Youth Conference in Monogolia

We were invited to attend and help a little with the Youth Conference this year.  The conference was for the youth ages 14-17 in the Ulaanbaatar West Stake, Ulaanbaatar East District and the Darkhan District.  We think there was around 300 people in attendance with about 230 youth and the rest adult support.

It was held north of Ulaanbaatar.  The youth traveled by train and then walked in 10 km to this camp.  Us old people were taken by car.  We did not know how to get there, so Elder Linford drove and followed President Aidiabold of the district.  He had been there before, so we did not bother to look at the map President Benson had provided for us, we just trusted the local leader to know the way.  The drive was suppose to take only "2 hours".  Well it took us over an hour and a half just to get out of UB. Then we are just following our leader and it seems like it is taking an extra long time to reach the turnoff but we are sure President Aidiabold knows where he is going.  Finally he pulls off, gets out of his car, gets back in and turns around. Apparently we had missed the turnoff a long time ago.  We found the right turn off and were delighted that it was a paved road without a lot of pot holes.  We should make it there now in no time at all.  HA.  As soon as we thought that, the road turned into the famous dirt free way of Mongolia.  You are free to go this way or that way and all of the ways are rough, full of pot holes and hard to drive.  Poor Sister Hill got sea sick and I bet we probably could of walked faster than we drove in a lot of the places.  We finally arrived 51/2 hours after we left.  It was not a 2 hour drive.  We did not arrive until  7:30 at night.

We set up our tent, and they graciously fed us some delicious left overs.  I really want to say this at the beginning.  The cook crew was amazing!  They were chopping wood, preparing fires, preparing meals, cooking, serving, and cleaning up from sunrise to sunset.  They were so service oriented and giving. They were amazing!  Following are some pictures of the lines and the people that were cooking.  I am so glad I did not have to fix meals for over 300 people for 3 days! All of the food was great and prepared with a lot of love!

The youth on this first night were playing games with their own branches.  Some were playing red rover, some different forms of tag, some were playing Simon Says "it was the most creative way I have ever seen, I will have to explain the game some other time"

These are the youth of the Jargalant branch playing Simon Says

There was a crew working on constructing King Benjamin's tower. 

They did a great job and it was used a lot!  

The theme for the youth conference was Moroni 10:32, 

"Come unto Christ", with emphasis on the Book of Mormon

The first night fireside

Thursday morning, get up and get going for the day. 7 am devotional

Then they had breakfast, and get to know you games for the morning. 

Washing up and brushing teeth in the morning

devotional

 The lineup for breakfast.

 This is Muugii's (our translator) brother.  He is a returned missionary, 

he helped with the Jargalant youth and led several different activities.

 Tug o war.  These young ladies were tough.  

They won every time! The young men were quite embarrased but they were good losers 

and the young women were gracious winners, nobody was ever rude that we could tell.

 under the rope.

 Battsetseg.  The young lady Elder Nay baptized.

She was excited to be there but a little nervous as well.

She explained to me that she was shy and a little afraid.

Hopefully it worked out for her.  She was kind of nice to have around to use as a translator,

but she needed to be with the youth and make new friends.

We saw her and she was with someone other branch members most of the time,

so that was good.

 Making flower crowns.

The wild flowers were incredible and the girls were even more beautiful with the 

head wreaths they created!

That afternoon the youth went on the activity, "To the Mountain of the Lord."  We hiked to a local mountain and were given instructions.  One person was blindfolded another would be the Holy Ghost and by touching the blindfolded person would guide that person up the mountain and other people were deceivers or Satan and would randomly come and touch a person to try to trip the person up.  Elder Nay's holy ghost was very good at guiding him up the mountain.  He even led him over stumps and rocks and other obstacles. He did a great job!  They then were given an explanation of how we need to listen and follow the promptings of the spirit as we prepare to go to the "Mountain of the Lord" the temple.

This is the youth from the Jargalant Branch

The rest of the day was spent in preparing, practicing and then performing skits.  Each branch and ward was given a chapter or section in the Book of Mormon to prepare a skit on.  It was fun to see the creativity and the spirituality of each skit.

 Satan tempting Eve to partake of the fruit.

 This skit was on spiritual crocodiles

 The crocodile was great!

 King Mosiah

 Zarahemla

Captain Moroni

Friday again started with a devotional,breakfast, and then a gospel question and answer game.  The 1st and second place were both from our Jargalant branch.  It was a good activity, even though you were not answering the question, you could review it your self as they were being eliminated or answering it right.

After lunch, they went to the river.  We did not get the explanation for this activity,  But they had fun!
Of course after all of the youth are wet, the sun goes away and the thunder storms happen.  They were sent back to their tents to get dry clothes then the rest of the afternoon was spent in 12 different games.  The games that we taught were

The Human knot

Wolves (For my kids, the game is Sharks, but I thought Wolves or CHUN was more appropriate for Mongolia)

We then had a great devotional from the Mission presidency that evening.  President Benson was the Prophet Mormon and gave the youth Mormon's message and then invited other prophets from the Book of Mormon to share what they felt was important for the Youth.  We heard from Alma the Younger, Abinadi and Captain Moroni.  (The title of liberty was written in Mongolian Script, it looked great)
It was a great experience, but the rain was falling pretty hard so they did not have the testimony meeting that they had scheduled.

Saturday morning, we had another great devotional, took down tents, packed up and the youth had to walk back 10km to meet the train that would take them either to UB or Darkhan and then Erdenet for some of them.  Some had a long trip ahead of them

Elder and Sister Linford, President Benson, Bella and John Benson,

Sister Hill, Sister and Elder Nay, Elder and Sister Lewis, Elder Hill 

the little girl is Bat Orgil's daughter, He is in the mission presidency. 

This was our sweet translator that just sort of looked out for us.

I don't know how to spell her name. Buena? 

She was so great.  She helped us with the games we were doing

and anything else we needed.  We are very thankful and grateful for her help!

It was a great experience.  They leaders did a great job.  

Scripture of the week:
 Moroni 10:32 Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.