part of the event.  Now, when I see other YCC’s occur around the world, my eyes tear up with fond memories of how special this time was for me in the dedication of the Twin Falls Temple.

Below is a video I just watched of a YCC put on for the Prophet in Kyiv Ukraine.

The lesson about the apostacy and the re-establishment of the church on the earth came with 4 bullet points. The church was organized in Christ‘s day with Apostles, Prophets, Priesthood and Revelation. These 4 items, I taught, were the foundation of the church. After discussing the restoration of the church by Joseph Smith, we talked about how these 4 pillars were again established on the earth. Katie was very excited to memorize these 4 building blocks of the church but had a had time remembering all four that night. The cool think about this lessons is that several times over the next few weeks and months, Katie would come up to me with her 4 fingers in the air and recite back those four founding pieces of the Church of Jesus Christ. I could tell that she was really trying to remember them and be ready for her interview with the Bishop.

Another Family Home Evening we talked about the covenant of baptism. In the lesson we reviewed the sacrement prayers which detail out the parts of the covenant that we agree to keep, and the parts of the covenant that the Lord promises to keep. The promises that we make are that we take upon ourselves His (the Lord Jesus Christ) name, we will always remember Him, and we will keep His commandments. The Lord, in turn will keep his promise which is, that he will always have His spirit (the Holy Ghost) to be with us. Again, after this lesson Katie was very serious about trying to remember these parts of the covenant she was going to make at baptism. Just days before her baptism, she stopped me and repeated back the parts of the covenant of baptism.

Even though she was being very intent on remembering these basic principles of the gospel, she was still very nervous about the interview with the Bishop. It took me back to the day when I was getting ready to be baptized. I remember being nervous too because I wasn’t sure what would be asked of me. I remember being very worried that the Bishop would ask me to recite all of the articles of faith or something. I remember the Bishop being very nice and reassuring.

Kate’s baptism was wonderful. We had many family members in attendance and many friends that joined us for this special event. Kate soaked in the attention and was very happy. Happy enough that she bounced around many times while we were trying to take pictures.

What a blessing it is to have been able baptize all of my children. I have wonderful children that understand the gospel and continue to live their lives by the teachings of Jesus Christ. They have all kept their covenants at baptism and are finding joy in living the gospel.

After the sacrament had been passed around, we noticed that my brother had still not arrived. They were only a minute behind us when we left the house so there was no way that they were just late. We then realized that we were not at his ward. We really couldn’t pick up and leave in the middle of the meeting so we decided to just stay. Plus, if this wasn’t my brother’s ward, which building was?

Anyway, as we peered around the members in front of us, we could get small glimpses of the people on the stand. As I scanned to the right of the stand, I could see the men that were presiding at the meeting. At the very end of the bench, there was a man that I thought looked like Elder Bednar. As many of you might know, all of the mormon men in Utah look the same. Most of the leaders walking around look like Elder Bednar so I shrugged it off and went back to managing the sleepy kids. I did, however, continue to study this “Bendar Look-a-like”. Of course, I was in the gym and my eye site isn’t what it used to be. I decided to entrust my findings with my wife. I pointed him out to her and then took my daughter out in the hall so she could use the restroom.

When I got back my wife leaned over to me and said, “I think you are right, that might be Elder Bednar.” Wow, that was cool. My wife, with even worse eye site than mine, agreed with me. With this confirmation, I leaned over to my parents to get their opinion. As they bobbed and weaved their heads to get a better look at the gentleman on the stand, my Mom reported that she was pretty sure that he was Elder Bednar. I immediately turned to my son and pointed out that there was Apostle up on the stand. He squinted his eyes and gave a small grin as he picked out Elder Bednar from the men in front. Then, he leaned back over to me and reported, “Ya Dad, and I think the guy next to him is Elder Hales.” I grinned in disbelief and stuck my head up above the crowd and sure enough, on the right hand of Elder Bednar was Elder Hales. I relayed this message down the pew and in seconds we were all looking at each other with huge grins on our faces and in complete shock. It isn’t every day that an Apostle attends your church meetings. In fact, in Magic Valley, it never happens!

As the meeting went on, we became privy to the fact that these two Apostles were attending their “Home” ward. No wonder everyone in the chapel was so casual about these two very iconic general authorities attending their sacrament meeting.

After the meeting, I was determined to go up and meet both of these men so I marched myself into the chapel area with my kids in tow to meet both of the Apostles. This is a big deal since I have only met one other Apostle in my life. If you want to read about it, you can view it on my post at LDSFamily.net Anyway, back to the story, we went into the chapel to track down Elder Bednar but he went out the side door to another meeting. However, Elder Hales walked up the isle right towards us, so I stuck out my hand and introduced myself. He looked at me for a second, smiled and said hello. I introduced each of my family members which were standing in a line like the partridge family and he shook each of their hands. He asked us where we were from and we replied that we were from Idaho. Just as he was leaving he said, “My sister raised 6 kids in Burley Idaho.” We looked at each other and thought, “We know people in Burley!”, but, he had already left.

So, even though we were at the “Wrong” Church, we were at the “Right” Church.

Elder Hales

Elder Bednar

Dallin H. Oaks

I guess I can’t actually say that I “met” The Prophet, but I have met an Apostle. I was visiting an event put on by an non-profit organization called CHOICE. Their full name is Center for Humanitarian Outreach and Inter-Cultural Exchange. They had invited Dallin H. Oaks to their event. Several of us stood around and stared at him since we really hadn’t see him up close. We tried to look conspicuous but I now we were probably very….. “spicuous” (I know it’s not a word but I didn’t want to say we were gawking).   All of us wanted to meet Elder Oaks but none of us had the guts to walk ourselves over and ask to shake his hand. HOWEVER, my wife, the brave soul that she is, picked herself up, walked over with confidence and introduced herself. He turned around and gladly greeted her with a warm handshake. The rest of us huddled around her to see if we could sneak into the conversation and possibly shake his hand. The conversation did turn to the rest of us and we had the pleasure of shaking the hand of one of the modern day apostles.