Manchester YSA Conference 2009: Saturday morning " Classy classes"

When my alarm went off the first thought that flashed through my head was more or less the same one that I get every year. " argghh, it's 7.30am on a Saturday morning, why am I paying to get up at 7.30am on a Saturday morning!" My second thought was to get out of bed and stop complaining otherwise I wouldn't get any breakfast.


I ran into J alfred on the way back from breakfast, which would prove amusing later as he started to have the same conversation with me to my complete and utter bafflement as he hadn't woken up properly at the time he first ran into me and had thus forgotten the conversation.

We headed over to the main centre for the devotional. In a good change the devotionals had been reduced from a hour to 30 minutes which made them much easier to listen to. In my defence it's been four years and those seats still aren't anymore comfortable!

In another change as well as running activities on the Saturday there were also running a series of institute workshops and showing films in the hotel they have on campus which you could go to instead of the activities. Bro H was going to be teaching the first lesson so we decided that we would give that a go.

We headed over to the hotel and were immediatly impressed with it's classyness. They even had refreshments served in proper glasses, poured from glass bottles. All in all very posh.

I decided for the next session to try the speed dating activity. Now it was broadly along the same lines as last year. A question was flashed up on the screen, you asked each other about it and then someone moved on depending on what the screen then showed " Move if your wearing a watch etc"

Rather then being in pairs this year you were in groups of four which made it a lot easier ( and more fun) however the sheer number of YSA who turned up for this workshop/session made it very hard to hear and you had to DO A LOT OF SHOUTING! Which isn't really the best way to introduce yourself to people.

However I did meet a YSA who will be attending Leicester Uni this year which means that the numbers of YSA in the stake will be going up by at least 1 come September.

I also met the former Elder Boyd who had just returned home after serving in our ward, so he was attending conference as a 'civilian'. Which meant he looked strangly scuffy, almost like he was going through some sort of rebelliousness.

Still it had been a good morning and I was ready for the fun and games that the afternoon would bring.