by Alice Gifford 4/29/1999

I've been working on our youth conference and I've come up with a couple of things I'd like to throw out and see what you think and to see if there is anything you'd add.  Our theme is "The Hero Within" - which was from this list. 

 

We are beginning with a keynote address Thursday early evening and followed by dance instruction with a great DJ from Mesa Arizona.  Trying to figure out how to strengthen the family through the conference we've decided to invite the parents to come to this portion of the dance so they can try and learn some of the dances. Should be a riot!   I thought about having the youth write a "Top Ten List" of reasons why "It's Cool to Have Parents at Youth Conference"  and sometime during the evening we'd read the top ten answers.

 

The parents will leave around 9pm and the dance will continue until ll:45p.m

 

The next morning we'll all meet at the stake center for a service project.  We are doing work around the building that needs to be done.  When they arrive they will choose a name tag - it'll be a hero from the scriptures - male and female and also female heroes like Joan of Arc, Florence Nightingale, etc.  They will not know this until it is time to divide into groups but the name tags will be used for this purpose.  i.e. all the Abish will go together along with all of the Nephi's.....

 

The service project will be from 8:30 until l0:00 a.m. and then we'll have a light snack - maybe Gadianton Punch.

 

Then we will have three, maybe four workshops that will last approximately l5 minutes each. 

 

- Finding the Hero Within - (focusing on the Light of Christ within)

- Putting on the Armor of Light - the source of your Spiritual Power

- Be a Man of Steel or maybe What have you uploaded/downloaded today?

- The Making of a Hero (in preparation for Lunch) using the idea from the list for Hero Sandwiches

 

After lunch - skits

 

Each group will be given an hour to put together a skit.  I think we will be giving them a general idea and let them go from there.  I'll post some of those ideas later.

In between the skits I was thinking about commercials.  The ideas could come from Mormonads that the youth will bring to the Youth Conference.  This may even be an activity the night before at the dance - and have parents brainstorm with the youth.

 

After the skits - time to head to the lake where we will have a few games, a barbecue and later a fireside/testimony meeting.  Part of the evening activities will be the presentation of the "Armor of Light" award.  After listening to all of the different accounts of heroic acts that took place in Colorado a friend and I came up with this.  Our youth may not be faced with the same type of situation (our prayers are that they will not) but everyday we see people around us who are heroes ..... they stand  up for their beliefs, they set the example, they give spiritual strength to those around them.  We are asking the youth of our stake to nominate their "hero" and tell us why.  We will choose several of the youth to receive this award that evening before the testimony meeting.

 

Any suggestions so far?

 

Oh, one more thing we plan on doing - Having a "Banner of Light" which we will carry with us everywhere we go.  The youth will also received a T-shirt with the logo on it if we can afford it°Ü° - it'll be their personal banner

Comments from Cheryl in Ogden!

Alice, this sound fabulous!!!!!! What a tremendous Youth Conference this will be! It sounds like you have it all under control... I gave a mini workshop at YC 2 years ago...my workshop was on prayer. I used a bunch from the video Hercules from Disney and used the Hero song from that to tie it together. I talked about when we are troubled and when Hercules was trying to figure out who he was..he went and prayed to God,,,who turned out to be his father, just a Heavenly Father is our Father, too. I correlated a bunch between the movie and real life..It turned out really well and was a fun way to teach about the making of a hero and how to use prayer!
Hope that helps