Today at youth conference one of our activities was to spend at least 10 minutes in the room with the Christus statue and write our testimony or what we were thankful to Christ for. I really enjoyed it and hope that it impacted our youth. It reminded me of the only youth conference activity from my youth that I can remember, which was when we spent 20 minutes (as I recall) alone in a mountain meadow and were instructed to meditate and ponder on the gospel and then we were to write our testimonies on brass plates that had been given to us.
After I got home tonight I went through my memorabilia and found the brass plates from 1994. I read what I had written then with what I wrote today. They sound to me like they were written by the same spirit although the current version sounds more matured. (I would hope so after 13 years.)
Another experience that touched me was losing my water bottle. I realized as we were heading to our 7th task detour that I no longer had it. I knew that I had been using it after we left from lunch for the 5th task so that limited my search area. I went looking in the church history museum while my group was in the Family History Library for the 7th task. I could not find the water bottle. I thought of praying for it, but it%u2019s just a water bottle and not worth investing my soul in it or offering up half a prayer. The feeling that I should pray persisted and I relented. I prayed to know the will of the Lord and honestly admitted that I%u2019d like to have the water bottle back as well. I still did not find the water bottle or know where to look so I returned to my group.
Later, at the end of task 7 as we left the Family History Library, I noticed the log cabin between there and the Church History Museum and I knew precisely where the water bottle was. I had left it when I wrote down answers for task 5 at the cabin. I realized as I thought about the experience that the impression to pray was not so much about the water bottle as it was about my faith and about listening to the promptings of the Spirit – and by the way, the Lord is more than willing to take the time to remind me where I set the water bottle down.