Yesterday was amazing!! The Youth Cultural Celebration is finally over and it ended with a bang. For anyone who doesn't know, the youth of 14 Magic Valley stakes learned and performed a history of southern Idaho through song and dance. As a beehive advisor I was priviledged to help the girls in my ward learn an Italian dance. It has been several months of practice and stress but it paid off. President Thomas S. Monson, President Henry B. Eyring, and Elder Quintin L. Cook were all there to watch. We were literally just mere feet from them. Amazing! Everyone did a great job. They knew the steps, they knew their entrances and extis, they had their costumes ready to go, they were beautiful.
It was kind of an interesting experience for me because I was seeing everything from a leader's point of view. The Jerome Stake was camped out near by and I kept seeing leaders from my youth who kept asking what I was doing there. I had to explain over and over that I was an adult leader now too.
The final countdown to the performance started on Friday night with the first of three dress rehearsals. We arrived at the Filer Fairgrounds at 4:00, changed into costumes, and applied make-up. (I'm also the costume coordinator for my ward so my responsibility also included keeping track of costumes and bringing the make-up). At 7:00 we began our performance for parents who came to watch. We didn't get home until 10:30 that night. We were back at the fairgrounds by 9:30 the next morning to do it all over again, twice. We ran through the whole performance in the morning, had lunch (sandwiches from Subway), ran through the whole performance again in the afternoon, had dinner (salad and nachos), and then dressed and prepared for our performance in front of the Prophet. Everyone held together well. Nobody had any nervous breakdowns, nobody got cranky, sick, or injured. By far the best part of the night was when the girls came running off the stage, huge grins spread across the face, saying over and over "I did it! I remembered my steps! I saw the Prophet, he was clapping for us!" What a wonderful experience. 
