The Fountain of Youth

The Beaumont Stake and the Orange Stake combined again this year for Youth Conference. YC is a 3 or 4 day conference for the youth of our church in our area, ages 14-18. They have dances, service projects and activities to help the youth bond with one another and help their testimonies of our Savior, grow.

About a month or so ago, Johnny was asked to speak at Youth Conference. His topic was Media/Music and he did a fantastic job! (I know because he practiced it for me.) He made a PowerPoint presentation called Broadcasting Live and presented it 4 times at Dan Packard's house. (Thanks to Dan & Allison for providing their home!) He started with an example of guided imagery- tasting a lemon. It was the perfect introduction to such an important topic.

Close your eyes.

Imagine you are in a dark room- so dark you can't see your hand in front of your face.

Now, imagine a light shines down in the center of the room, and only shows a small, round, white table, not even the dark floor around the table is visible. On the table you see a plate with four wedges of freshly cut lemons.

You open your mouth just wide enough that your teeth scrape the lemon, knocking a few drops off onto your tongue. Next, you bite down and the individual cells swell and burst under the pressure. This causes an explosion of lemon juice rushing over your teeth and every taste bud of your tongue.

Now, open your eyes.

If you followed the instructions correctly, you should have had a physical reaction. Your mouth should have filled with saliva, and you may have had a sour facial expression, maybe even felt the pain of lemon juice filling your mouth. (If you want to, try this out on your spouse or next of kin, before they read this post. See what reaction you get.)

Johnny went on to explain the power of words and the power of how the chemical messengers in the body work. Chemical changes can occur just from thinking about words (the lemon). This effects our moods which changes the chemicals in our bodies. Television, radio, etc all influence our mood and the chemicals in our bodies. What we see, what we hear- we are influenced by. Remember that all chemicals are matter. And the body is matter- chemicals, from head to toe. And then he tied how seeing and hearing affects our spirit.

Doctrine and Covenants 131:7-8
7. There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes;
8. We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.

Matthew 6:22-23
22. The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
23. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

Then he gave a quote from President Gordon B. Hinckley about staying away from pornography (all bad media):
"Leave it alone! Get away from it! Avoid it! It is sleazy filth! It is rot that will do no good! You cannot afford to watch videotapes of this kind of stuff. You cannot afford to read magazines that are designed to destroy you. You can't do it, nor even watch it on television. ...Stay away from it! Avoid it like the plague because it is just as deadly, more so. The plague will destroy the body. Pornography will destroy the body and the soul. Stay away from it! It is as a great disease that is sweeping over the country and over the entire world. Avoid it! I repeat, avoid it!"

He talked about media and music and transmitting and receiving. He talked about how the Holy Ghost is also called an internal cell phone (President Thomas S. Monson) and how we "tune into it". He said, we are always transmitting and receiving and that the most important transmitters and receivers are the Savior and ourselves. We cannot turn off our receiver, we can only change the channel. We are always broadcasting.

His presentation flowed much better and was more eloquent, but you get the picture.

While he was at YC, the kids and I visited my family. The kids had so much fun with Lia and Jake & Brandon. Bryn had so much fun with Aaliyah, Khalil and Ethan. I had so much fun with my mom and Marianne and Rachel. AND Marianne highlighted my hair! She is so good at it, among her many talents. Thanks Marianne! I'll post a pic when I have someone to take it (and when it's fixed :)

So it was a fun day! We're glad Johnny got to participate in Youth Conference and that we got to play! I forgot my camera- so I apologize for my lack of pictures.