Father's and Son's Crashers!!

I have never been to a Father's and Son's outing, but about a month ago Garen's mommy, Saundra called me up and asked me to get Cami and help out with a program for the boys at the camp.  You may think it's funny that a bunch of girls would show up to a boy's camp of sorts, but Saundra felt that somehow a  speaker from the ward just wouldn't reach the young boys the way a few young women and some good music could. So we got together a few times and practiced and performed some beautiful songs that were interspersed in a lovely little script of quotes from conferences and important priesthood messages.

Music is so powerful!

Can I please sing with this girl more often, like old times?

It was fun to get to know a little bit and sing with these cute girls!  (Sorry for the cut-off, Cam.)

I got to sing one of my favorite songs,
"My Kindness Shall Not Depart From Thee."

 Then it was my turn to share my testimony of why the Priesthood is important to me.  This is something I feel so passionately about, so I thought long and hard about what I wanted to say to these future missionaries/husbands/fathers/leaders.

 First I summarized this powerful story told by Elder Holland:

Then I told them that in the next song we were going to sing, we sing about being "warriors."  I told them that this is what the Priesthood means to me - it's not just that I can benefit from father's blessings or blessings of healing but it means that in the battle of good and evil, which we are all most definitely a part of, I can be confident that the men in my life will stand ready to fight and do whatever it is the Lord asks of them.  With a fierce love for the gospel.  In emergency situations (literally or figuratively) they will be prepared and qualified to call upon the power of God that they should be holding with the most precious care. 

I told them that some of my dearest friends are in the thick of this battle serving full time missions.  I told a few of them before they left: 

You are going to change the world.

I told these boys that it may be hard for them to grasp right now, but that Ezra Taft Benson said, 

"changed men can change the world."

I told them that I believe this with all my heart, and that if they will live worthily, the Lord will mold them into the finest tools they could possibly be.  

Then I thanked them.  That's when I got a bit choked up.  Oh my goodness, I looked at these boys (some of them super young, and some of them just trying to get through high school), and just felt so overwhelmed with gratitude for the good that they were going to do in this world and in God's kingdom.  

What a security it is to us women to know that.

I share this because it's what is in my leettle heart, and I am full of joy!  I feel so blessed to have gotten to participate in something like this, and I feel so unbelievably inexplicably blessed to have the Priesthood in my life. 

Keep it up, boys!  

You are going to change the world!!

I mean it. 

The gang!
Special thanks to Andersons for thinking of me for this program, and for putting it all together.