The Big Youth Family History Event

 IT guys busy at setting up the borrowed laptops.  We borrowed over 40 laptops.  We had to have and extra DSL line put in for this event.  I worried we would not have enough laptops but we did!  Yea!

 Callie brought her laptop and stayed to help set up.  Here she is working on the "Time Line".

 Laurel Class Presidents who are members of the Stake Youth Committee who helped plan this event, Rachel Tenney and Amanda Barker.

 Jeanette Hall doing a little more work on the fabulous family history chart she had prepared and graciously offered to display at our event.  It was quite amazing and I might just want to copy that idea.  Hmm...

 This is the walk way these sweet ladies (Veronica Witte, Dee Bashford, Kelly Griffey and Keli Despain) created for the youth to enter the gym through.  I brought most of the supplies and then they worked their magic.  After it was all set up, Sandra Loucks opened the curtains and showed them their was a bench directly behind the curtain.  We had a good laugh, located the opening between the benches and moved the "walkway" accordingly.

 I backed over 80 of my old pictures for Rod's line and my line.  Cami and Caylee helped me string them.  We hung them on "family trees" marking the entrance into the room.  If you knew where to look, you could see a picture of Rod as a small boy.  There were quite a few pictures of  my parents and grandparents.  It was fun for me to put together.  Now I have to undo it and refile all of the pictures.  Manyana (Is that how you spell it?)

 I took pictures of these International flags off the internet, purchased material then recruited my quilting friends to make these flags for me.  They did a great job.  Everyone thought they were commercially made.  Becky Bright hung wires across the gym so we could suspend the flags and the posters identifying each "port of call".

 Sweet ladies who showed up with their computers fully loaded with indexing projects, ready to teach the youth how to index.  We kept a record of who indexed the most.  The winner was a boy, indexing 24 lines and then Audra Heeb indexing 23.  Most youth did 5 to 10 lines.  I wonder how many batches are left on my computer for me to finish up?

 These three popcorn bags were the prizes for the day.  They contained bags of microwave popcorn, theater candy and a $10 gift certificate to AMC.  As the youth completed activities in each port of call, they received a stamp on their passport which was redeemed for a raffle ticket.  Three lucky winners had their raffle numbers drawn.

 We meet in the chapel first for a 20 minute presentation and introduction by Steve Rockwood.  He did such a great job!  Then opened up the back curtains and invited the youth into the gym.  Here they come!

 The International dessert table.  We had it roped off so no one would eat while the computers were in use.  After we awarded the raffle prizes, the dessert table was opened up.  They went through the food pretty fast but all went away happy.  I made Mom's recipe for Swedish Cresent Cookies.  Their was one left at the end which Caylee and I shared.  Rod dropped her off at 3:30 so she and I could attend Ella Jones' baptism at 4:00.  It made for a really long day for me but totally worth it.  I was so excited over the success of the activity, I couldn't stop grinning.

 Indexers in action.  Notice the time line wall in the background.

 Family Search in action.  Notice Br Rockwood in the background.  During his presentation, he talked about always wanting to be a cruise director, so he put on the black bow tie, white suit coat and then dropped his drawers to reveal those plaid shorts.  The crowded roared.  It was pretty fun!  He was perfect.  I am so glad he helped us out.  We ended the event with remarks by Br Rockwood and then a video of Elder Bednar discussing the doctrine of  family history work.  It was a great way to end.

 Audra Heeb in the foreground and Clair Heeb int he background looking at familysearch.org.

 We had and MC and music playing during the event.  Rachel Tenney and Mark Hall seized the opportunity to share a little dance.  Notice the hanging signs.  I had a senior, Noah Weldon do the artwork.  They were really cute.

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We invited the full time Elders to help with the event.  Notice the time line in the background.  The youth were invited to put up birth, marriage and death dates.  We didn't take it down after the event.  It was too cool to see all of that.  Hopefully the three wards that meet in the Stake Center will see it tomorrow and maybe be a little inspired to do some Family History Work.

I am so very happy with how well it all turned out.  It was a miracle, we had enough computers, the decorations were outstanding, the food was fabulous, the volunteers were available in abundance and the youth showed up and seemed to have a great time.  I feel very blessed and grateful.