The Fountain of Youth

I spent most of last week as the "ma" (i.e., female leader) of a group of about 7 young people who attended the New York LDS stake's youth conference.

Youth conference was awesome. And exhausting. And fun. And did I mention tiring? I don't have the stamina of teenagers: all of the late nights, VERY early mornings, and lots of trekking all over Manhattan is too much for an old person like me. Yet, I was blessed with the strength to keep going...until I could stop. And then I slept for a LONG time.

There were about 70 young people who attended, split into 10 "families" each with a female leader (aka "ma") and a male leader (aka "pa"). Except for Friday night when we camped out at Inwood Hills park, we stayed over at other homes--all the boys going with the "pa" to one apartment, and all the girls in the family going with the "ma" to another place. I'll share with you in another post some of my experiences staying with my girls at the Orton family's apartment in Inwood.

Me with David (my 1st partner) and all the "kids"

Some interesting bits from the past week ('cuz there is too much, lemme sum up):

• Being around all of the youth (ages 13 to 17) made me feel young again. And as I focused on serving them, I forgot about my problems. What job search? What diminishing bank account?
• Seeing so much of Manhattan! Roosevelt Island, Times Square, Union Station, Central Park, Inwood Hills park (the place where the Hudson and the East rivers meet--which looks like it should be in upstate New York, not in Manhattan), Grand Central Station, Wall Street, and so on.
• Assisting the youth in my family as we did baptisms for the dead in the Manhattan temple. I got to be the towel girl and provide towels to each of the youth as they exited the font--and I received quite a few wet hugs. Very special.
• Providing the content for genealogy classes (including the handouts and Power Point presentations) and then seeing the 5 youth facilitators teach the others about how to research their ancestors. Incredible!
• Helping my group register to use new.FamilySearch.org...and noticing that most of them were born the year I graduated from high school. (That made me feel VERY old!)
• Associating with the other leaders and finding some kindred spirits and other quirky people like me.
• Dancing on a boat cruise around the East River. 'Nuff said.

Sunset from the deck of the boat. You can see the Statue of Liberty and other boats in the river. Pic taken by Christian, one of my "kids."