After some contemplation I decided to try the Bottle bag workshop. Basically it was project to create bags that kids in gambia could use to carry water bottles while they are doing work. What we had to do was plait several pieces of string together to form a "handle" for the bag. Thread it through the head of the bag, tie it off and voila one bottle bag. Seems simple right?
Well it might have been if most of the people in the project didn't seem intent of living up to gender stereotypes. By that I mean all of the girls knew how to plait, the guys didn't have a clue. Muggins here included
However YSA are nothing if not inventive, so the guys and girls quickly paired off in well pairs if you hadn't guessed. The guys held the string while the girls plaited. Yes it meant the guys didn't do too much, but more bottle bags were probably done then if all fo the guys had been trying to plait! A couple of girls found themselves without partners but in a burst of inventiveness actually tied the ends of their strings to their shoes so they could main tension whilst plaiting the string.
But as I mentioned earlier ours wasn't the only workshop going on. Another workshop was creating nativity scenes for under privilaged families
Another workshop was involved in putting designs onto T-shirts that the same school in Gambia that the bottle bags were going to would use as a school uniform.
The next workshop was creating quilts for underprivilaged families. And finally and by no means least the last workshop
was YSA writing their testimonies in copies of Book of Mormons for missionaries to hand out.
The only issue with the workshops were that they finished much too quickly! They had obivously forgotten that many hands make light work and with nothing to do some YSA started to get bored. Like this chap who apparently asking them to help test the theory that it was possible for someone to stay stuck to the wall using duct tape when the chairs were removed.
However the guys who were manning the sound system saw that people were starting to get bored and quickly stuck on some music leading to a few unexpected and unofficial dance starting in the main hall!Once the dancing had subsided it was time for the closing event. YSAs got talent. We only saw the finalists as the auditions had happened on Friday night. One girl from our ward was one of the finalists and sang a fantastic song and I think she came very close to winning. There were some other acts involving singing and dancing which got everybody quite hyper.
and then one girl came on playing the harp and the effect was amazing. It was such beautiful music and you could really feel a sense of the spirit fall on the hall of peace and tranquility.However neither the girl from our ward or the harpist won. The title went to a group who performed the dance routine from Cheryls coles " fight for this love" which I was half expecting when they started because they got the " crown on side" the same as last years winners.
We were then were treated to some videos of photos that had been taken over the weekend before the karaoke sing off between the guys and girls. This year the guys got a much better song to sing to as last year we had to sing " Angels" by robbie williams which is a bit hard to get energetic too. This year we had Bon jovi's Living on a prayer, so just like the girls all of the guys rang to the stage to sing, jump around and generally go a bit nuts with lots of bad air guitars moves.
The guys lost unfortunatly but that might have been down to just a small bit if biase ( as the person who called it was a girl who freely admitted the fact that she was biase!)
The committee then gave their thanks and the chairman gave a beautiful testimony. Then the conference as a whole sang " World in Union" and then with that sudden abruptness that I've got to know so well over the past four years but can never get truely used to that was that.
It was all over.
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