I Love the Youth!

I started writing this last month while I was in Washington with my family, but didn't have time to finish and post it.


For the past few weeks, I've been hanging out with Logan and Torrey at their YW/YM (ages 12-17) activities on Wednesday night at the church.

On the first Wednesday (November 3), Torrey had Young Women in Excellence and Logan had something where they put together announcements to hang on doors for the Boy Scout Christmas Tree drive.  Carmen loved hanging out with all of the girls and I was able to staple some papers together with the guys and talk to our ward's missionaries.

Last week (Nov 10), everyone just had meetings to plan fun activities for next year and Logan played basketball with his friends.  Carmen and I were playing out in the hall, then Carmen peeked into the room they were having the meeting in and saw Logan and ran straight into his arms.  I heard everyone in the room go "Awww!" when she walked in.

On Friday (Nov 12), all of the youth met at the church because they were going to the temple in Bellevue to do baptisms for the dead.  Logan went early to play basketball with his friends.  Torrey forgot church clothes at home, so I left Carmen at the church with Logan to run home and let Torrey change.  I got back, and all of the kids said Carmen was adorable and had fun watching the guys play basketball.  Luckily there are a few other balls in the gym that Carmen likes to throw around.

Tonight (Nov 17), the youth held a dance for some special needs kids in the area.  Mom teaches some of the Activity Day girls (ages 8-12) on Wednesday nights and invited me to come to the church to hang out with everyone at their activities.  I'll take any excuse to get out and be with people, and Carmen loves being surrounded by people.  Also, bringing Carmen along gave everyone in my family an excuse to leave on time because Carmen has to go home to go to bed. ;)  I love sneaky ulterior motives.

I was thankful for the opportunity to leave Carmen to play and dance around with some of the youth.  I told Logan and Torrey (and everyone) that I'd just be in the hall right outside the gym working on my cross-stitch if anyone needed me to get Carmen, calm her down, change her diaper, whatever.  I loved sitting there, listening to the music, listening to the youth have fun, thinking about ... I don't know.  Anything.  I love how nice the youth in the Church are, and how they can spend a Wednesday evening holding a goofy dance with special needs kids and you don't have to worry about them and what they're doing.  They can listen to Lady Gaga and Cotton-Eyed Joe and Taylor Swift and Queen and do the hokey pokey.  It's fun, dang it!

Mom said this year they've had 12 drug busts at Logan's school, as opposed to 6 by this time last year.  And most of them are in Logan's grade.  It seems he thinks his grade is full of losers (and I don't blame him!) and he's looking forward to taking some classes at the local community college next year.  I'm really glad I don't have to worry much about what and how he's doing, and that I generally don't have to worry excessively about what the other youth are doing.  Yeah, you have problem kids everywhere, but it seems that in the Church you get a high proportion of good, nice people you actually want to be around.


I love my parents' ward.  I love the people in Sammamish.  I love the families.  I wish I hadn't moved in halfway through my junior year, because I still feel like I don't have the same background and history as all of the friends I met in high school had with each other.  Now everyone reaches out to me because they have strong ties with my family and my siblings, and it's really nice, but ... I don't know.  I really like everyone and wish I could've had more time living with the people here!!