A tale of two Brians

Can i just say, I LOVE EFY! i'm just sad that this was my last year i could go :-( but next year i can go back as a counsiler! Hooray for that! ha ha ha.... So i went thinking that it wasn't going to do much for me. I was in such a low, i didn't think i was ever going to be able to get out. Monday, i was still pretty depressed despite me trying to act all happy, that night after lights out, i just laid in my bed and cried. I had to go to the bathroom so i wouldn't bug my roommate. I just wanted to die. The next day, was a little better cause at the morningside, our session director was talking about Joseph Smith and the pioneers and at the end, he played a song about Joseph and it was so cool cause i felt the spirit SO strong testify to me that he is a true prophet. i was still kinda depressed and i went to a couple of the lessons by myself but the girls in my group are awesome (ANXIOUSLY ENGAGED!!!!! HECK YES!!!) and they found me and had me go to the lessons with them so i wouldn't be alone. I was still pretty depressed and completely exsausted from the lack of sleep the night b4 so at the dance, i didn't dance very much with guys (the girls outnumbered the guys 2 to 1) but i really connected with a couple of the girls and we became really great friends. Well needless to say, from there it was all uphill. I went to all the lessons i wanted to go to with one of the girls and they were all fantastic lessons that taught me a lot. when it came time for the games that night, I had become friends with most of the girls! Yeay for friends again! I was back to my spunky self and i had a blast at the games. I found out i really had a lot in common with a lot of the girls. For most of them, they were just coming out of or are involved with a situation almost exactly like mine and knew what i was going through. I had a great counsiler who really helped me too and everything was great. Wen night was also pizza night and seriously, i think that was the most fun pizza night i have ever had! One of the girls had her ipod and ihome and so we all sang really loud and obnoxiously to all the songs. It was hilarious! Other girls from other groups would come tell us that their counsilers sent them to tell us that we were being really loud and that it was awesome :-) Me and my roommate would stay up until 1 or 2 AM talking and it was so funny cause thurs morning when our alarms went off at 6 AM so we could get ready and go down to breakfast with our group at 7, we both looked at each other, said "nuh uh", turned off our alarms, and slept through breakfast. It was so great cause even with that, we were still not getting a lot of sleep but we weren't that tired anymore. Thursday was my favorite day cause it was the "spiritual day" The girls seperated from the guys and we went to a young womens lesson and panel discussion where we were told yet again that we were daughters of god and that he really loves us....well i had heard that a million times already so at first it didn't make a difference but after the lesson, the counsiler in charge played a song about a daughter of god and how she felt His love and i started bawling! I could feel heavenly father's love for me and it felt SO good! It was such an amazing feeling! I never want to lose it! Well, earlier in the week, i had tried out for the variety show with one of my color guard routines that i had made up to the song "I can only imagine" by Mercy Me and made it so after the lesson, i went and got ready for the variety show and i was the first one to perform! It was so much fun! I love performing and it was cool cause afterwards, everyone knew who i was cause they were all coming up to me telling me how cool my "flag twirling" was. I don't think they knew that side of color guard cause they were all really suprised :-) anyways, after that, we all went and got back in our church clothes and went to the music program where again, the spirit bore witness to me that this church is true. What a feeling!!!! After the musical program, they dismissed us into companies to have testimony meeting where i bore my testimony of this church and heard the testimonies of other teenagers with my same goal in life....to get back to our heavenly father. Friday was so much fun. Our morningside was on dating and it was soooo funny! you just had to be there, it was hilarious. We then went to our "For the Strength of Youth" classes and had a lot of fun there too. Then we went and did our service project where we made fleece blankets for those who don't have money to pay for blankets in the area. That was a lot of fun cause we had music playing and we would be dancing at the same time. It was so great! After that, it was free time for us to get ready for the banquet and dance and i was really sad cause i found out that one of the girls i had grown really close to had to leave before the banquet so i had to say goodbye to her :-( that was a sad moment. I proceeded to get ready and it was a lot of fun cause all the girls were helping each other get ready ha ha ha i have never had that happen b4 at an EFY. So we went to the banquet and the food was yummy, we took pictures, and then went to the dance and i had the TIME OF MY LIFE! SO much fun! I didn't even care what people thought of me cause it wasn't about that anymore. My purpose in going was fulfilled, to get closer to god again. I danced a few more dances with the guys and they were all gentlemen but again i didn't dance very often...ha ha a lot of the times it was really funny cause i'd be dancing with a guy and since there were so many girls, me and the guy i was dancing with would often snag a girl that was walking past and have her dance with us too....so a lot of the times, there would be about 4 other girls dancing with us in one big circle. It's so fun and i didn't mind in the least! I never danced with the same guy twice (for obvious reasons) and i jammed out to almost all the fast songs. After that, they made the guys leave to go back to the dorms b4 us and they played "girls just wanna have fun" for us to dance to. That was a ton of fun. Afterwards we walked back to the dorms singing hymns and primary songs the whole way. We had to wake up early the next morning cause we had to be packed and out of the dorms by 7:30. I said good-bye to Anxiously Engaged and i went home. So that was my amazing week at EFY! I love it! :-D I am so much happier now!