Thursday, August 21, 2008

Backtrack.

EFY San Antonio, TX: July 21-26
and Counselor Bash in Dallas: July 26-30

My week in Texas was VERY challenging. EFY was piloting a program of offering about 350/800 youth slots at EFY for youth of 2 hispanic Austin stakes. This presented a few problems, which include: The youth had no expectations for EFY and had no idea about the strict schedule and rules, EFY created entire groups and companies of just hispanic youth, therefore creating a segregated feel among the whole session, and the ever-present language barrier. That's right. I had a group of 10 beautiful and talented Hispanic girls, 2 of which didn't speak english. It was a big problem, but at the same time, I went with the flow. We, as in the whole group, prayed, read our scriptures, sang, and bore testimony in Spanish... and by "we" i mean they. It was hard for me to not be able to understand their prayers or testimonies, but i definitely felt the spirit of what they were saying. I had 16-18 yr olds AGAIN. And needless to say, it was a BLAST! Our boys were AMAZING, and overall we meshed really well and learned a lot!

On the plane

My "mean counselor" look

The Entire Group "Being Alone"

The boys! I love them!

The girls! (My weird position is inspired by my constant threats, "I'm going to punch you in the face if you're late".... i'm not kidding. I was mean)

My CoCounselors: Taylor (she goes to UCLA.. Awesome) and Austin (he's awesome. period.)

Once EFY ended, I headed up to Dallas with about 10-15 (at various times) other counselors. We spent the next four days having a BLAST! We went boating twice, went swimming, hot tubbing, GIANT sli'n'sliding, and spent lots of time hanging out and playing with the Wii! SO much fun!

Taylor and Me

Watching the boys push the boat on the trailer because we ran out of gas

P.F. Chang's... yummm!

Chili's

Pool... Me and Derek (grey shirt...) LOST, thanks to me.

GIANT SLIP'N'SLIDE MADNESS!

I hate this picture, but seriously. This thing was made from billboards and was about 100 ft long!

Wii Bowling
My week in Texas was one of the most fun trips I've ever been on! I so enjoyed spending time with people my age after a long week of challenges and girls with attitude! I made a ton of friends and a lot of great memories! (Awwwww)

2 comments:

The Wettstein Family said...

What a blast! I bet you were the best counselor ever!

Cassee said...

You're so freakin' amazing. It's unreal. ADD ME NOW!

casseeologie.blogspot.com