I usually have Wednesday evening clinicals, so I was disappointed when I heard that our young women activity was moved to Wednesday night this week, but, of course, I got my snow day, and so I got the chance to go to the activity... and it was AWESOME!
Elder Bednar and Elder Scott from the Quorum of the 12 Apostles set up a video conference between our ward and another ward in our stake plus a ward or 2 up somewhere in Massachusettes. They could see our youth over the webcam, and our youth could see them, and they could talk and interact. The format was a sort of open forum, where the youth had the chance to approach a microphone and ask the apostles pretty much anything they wanted. There were some excellent questions, and, of course, fabulous answers from the apostles. I was really overwhelmed by how wonderful this opportunity was for our youth. I felt the Spirit in that room as our youth expressed curiosity, concern, and desires to be better. I felt a genuine concern and love for our youth in the answers of the apostles gave. They were very human- it's always fun to see them in settings other than general conference. Elder Bednar told us about a time in high school when he called a bunch of his friends stupid for the choices they were making. Elder Scott shared a funny but sweet story about gaining his personal testimony. He also told a really corny joke that was just awesome. And, at one point, the two of them gave each other... I am not sure what it's called really... "some bones"... people called it the terrorist fist bump when Barack and Michelle Obama did it. It was pretty funny. What an amazing opportunity! I would have loved for that to happen when I was a youth. Heck, I enjoyed it a whole ton now, and I am old and it wasn't even meant for me. Once when I was working as a server at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, I got called in to work on what's called a VIP function. If I remember correctly, the granddaughter of some general authority got married and a bunch of the apostles showed up. Elder Faust came, pushing his cute little wife in a wheelchair. Elder Perry filled the whole room with his big smile and booming voice. I served dinner to Elder Oaks. Elder Scott was there too, shorter in real life than I imagined. I am sure there were others also. I thought it was just the greatest thing at the time to get to even see them in real life and up close. So how great to have the chance to ask them anything you want. How lucky we are to know that there are living prophets and apostles on the earth today.
4 comments:
WOW!! what an amazing experience! i've never heard of them doing that before. i wish i could have come!
That might be because this is the very first time they have ever done it before.
How utterly fabulous!! Now how do we set up something like this for the South Philly youth...? :)
You don't. This is only for cool units.
... but in all seriousness, this was just a trial thing. The Apostles contacted the three wards' Bishops individually. It was an idea Elder Bednar had and he wanted to try it out before making an official proposal to do it regularly.
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