First Youth Conference EVER!

Last week Brent had to do special case interviews on Saturday, so I went to help with the first Youth Conference EVER held in Kinshasa. It was conceived by the Hatches, our office couple, and all the couples went to help. We had support from the youth leadership in the three stakes, and it was great for them to see what could be done. We all felt like it was an enormous success and, more literally, it was enormous!

We arrived at the Kinshasa stake center very early in the morning and set up for registration.

There were names tags with numbers on them to separate the youth into groups. About the time that the conference was to start youth began to arrive.

Since this activity was held in Africa, we didn't expect many to be there at exactly 9:00. To complicate the normally existing problem of late arrivals, Kinshasa traffic is often, and unpredictably, one big traffic jam. No matter what you do to arrive on time it's often just impossible. Sometimes it takes a half hour to get to the stake center and on other days it can take 2 hours. This day Brent tried for two hours to join us after his appointments and never could make it. He finally got rerouted back into town and just gave up.

There are always surprises when Americans work on projects in Africa. A big surprise this time was that the safety pins we used for the name tags were new to the African kids and they had no idea how to fasten them. So, we had to help them learn how to pin something on with a safety pin. After they got the idea, they really liked having them pinned on and many kept their safety pin. Some young people even collected and wore a few of them.

We thought at first that we were going to have about 100 youth, a bit of a disappointing turn out. However, the numbers started to grow as several transports filled with kids who had come together from the stakes located far from the Kinshasa stake center arrived. (Three of the five stakes were invited to this conference.) All morning the kids kept arriving. As it got later the groups got bigger. Youth just kept coming and coming by the bus full. By lunch time, we had 800 young men and women. We gave up trying to assign them numbers and just told them to go to a class and enjoy themselves.

The youth rotated in six different groups through classes with instructors, a rotation of games and one for singing.

They seemed to enjoy them all, but especially loved the games, which were lead by two young American US embassy interns, Andrew and John. They've been here since we arrived and have been fun to involve in activities with the wards and stakes. They leave this week as they finish their internships. We will miss them.

A group of sisters, led by Jackie, who helps in the mission home, worked all day preparing food for the kids. They had peanuts and cookies for a morning and an afternoon snack. But as the numbers mounted we realized that we didn't have enough. NO problem. We just eliminated the afternoon snack. They ate all the cookies and peanuts for the morning snack. Nobody seemed bothered by this. There's not an option to run to the store here, so we just made due and it was OK.

The sisters had planned a drink and a large hoagie sandwich for each person. They spent all day cutting tomatoes, sausages, and cabbage and assembling the sandwiches. When the numbers increased , the sandwiches were quickly cut in half and more drinks were borrowed from the CES building, which is on the same property as the stake center, and lunch was served.

Not a person complained as they waited in a line of 800 for their 1/2 sandwich and drink. They visited and seemed to enjoy the time to just hang out, like teenagers all over the world do.

About 80% of them got rounded up for a group photo. What an amazing time for all of us.

The last event was a meeting where one of the stake presidents and our Area Seventy, Elder Kola, spoke. The youth gathered chairs from the CES building and every classroom and filled the chapel, and cultural hall for the closing meeting.

After the meeting was finished a "dance " was planned. We were thinking American again and found out that a "dance" was a performance event in Africa. Several groups got on stage and danced. After a few groups it started to be obvious that "dancing" might not work too well, especially with 800 youth. So, the party came to an end.

It was an enormously successful event and 800 youth had a great time mingling and seeing the strength of the young members of the church in their city.

*******

This weekend the other two stakes held this activity. We missed it because we were flying off to Matadi, a city about an hours flight from Kinshasa. We flew on a tiny 15 seater prop plane, landing on a dirt airstrip and wondering how in the world we ended up here. But again the conference was a great success. There were 600 in attendance this weekend.

More Fun More Learning

More kids enjoying being together and seeing how strong their numbers are.

That's a total of 1,400 LDS youth enjoying themselves and feeling the spirit together. No matter where you are in the world, could anything be better? I think not!