Petersen 911: Suckers and the Twelve Tribes!

Today I made suckers. I've never made them before so I thought I'd give it a whirl. Why, you ask?
Well, Dave and I have been asked to go help with our Stake Youth Conference this week and I wanted to give the kids something yummy. We will be in charge of approximately 15 kids, ranging in age from 14-18. We will sort of be their "mom and dad" for three days while they attend this conference. We are going to invade a small Utah town named Loa (population 520) with our group which consists of about 300 kids and about 50 adults. So we will almost double the size of this little town. But do not fear, we come in peace and mean no harm. In fact, while we are there, we will be doing some service projects like making 12 picnic tables for their city park, picking up trash, sanding and painting old tables, etc.

Fast forward 5 days...
We are back! I never had time to finish the original post so now I'll just post what we DID do.

There is not much to Loa. It's your quintessential "small Utah town". Lot of fields where crops are growing, Quaint farm houses sprinkled over the land. One large chapel where they meet for church. One grocery store, one hardware store, and one hotel. Yup, not much to it but kinda cute.

When we got there, we all piled out of the cars and met at the city park. This was to be our home base for the entire time we invaded this town. We got a few instructions on what the plan was and then we were off and running to Capital Reef State Park which is about 30 minutes from the park.

Once in the park, we were sent on a hike through what is known as the "Grand Wash". The only thing we were told as leaders was that is would be about 5 miles and then the shuttle cars would be there to pick us up. Okay, fair enough, I thought. So we set off walking...The thing is, is they didn't tell us that we should wear cool clothing, and pack lots of water and that we would be walking in a dry river bed, which meant SAND the entire way! I was able to get some pretty cool pictures. See below.

Starting off down the path...

Along the way they had people of the "Old Testament" times there to share short stories about their lives.

Dave walking behind the kids to make sure there weren't any stragglers.

Our girls

Cool canyon picture

When we finally got to the end of the path, we were taken to a park within the state park, to play games and then to eat lunch. By the time the kids finished the walk, I didn't think they'd want to do anything but lay on the grass, but to my amazement, they played.

We were then taken back to Loa to set up tents (where the kids slept) and to drop our stuff off at "The Barn" where most of the leaders stayed. Now, when I say barn, this is in no way what you are thinking a barn should look like. The owners converted a barn into a bunch of vacation rentals that are used for reunions and such.

Dave and I stayed in the room closest to the chimney with the red door.

The boys pitched their tents outside of the barn

Jeffrey and his buddies

Some of our boys

I didn't get any pictures of the place were the girls pitched their tents. They were about 1 miles from the boys, outside of two Victorian homes. Some more of the leaders stayed in the homes while the girls tented it outside.

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Amanda is on the stake youth counsel so she gave one of the devotionals

KIDS everywhere!

FOOD everywhere!

SERVICE everywhere!

Clearing rocks and boulders out of a field so it could be planted.

One of "our kids" handling a boulder.

This is just ONE of four large rock piles that they collected.

BUILDING everywhere!

While the kids were busy doing things around town, there were a handful of men who constructed a Tabernacle, just like the one Moses built. No kidding! It was the exact measurements and specs as talked about in the Old Testament. This thing was HUGE! On the inside, they constructed the inner sanctuary or the Holy of Holy's where the Arch of the Covenant was placed. The men who built this did an amazing job and worked from sun up to sun down for 2 days straight! Then afterwards, they tore it all down!

These pictures don't do it justice but it's the best I could do.