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Posts Tagged ‘ward’

When the Twin Falls Temple was scheduled to be built and dedicated, the youth and the leaders of the Mormon Church in our area were notified that they would be called upon to create a youth celebration where the youth of the temple district would come together and put on a cultural even for the visiting Prophet.  This event was called the Youth Cultural Celebration, or YCC.

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.

Last Sunday we had a missionary in our LDS Ward return from his mission. He spoke in Sacrament Meeting and talked about his experiences while he served and LDS mission in Cambodia. What made this particular missionary important to us was that he was our neighbor. His family lives just across the cul-de-sac from our family. He had even helped coach my son’s baseball team a few years ago. I know that our boys look up to this young man as an example of what they want to be when they get older.

This return missionary gave a wonderful talk in church and really gave inspiring specific examples of how his testimony and the testimony of investigators grew. I could tell that my boys were soaking up this information and were interested in what he had to say. At the end of his talk, this return missionary bore his testimony in Cambodian. All of our kids were astonished that he could easily pronounce words in a foreign language.

While in Elders Quorum, I couldn’t help myself from commenting that this was a “big deal” in our family. We are so proud of this young man and his willingness to serve a mission and dedicate two years of his life to serve Jesus Christ and spreading the gospel around the world. We are blessed to have such a wonderful young man live next to our family so that he could show such a good example to our kids on how to live a righteous life.

Most LDS Families participate in the Scouting Program in their individual wards. Each LDS Ward has their own troop and patrol. So, as one of those Mormon Families, we send our 12 to 14 year old boys up to Scout Camp. We happen to go to Camp Bradley Idaho for camp. At camp, the young men earn merit badges and have a chance to “rough it” for a week.

Each year the Stake Young Mens Presidency goes up and feeds all of the scouts from our stake. I have had the privilage to go up 3 times now and do just that. When I’m up there, I usually try to encourage my son to finish off his merit badges and sometimes we do something fun.

This year I decided to make a little video commercial. It was fun to make and will be a great memory of Scout Camp. This is a Spoof of the Old Spice Commercial that you may have seen on the internet or on TV. Make sure you take a look at the bloopers too.