Especially For Youth

The next day, Sunday, I spent packing for EFY, or Especially For Youth, a Church-run week-long program for youth 14-18. Early Monday morning, Dad dropped my friend Circe and me at Ashtin's house, and his parents drove the three of us to Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. For those of you who don't know, EFY consists of devotionals, firesides, classes, testimony meetings, two dances, a pizza party, a game night--it's practically the world's biggest flirt-fest, as I heard someone refer to it. A place where LDS youth can meet and socialize with peers who believe in the same things, where they can build each other's testimonies of Christ, and create lasting friendships. They split everyone into "companies:" My company had ten boys, eleven girls, a male counselor and a female counselor. I absolutely loved my company! Everyone was so sweet and accepting, and we got along right off the bat. My roommate, Amy, and I got along so well that people were asking us if we came to EFY together, if we had been friends before. Who knows? Maybe we were in the pre-mortal life.

On Pizza night, the girls in my company heart-attacked the boy's dorm. We wrote sweet things about each individual boy and taped paper hearts all around the door to their dorms. The next night, the boys returned the favor by sending down a pizza box filled with candy and letters for each girl, with sweet things about them. It was the cutest thing! =)

A company is technically considered your "family" for the week, with the counselors as your parents and the other youth as your siblings. And by the end of the week, we all agreed that that's how it felt. They were all my close friends, and I trusted them with anything. The boys were like my brothers, and the girls my sisters. Except that we didn't argue, haha. To me, it was proof that, truly, we are all spirit siblings. In that spiritual atmosphere, it was as if the veil was thinner than usual, and we were catching glimpses of how things used to be. We apparently had just met, but I believe we've known each other all along; we just needed EFY to remind us. I love them all, and will miss them terribly. I sincerely hope we'll meet again soon! We realized that about half of our group almost didn't make it to EFY that year (including myself), but at the last second something happened that allowed them to come. We all believed there was a reason to us meeting last week.

I went to BYU-Provo EFY last year, and it had 2,000 youth that attended. Bloomington had about 500 youth, and I think I prefer it smaller. I was able to make friends with a ton of people this year. At BYU, I'd meet someone and then never see them again because it was so big. Here, I'd see that person everywhere, so we could talk and hang out more.
The week went by far too fast, and before we knew it, it was time to leave. It was hard to think I may not see those wonderful people again...but like the session director Brother McMullen said, the Church is a small world, and the Lord has a way of reuniting old friends. At least I have their phone numbers, email addresses, and most of them have Facebook!

It was a spectacularly splendid week, and I am eternally grateful I was able to go. =) I am so going to be an EFY counselor when I'm older! And I'll be freaking awesome! =D