APTC/"Welcome Home Brother"/ meaningfull experience

this week I went to A.P.T.C. and I had two experiences that I want to write about. the first one was called "welcome home brother." We all put blind folds on except for the D.L.'s (District Leaders) because they were the ones leading us around. Before we put the blind fold on, they told us to "Listen for The One who will lead you Home." So, we had to be completely quiet and trust that the person leading us knew where he was going. after probably 30-45 minutes I heard a lot of boy's singing voices coming from somewhere really close. The next thing I knew this HUGE hand touched my shoulder and said "Welcome Home Brother. Now, you can either go back out with your Brother that's leading you and try to find more people, OR you can stay here and sing with all your brothers. what would you like to do?" I  said "Stay here and sing," but now that I look back on it, I probably could've found more people to come and sing with us. The moral of the story was, there are people out there that are looking for someone who "has the Truth," we just need to be that person and "go looking for those who need us." We might not know where they are but it's all worth it in the end because we'll all end up together. They might even be right in front of us and we wont even know until we look. The other experience happened on Wednesday night before we went home Thursday morning. they made us go with our district, so it took a really long time for them to get to the "Nephi District" (the one I was in), because there were so many boys. We thought it would only take an hour or two but finally, 4 hours later, at 2:00am they finally came to the Nephi group and told us it was our turn. We went a little ways and then one of the D.L.'s told me to hold on to this little string that I could barely see, that represented the "Iron Rod." we kept going with our group for a while but eventually we came to a bush that was in the way. Luckily they led me in another direction away from the bush that eventually led back to the "Rod." It was really cool because i could see X-mas lights shining through the trees and we got to this little hill and at the top of the hill was "The Tree of Life." When we got there, there were some more D.L.s waiting up there to welcome everyone to the tree. One of the D.L.'s came up to me and said "Ben, these are for you," and handed me two letters that were addressed to me. i opened them and read these two really amazing/ nice letters, at the bottom, one was signed, "Dad" and the other was signed, "Mom." It really meant a lot to me that both of my parents would take the time in their really busy schedule and write me a letter. 

EFY (monday June, 27- FridayJuly 1)

this week i went to E.F.Y. for the last time and I had a lot of really powerful experiences. I want to write about two experiences that happened to me while I was there

The first experience I want to talk about was on Thursday. We got to dress up and have testimony meeting and stuff. but the amazing thing that happened was that a certain sister got up and spoke about all the hard things she'd gone thru in her life and after she was done I went over to her and I said, "no matter what you hear, don't ever think that you're not worth anything because you are. And remember that God loves you and that I do." OK, I know that probably sounds weird that I said that to a girl that I had never met before EFY, but I just wanted her to know that there would always be two people there for her. The other thing I loved about Thursday was the fact that every single sister there was dressed modestly. I actually went over to one of them and thanked them for not making me uncomfortable because of the way they were dressed and how it really makes the young men at EFY feel good when they see that the sisters are willing to dress modest.

The other one that happened was on Friday, the last day. We got to watch the session director and his wife and two other counselors do a skit about EFY from "15 years ago", as though 15 years had gone by since this session. It was amazing because when they said a certain key word, the young women got up and said the young women values and after they were done, they sang, "He Knows Me Better." A few minutes later, the session director said another key word and the young men stood up and sang a song called "what faith can do." to the young women. After this was all over, we met as companies and sang the E.F.Y. medley (As Sisters In Zion/ Army of Helaman.) during the "Sisters In Zion" song, I had this overwhelming impression that what the sisters were saying was coming straight from their hearts and they weren't just saying words from a song, but that they knew 150% that they were a daughter of God. I will never forget that. I mean I had heard that song several times but for some reason that day it really hit me that they didn't just THINK they were daughters of God,  they KNEW they were.