AMAZING!!!

On Friday night we had the amazing opportunity to go to the Conference Center and watch 7000 youth perform to celebrate the new Draper Temple being built. Jacob and Miranda were both lucky enough to be among the performers. The youth from our stake represented the early immigrants that came to the valley from England, Germany, and Ireland. Jacob was an English dancer and Miranda was a German dancer. The kids have spent the last few months putting in many hours for this. Going to practices in May became quite challenging. The practices became longer and fitting them in with all the school projects, tests, and concerts that happen at the end of the school year was difficult. It made for a few crazy nights. But, I think the kids were rewarded. The night was truly an amazing experience. Now when they are adults they can tell their children and grandchildren that they danced on that stage in that amazing building for the prophet. How cool is that? Sadly, they don't allow you to take photos during the performance (or even bring in a camera), but we were able to catch up with Jacob right before he went in and I got this shot of him and his friends with my cell phone. For part of their performance Jacob was on the floor in front of the stage clapping about 4 ft from the prophet. Here's what Jacob had to say about the experience:
"I had a lot of fun, and it was neat being so close to President Monson!"
Miranda took this shot with her cell phone just before going in too. The wind was blowing a lot so you don't really get to see how cute her hair looked all curled up. Miranda spent most of the performance front and center. Right in front of the prophet. Here's what she had to say:

"I was a blast to learn the dances and it was a great experience performing 4-5 feet from the prophet"

(ya, I'm the mean mom who made the kids give me quotes to put on my blog......much eye rolling was involved in the process of getting these quotes)

The event was in the news and in the papers. Here's a link to see some of what the paper had to say about it.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705307466/Celebrating-the-youth-Events-a-chance-for-kids-to-focus-on-temple.html
I stole this photo from that story. It's a photo of our stake. It was in the newspaper too. Miranda is the last orange shirt on the left...her back at least.

We hope to eventually get a DVD of the event. If we do, I'm sure we will gladly show it to all who are willing to watch:) We are so thankful that our kids were able to participate in something so amazing, and we are also thankful that we were able to have a great "datenight" with Tyler to go and see them perform it.