.Reach For Excellence Day 3&4.

So now that i have sufficient photos i can continue to blog about convention!!! YAY!
Ok, so on Sunday morning we attended church with our billets. For Leia and I this meant morning church at the Hobart chapel, 9am. It was fast and testimony meeting which was nice, because i didnt know anyone from Hobart so it was cool to hear them get up and talk. Sunday school was very interesting with about 20 or so youth there! We had to have it in the sacrament room itself because there wasn't a room big enough. The lesson was on... something to do with developing talents.. oops i cant quite remember! That's bad!!!
Our young womens lesson was taught by the lady we were billeting with Charlotte Prebble. The lesson was about service and was absolutely fantastic-even though we had the lesson in Deloraine over three weeks ago.
After church we headed back to our billets house to chill before it was time to head to meet everyone. Now on the way home from church probably THE funniest thing i have seen in years happened. Now to get the full effect of this story you have to know a little bit about what Charlotte and Jake are like. They are a young married couple who are just wicked and expecting their first baby in like 8 months lol. When we first met them on the Friday night they took us straight to Maccas and got us some food! Then when we arrived at their house they showed us around, it went something like this: This is our room, the bathroom, toilet in there, this is the room you will stay in, sorry there's only one bed-someone will get a matress on floor, (Jake opens a random cupboard) This is our food storage-if at ANY point during your stay you are feeling slightly pekish just open this up and help yourselves...

Anyway- back to Sunday. So we are driving home from church and Jake and Charlotte are asking all about the amazing race and what park we had lunch in. Once Jake realised that the park we were describing wasn't the park near their house he decided to take us there. It was a HUGE slide-about 20m long! So of course we want to go down it in church clothes and all (this is a skirt i might add)...So we get to the top and Leia decides to go first... she is about to go down when she says "Oh- i just had a feeling to take my heals off!, nah i'll be right, what could happen im going down on my bum!" ... WELL- she gained ALOT of speed and went flying down this slide and once at the bottom her heals hit the mud and get stuck! She then flips through the air-pretty much sumersaulting and then rolling across the mud several times!! At this point her skirt is up over her head! I am at the top almost peeing with laughter and Jake and Charlotte are pretty much rolling on the grass having lost it completely! All through the rest of the day we just looked at each other and cracked up!!!

So when we met up with everyone at the chapel we went in for an opening prayer then were divided into 3 groups at random to learn a song to sing. I absolutely LOVED my song!! It was sooo wicked! I really enjoyed singing it.. Anyway, we all learnt the songs, had some dinner and desert (Where Leia broke her braces) then proceded into the chapel to have a fireside and testimony meeting. I can't remeber who opened it all (OOPS! it was a leader!!) then he gave his testimony, then a song was sung.. It was a beautiful song and everyone loved it. Then another leader gave their testimony (In my defence they are south leaders and i dont know their names!!) then the second song was sung. This one was mine. It was so beautiful and i was tearing up whilst singing! Then president Prebble from south shared his testimony and then the last song was sung- Sarah Parsons. It was sooo wicked! She wrote it herself and she had me in tears!! I think i liked Sarah's song the best and ALOT of people agree!!

President Prebble from north then shared his testimony and invited everyone to share their own. I was crying uncontrolably whilst pres P was speaking which was crazy coz it normally takes me a while to get going, but the spirit that was present from the moment the songs were sung was just amazing!!! I was getting promptings to get up first but there was no way as i was crying WAY too much!! So i waited a bit- and kept getting stronger and stronger promptings.. I was thinking to myself- nah ill just wait til the end.. BUT as you members would know-if you are ment to get up at a certain time- you are going to get up!!! The next thing i know my hands are shaking uncontrolably and then my legs started!! Bek whispered to me "You better get up there!" i was still like nah ill wait... BUT the next thing i know i have been lifted out of my seat by nothing but the spirit and since i am standing i HAVE to go up lol. Once i was up there i started crying unconrtolably again which was quite embarrassing because i REALLY wanted to get my words out! But i couldn't stop-especially when i looked at people!! So i said as much as i could and got down..
It went for about 2 and a half hours, and all the testomony's that were shared were just amazing! The spirit in the room is like nothing i had ever felt before-and i know everyone could feel it-even the nonmembers. By the end of it alot of people were crying (Not everyone, as pres P said-we all feel the spirit differently)... They closed then we all moved into the foyer for ALOT of hugs!!! It was great!!!
We then all went into the hall for some photos of everyone- which was kinda silly, we should have done it BEFORE we all bawled our eyes out!! We then were picked up by our billets and left. Well-everyone else was. I had to wait around because Leia broke her braces and had to go home so that took a while to organise.. I then went to stay with all the other Prebbles so i wasn't by myself.

Eveyone on Sunday...

Leanne, Sam, Amber, Tayla, Leia, Me and Britney...

So... We headed back to Charlotte and Jake's to pack our stuff. We got it all cleaned up-we had stuff ALL over the room! And there were snacks everywhere. Charlotte kept saying leave it i'll clean it up- BUT Leia and I are Jayne's young women and she would have NEVER allowed us to leave it how it was! So we cleaned it all, Leia left and Charlotte, Jake and i went over to the Prebble's.

This is President Prebble and his wife's house from down south. There were SO many people there! I only knew- Pres P and wife from south, Pres P and wife from north, Bek prebble, Tayla Christie, Sam Prebble, Leanne, Lizzie, Jimbo and his wife, and another couple of people!! I was pretty much falling alseep as it was about 11pm but i didnt want to go up to bed as they were trying to get the baby's to sleep up there.

I was texting Lisa King about the testimony meeting, and soon realised pres Scott was doing the same. Everytime he would get a text he would stop what he was doing and go sit down on the fireplace and sit and read it, have a giggle to himself then start texting back with one finger! I realised that Lisa and I were probably sending 5 back and forth in the time he could send one! (HAHA). I teased him he was a slow texter-(BAD MOVE!) ... It was hilarious because he didnt have a clue i was talking to Lisa and kept telling her about the day and she would say "Yeah i already know that" (he told me this) and he couldnt figure out how! LOL! (Later on he finally figured it out when i said Lisa called him a slow texter first!) He realised we were texting each other. The look on his face was hilarious!!

So we all chilled and then everyone except the people staying there left... Pres P and wife from North went to bed, Bek and Jimbo and his wife, Aimee went upstairs to chat. This left Sam, Leanne, Lizzie, and Lisa Prebble sitting on couches. And Tayla, Pres P (Scott) and I playing cards at the bench. Tayla was showing us her wicked as magic tricks and we were both just enthralled because we could NOT figure them out!!! Pres Scott P and I had a great chat-a big D&M about my conversion to the church and my family and all sorts of stuff... Everyone else just sort of listened to my fastinating tale!

Then after the clock ticked over to 12:05 making it no longer Sunday Bek, Leanne, Tayla, Sam and Lizzie decided it was time for a trip to the shop for "Dollar dogs" Which used to be hot dogs for a dollar but i am told they are now 2.50! They thought i was just being polite saying i would be the one to stay behind (because of lack of room in car) But i truthfully could NOT be bothered!!! So while they went to the shop i sat on the couch and had a big D&M with Pres Scott and Sis Lisa Prebble. About an hour later they returned from the shop, without the dollar dogs!! Aparently the man in from bought the last one so they all got ice creams-and because im not a huge fan of ice cream Tayla bought me chocolate =) We then found out the reason they took so long was because Sam was last to be served and couldn't get away from the check out boy! All the others were waiting in the car, but he just kept chatting to her =P

We all then decided it was time for bed and headed up. We then got chatting to Jimbo, his wife Aimee and Bek Prebble about who hooked up with who, who like who etc etc... This went on until about 2:30 when we finally fell asleep exhausted!

Monday morning we were meant to meet everyone at the chapel at 9am. You would think with both stake presidents in the house we would be there on time? Nope!! We woke up at like 8:15 and had to get ready and pack all our stuff. We were ready to go but then Sis Prebble (South presidents wife) wouldn't let us leave without breaky so we waited for that to cook. We left at like 9-getting to the chapel at 20 past where everyone had given up on us and were already leaving for the service project! The whole way in the car the only thing Pres P said to me was "I cant believe you said i was a slow texter!, I'll get you back!"

We finally found the place for the service project which was a forest behind... I think it was called Talousa Park... We met a lady there who showed us the different weeds we needed to pull and then got some gloves, divided ourselves into groups and got started.

Deloraine Youth before the service project.

After about ten minutes our lovely "Mormon helping hands" shirts arrived. We stuck these on and went back to work. I could NOT figure out how on earth sticks were hitting me in the head-UNTIL i looked over and saw this man!!! Doesn't he look innocent!!!

I threw a stick back (Slyly) but he picked up a log and threw that!!!!

Pres P and Maddi got in a big fight because she said he looked older than his brother but he is actually 8 years younger!!! =P

Pres P ended up completely owning Maddi who had dug a very big hole for herself!!

Everyone at work...

I love this photo. Sister Lisa Prebble took it, she came over and said "Ok, im taking a photo now, so actually pretend you are working!" Hahaha

We stopped about half way through for some water and chips... Then at the end we headed back to the chapel for lunch.

On the way back Pres P thought it would be funny to try and get me back for the slow texter comments!!! He pulled up alongside some boys walking and wound down MY window and yelled out "Hiiii" in a VERY girly voice and giggled!!! I told him i dont get embarrassed by anything (which is true) so he took this as a challange and preceeded to yell out ALOT of stuff to ALOT of poeple out MY window and they though it was me!!!

Then when we got out of the car at the chapel he yelled out "ewww! Makayla! You stink! Couldn't you have waited until we were out of the car to let that go!!" LOL. I was laughing SOOO much!

At the chapel we played some basketball then had a bbq lunch...


It was then the annual "last-day-of-convention-take-as-many-crazy-photos-as-you-can" time!

This one cracks me up coz Abraham said

"Makayla-you come next to me in this photo!"

This photo was "everyone hug Leanne!!"

This one stated with the boys trying to challenge

me to show my guns and everyone else joined in!!

Sam! She was shaking her head.

Im not sure about this- i was not a part of this =P

They made a pyramid...


Then we all layed down and got some wicked shots =)

Sometime during all this madness the Devonport people left-

but not before we got the annual last day group photo!!!

At 2 o clock we all left and headed to the bus stop. We got there and they told us we were at the wrong spot!! So we had to wait for ages and thought it was a great time to go to the shop and get fizzy drinks (reinforcements!)... Finally our bus came- we piled on, and off we went back home!!

I missed most of the happenings of the bus on the way home because as Kieran said "I was a party pooper" because i was reading my Book Of Mormon... Then i had a sleep!!!

I do believe there were some massages given-and a lot more photos taken-thankfully none of me asleep as Dan said i was drooling!! I do NOT believe him!!!

We got back to Launnie, the Town people left, Del and Westbury got onto another bus and went home...

It was a great convention. I was sad it was my last but also happy because i am ready for something new =) Next time that i am on a youth convention i will be a leader (Fingers crossed!)

And that my friends is the 2009 second Youth Convention.

We really missed Jayne and Lisa on the Sunday and Monday!!!