The Best of EFY -Celidah's Perspective

Okay so I got to go to the best of EFY today and I had a blast! When I first got there, it was boring and loud. Then when it actually started, it got really quiet as everyone stopped talking and listened to the beginning announcements. After the announcements, two youth sang all three verses of I Am A Child of God, it was a pretty good performance. Then after a brief introduction, the first speaker came up. He asked four people who he had talked to before EFY started, to come up on stage and help him out. However, only the three boys came up on stage and the girl stayed in her seat. I can't recall the name of the speaker, but he asked one of his helpers, "Why was the earth created?"

The boy he asked answered, "Because he loves us."

The speaker said that was a very good answer and asked the other two boys, and they said the same thing, just worded differently. After he got their answers, the speaker referred to a scripture about why the world was created. The scripture said that the world was created for us to get married and raise a family. That surprised me 'cause I had been taught that the earth was like a big test. The speaker had plenty of good evidence from both the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and outside sources, that the world was created for families. He spoke to us and keep on building on the fact that the world was made for families and that man and women are meant to be equals and live together. At one point, he compared a family to a shirt. He said that life is like making a shirt, it is done best when you follow a pattern. Then the speaker asked, “What kind of things do we use in our lives that are like patterns?”

A couple kids in the audience raised their hands and said that the New Era, Friend, Ensign, Book of Mormon, Bible, and church websites can help us with our patterns. Then he talked about how patterns sometimes have mistakes in them and that the only pattern that was mistake free was Jesus Crist’s life. Then he ended his talk by saying that he hoped we grew up to be great parents and would raise great families.

 The second speaker started off  by telling a story off a student he did private tutoring for. It was a funny story about a detailed set of directions for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The first time the kid gave the speaker his set of directions, it was a very messy fail. Then when he redid the directions, they were much more detailed and the sandwich came out almost perfect. He told that story to try and get us to understand that what he said may not come out as he had hoped.

Then he told us more stories about how he named his four sons. Then at some point, he got all the youth to sing This Little Light of Mine and that led to telling us that we should never hid or blow out our spirit, he called it our ‘light’.  He told us to, “Never hid your light, let it shine BRIGHT!!!” He also told us that our Heavenly Father wants us to stand out and be peculiar to others so we can pass the light on. The speaker told us next, that we should make sure to always protect our light and it would be easier to protect it if we always wore the ‘Armor of Light’. The armor of light would help us against temptations and it would help us choose the right thing more easily. Then he ended his talk.

Next we got to go outside and eat pizza and burritos. And after a bit of waiting, my best friend Kate came in time to go to the dance after the talks and food. Kate and I made friends with a boy who is very similar to us in more ways than one. A couple minutes later, his friend tackled him and the four of us kind ‘a hung out together the next two hours. At one point, Kate and the two guys were doing the chicken dance and didn’t really want to do that, so I just slowly wandered off for a few minutes and started to braid some grass together. When I came back to the spot I had left, Kate tackled me and screamed at me for wandering off without telling her! It was funny for me but apparently not so much for her cause she made sure either her or one of the guys were with me for most of the rest of the dance. I slow danced with the two boys and one of them taught me how to spin and dip, that was fun. Near the end of the dance, I ran into an old classmate and we did the last dance together. However I got lost in his eyes and wasn’t paying attention to when the song ended, Kate had to come tell me the song was over. I have a feeling Matt wasn’t paying attention to the song either…

After the dance was over and it was time to go home, one of the other boys I danced with pulled me off to the side and asked if I liked him. I told him I didn’t know him well enough to answer that, but I though he was cute. Then I gave him a quick peck on the cheek and he turned red. Even though it was dark outside, I could tell he turned red, and I felt my face grow hot so I probably turned red too. Since my friend had pulled me away from Matt, I had to track him back down and I also gave him a quick peck on the cheek, then he had to go. Then in a couple of minutes, mom arrived and I was time to go home.

All in all, this was one of the best nights yet this summer!

Celidah Holt