Celebrating Awesomeness

Friday night was our youth temple trip.  We have around 50 youth in our ward but during the summer our numbers really thin out.  What was looking to be a low turn out of 8 boys and 8 girls, ended up being perfect.  We have been encouraging our youth and their parents to bring their own family names when they come to the temple.  When we met up to carpool I was handed several sheets of names to be printed out when we got there.  Oh boy, I had my work cut out for me.

If anyone is familiar with the process, you know that doing your own names complicates the process.  I think it's a fun problem to have, but boy did it take quite a bit of organization.  We had more than enough family names for 16 youth to do 10 names.  That is 160 names.  We didn't get to do all of them because we would have been there all night.  We supplemented our family names with about 40 temple names to help the process go more smoothly.  

We have a tradition of the leaders treating the youth to a favorite burger place after going to the temple, but this time 2 of the cars were feeling like shaved ice instead.  R made what I thought looked like a Moab arch...or a donut with a bite out of it.  She was the only sculptor among us. I didn't get pics of everyone because they kept hiding from me or putting their hands in front of their faces.

We have some great youth and I love having the opportunity to work with them.  In fact when I spoke on Sunday, in the program I was listed as the youth speaker.  Hahaha.  That was pretty funny and people teased me and asked who I paid off to say that.  :o) But, seriously though, they inspire and uplift me everyday.  

Our area has heeded the call to do family history so much that a special session at the temple had to be opened up just for this purpose.  Every Friday from 1-5 you can go by yourself or with your family and do baptisms for your ancestors.
 Pretty cool.
Then you could go be even more cool with some shaved ice.
Like seriously cool.

Next time, I'll get a smaller one because I was freezing!
Added bonus:
If it's raining, like it was when we left (and by raining I mean probably 10 drops fell)
You've got a complimentary drink umbrella to help keep you dry!