YSA Conference

We had an amazing experience at the YSA conference August 16th and 17th in Port of Spain!  The theme of the conference was, "DESIGNING AND BUILDING A SUCCESSFUL FUTURE," somehow the t-shirts got messed up, so the theme on the shirts read, "designing and building a secure future.  Oh well, that works too.  If it is a successful future, it should be secure too! Brother and Sister Suepaul conducted the entire event.

As the YSA's arrived, they checked in and then went to the computer station to fill out online a personality profile.  You can find it at 41Q.com  It provided information that was part of the deciding input from which we matched compatibility later on.  Elder and Sister Smith assisted at this station.

 The next station was the written questionnaire.  They each filled this out with the help of Elder and Sister Ray

 Some one on one coaching was helpful.  When all had taken the online quiz and filled out the questionnaire, Bishop Hooker was the speaker at the devotional.

He has a great rapport with the YSA's

 His  message was, "find your spouse here, go on dates, and get married!" That is a shortened version!

After the devotional, John Luke Villaroel and Mary Jagroop (YSA reps on the stake committee) led the group in ice-breakers to get everybody comfortable quickly.  They did a great job!  The Rays and the Smiths and the Monsons were the back-up senior missionaries!

Clothespins– divide into teams of 10.  10 clothespins are set in front of the team standing in a line.  They begin at the first and must go through all members of their team with a successful catch to win.    Each participant takes a turn picking up successive and increasing numbers of clothespins with their left hand and placing them on the top of their right hand, then lift them straight up with the top, or back of the hand, and catch them with the palm of the same hand without dropping any.   On the team you start with the first person, as in a relay, picking up one clothespin, next person two, then pass to the next person, they do 3, then next person 4, next person 5.  Then begin again with person number six picking up one and go to five again successfully for the team to win.  If any are dropped the person must keep doing their number over and over until they succeed.  First team to get to complete all the catches through the entire team wins.  The senior missionary stands at the end and acts as a referee.  When they succeed, Senior missionary, raise your arm high and yell booyah! 

Getting into the swing of things...............

Peanut Relay – The participants stand in one long line from the mark on the floor.  They should be guy, girl, guy, etc.  If it is not even, that is fine.  Then they clasp hands, entwining fingers.  There are ten peanuts on a chair at one end of the line and an empty chair at the other end.   The people at the end and beginning only have one clasped hand to use, the other should be on their forearm, or just not used.  All hands down the line must stay clasped during the whole relay.  The first person must pick up the peanuts, one at a time using one of his fingers and one of her fingers to pick it up, then pass it to the next person, on down the line the same way.  If they drop it, they must together pick it up and pass it on.  At no time may they use two of their own fingers.  Missionaries must watch closely...(the peanuts are tiny!)  They have to communicate to each other to coordinate this movement.  When all the peanuts get to the other end, missionary, raise your arm and yell Booyah!

John and Mary explaining the rules of the next ice-breaker.

 Balloon Relay – Participants stand in a line straight back from the table.  The front person picks up the flat balloon when the whistle blows, blows it up and ties it and then twists to the right at their waist and passes it to the person behind them, the next person to left.  This continues until the last person runs to the front with the balloon and continues the serpentine movement all through the team until the person that started gets to the front again.  Missionaries, take note of when they get there, raise your arm and yell Booyah!

Cotton ball Relay – Participants divide in half.  One half goes to line up directly across from the other half of the team on the green square.  Each is given a plastic spoon.  The person in the front of one line, at the whistle blow, goes as quickly as possible across the floor carrying the cotton ball in the spoon (if the cotton ball drops, he/she must return to the place they started and begin again) When they arrive to their teammate across the floor they must pour the cotton ball into their spoon and go to the back of that line.  The person with the cotton ball does the same returning to the starting side, going to the back of the line after passing off the cotton ball.  They continue like this until the starting person has returned.  The team leader then raises their arm and calls, Booyah!  Make sure they do not touch the cotton ball with their hand.

Oreo Masters – Hand all members of your team a cookie.  DO NOT EAT THE COOKIE!!  At the whistle, everyone places the cookie at the top middle of their forehead and attempts by moving their facial muscles and wiggling their head (without any use of hands) to get the cookie down their face and into their mouth! If the cookie falls off or drops, pick it up and continue trying.   As soon as three members of your team have been successful, raise your arm and yell BOOYAH!

Honestly, we were all laughing so hard when we did this one that no one got any pictures!!

There was a casual dance on Friday night and a elegant casual dance on Saturday night.  Friday night we had dance cards with lines on one side and a picture on the other.  There was a wrapped gift for the YSA's that had the entire card filled out with different names.  They had to dance for the entire song and could not have any duplications.  It was great!  In the end, we put names of completed cards and picked a winner from them.  There was more dancing than we had ever seen at a YSA dance.  The prize was a date in a box of cereal: two tickets to a movie and to cold stone creamery afterward. 

Great participation!!!

While the dance was going on, we went upstairs to the airconditioned rooms and went through the questionnaires and online quiz results.  It was far from an exact science, but the idea was just to get them to consider someone they might want to get to know with whom they had something in common.

 We didn't complete the process until well after midnight.  Elder Monson got a little punchy toward the end!

Working hard to find some common interests!  The next morning started at 8:00 am with four workships:  Laws of Success: Elder Monson, Marriage Prep; President and Sister Danzell, Mission Prep; Collan Moore and Jason Byng, and Career Building; Sister Raphael and the Career bus, all of 

which were big hits!

Everyone got a conference shirt in the morning as they checked in and then began rotating through each workshop after breakfast.

The entire group was divided into four at check-in by putting either a 1-2-3or 4 on their name tags and then they rotated between each station.

After lunch, another YSA rep, Nicoda Pathay, divided the group into fours and they went to one of 14 locations in the building for speed dating.  They had five minutes in each location and then two minutes to rotate to the next location.  They had a list of topics to discuss and were able to safely "date" and get to know other YSA's from different areas.  Asking several of them at the end of this activity how they liked it, met with very positive answers!  One young man said, "I met someone I am very interested in getting to know better!"

 Dating................WOW what an idea!!
After the dating game, they went home to shower and change.  When they returned, there was a devotional where President Danzell spoke and then opened a forum to ask any questions of a panel of married couples: President and Sister Danzell, Brother and Sister Suepaul, and Elder and Sister Monson.  The devotional ended with a testimonies that were memorable and touching.   After the devotional, they were handed the compatability match cards, which many of them got a good laugh out of..............so much for computer match-making!  The YSA's all looked fabulous, enjoyed the dance, and were sad to see the conference end.  Many returned home having made  new friends.  They had a marvelous time.