The Field Is White...

Mt. Field that is. Covered with soft glistening white snow and with frozen lakes, it was a beautiful site for our stake ysa activity on Saturday. Fiona, Tyler and Mari-Anna braved the cold and represented our ward. After a nice long winding drive up Mt. Field we all walked through the snow until we found a nice big hill to slide down. That's pretty much what we did the whole time! There was even a jump created for the slide downhill which made things very interesting. There were no serious injuries but plenty of fun! As well as lots of snow fights and other general fun. Fiona made herself a nice snowbath and relaxed. Tyler attempted to become as a snowball cut out of the mountains without hands to fill the whole earth...somewhat unsuccessfully. Mari-Anna won the snow sculpting comptetition with her rendition of an octapus (inspired by Fiona Bashford). After stopping in at Banjo's New Norfolk the troops were on their way home after a cold and tiring yet fun day in the snow.

Fun and Games

Institute this week began with a new tradition of a sharing time of lessons learned in the last week or so, which had quite a few contributors this week, including Chris with a thought about those who make fun of religion...it's all fun and games until someone dies and burns in hell. In the lesson we talked about Elijah and Elisha and got confused plenty of times over, and also discussed the role of prophets and how they are called. Our post-institute activity for this week was indoor miniature lawn bowls!! Pretty fun actually. I think team Elijah won by quite a bit though. Yay for Tyler, Fiona and Mari-Anna who made it this week.

Whose fireside topic is it anyway?

Calling all YSA in the stake!  As some of you know, the fireside in August will be given by the legendary Colin Chick, and he has requested that the topic for discussion at the fireside be open to suggestion by us, the ysa.  He emphasises to suggest topics we feel need discussing, not just what we want discussed.  Let's not play "stump the apostle"...especially since there will be no apostles present.  OR will there? Hmm the intrigue...

Anyway, to make a suggestion click on the comments link under this post and type up your suggestion, choose the "anonymous" option (so there's no need to be shy), and presto! we get an idea of what you need, all from the comfort of your own computer! Impressive, huh? Please send your suggestions by the end of this month.

SO.  Let the posting begin!!

When Opportunity Knocks...

Sunday night we had our Rosny ward YSA fireside, yay!! We had a great turnout of 10 (picture the stars around the 10), namely Mari-Anna, Emily, Libby, Rachel, Lucy, Scott, Kat, Fiona, Tyler and also Brodie who is visiting her family. The evening was presented by the EQP Jack Dale and his wife Claire, and commenced with 3 brave souls volunteering for a blindfolded taste test. Scott, Tyler and Mari-Anna (the bravest of all ;) had to drink a concoction prepared especially for them by the other YSA. Tyler was treated to straight lemon juice, Scott's was...well...something that "might taste good over chicken", and to her great relief Mari-Anna had a well prepared lemonade. The lesson in all this was to liken the lemons to bad things or trials in our lives - we can either do nothing and have lemon juice, we can complain and murmur and moan and end up with garlic-chilli-ade, or we can turn it into a positive and make lemonade. The whole evening provided us with lots to think about, using many more examples, stories and exercises. We ended by taking a journey into our own minds to where we want to be, and asked ourselves how we got there! Thanks to all who attended, and a big thanks to Jack and Claire.

Would you like fries with that?

In our Sunday school lesson this week we all learnt some interesting things. We learnt that many names in the Book of Mormon start with either A or Z. We learnt that Mari-Anna doesn't trust Scott (too mischievous) but she trusts Denisha. We also learnt that it is possible to knit a hamburger. But most importantly we learnt about witnesses, and saw various examples of doctrines testified of by both Alma and Amulek in the Book of Mormon.

Bend It Like Beckham

Friday... 1900 hours... Elmsleigh Rd... missionaries... investigators... young adults... put these together and you get Friday Night SOCCER!! Last week was another great example of why I keep coming back to social soccer each week. Although I am not the greatest soccer player (you're shocked, I know) I do like to play a little and I have fun fine-tuning my (lack of) defensive skills, though I probably haven't quite got the whole goalie thing happening yet... So after pulling some pretty funky moves that did very little to stop the opponent scoring goals, I decided to get up the front there and try some attacking, which was pretty interesting since I have very little control over the direction of the ball once I've kicked it. HOWEVER! I decided to just try it anyway and would you believe it, I kicked not one, but two very awesome goals! (And I'm not afraid to boast). Yes, I can name several eye-witnesses if needed. It's a great feeling knowing you've achieved something (like 2 goals!!), it's also a great feeling driving away to The Final Countdown playing loudly on your ipod! But the point of all this is: even if you think you can't play soccer, or you've never really played before, that shouldn't stop you from coming along to Friday Night Soccer! Get out there, give it a go, and you never know what might happen! You might even enjoy yourself - I know I have. So that's every Friday, 7pm @Stake Centre.