Last August, we challenged the Young Women of our ward (ages 12-18) to read the Book of Mormon by Christmas. If they would do this, we would take them on a tour of all the California Temples during Spring Break. 11 out of our 16 Young Women met the challenge & were successful in completing the Book of Mormon by our deadline - most of them have since completed their Recognition Award, too. Unfortunately 4 of them had family obligations over Spring Break & couldn't come with us, but the rest of us had a great time!
DAY 1
We left early Monday morning & headed to Sister Schank's mom's house in Cypress where we would be crashing on their floor for the next few days! We got there early afternoon & enjoyed some time in their pool...
After dinner we headed to the beach for Family Home Evening. We played in the surf & tossed around a volleyball...
As the sun set we roasted s'mores & talked about the things we need "s'more of" in our lives - s'more prayer, s'more service, s'more kindness, etc...
DAY 2
Our sleeping arrangements...
Our first stop was San Diego - such a beautiful place & we had perfect weather! Sister Schank made appointments to do baptisms at all of the temples & we ate lunch in the gardens on the temple grounds...
The Bishop doesn't want to take anymore pictures but I'm pretty convincing...
That afternoon we took the girls to visit the Mormon Battalion Museum in Old Town San Diego...
We learned a lot about the Mormon Battalion (who has a strong history in our own area as well) & these girls found their Mormon Battalion ancestors on the registry...
Pretending to be pioneers - we weren't very convincing...
There were tons of hands on activities & they even made us honorary members!
That evening we went to eat at Ruby's on the Huntington Beach Pier...great hamburgers, fries, & milkshakes!
After dinner a large group of drummers were entertaining the crowd & there was a random hoola hoop laying there so we coaxed Madi (who happens to have some serious hoola hooping skills) into giving it a go...she is crazy good & doubled the size of the crowd with her impromptu performance!
DAY 3
Bright & early in the morning we drove out to Redlands. Madi's grandfather (who lives in So Cal) joined us to help with the baptisms.
After lunch in the Redland's garden area, we drove over to Newport Beach for another session...
After dinner we took the girls to walk around Downtown Disney...
DAY 4
Another early morning session in Los Angeles. We enjoyed the Visitor's Center before having lunch, then started our long drive home...
We arrived in Fresno early so we killed a little time with some Blizzards at a local Dairy Queen...
The Fresno Temple was our last stop...
...except for our In n Out dinner stop!
Yes, I know that is only 5 of our 7 temples. We go to Sacramento all the time & are actually going again tomorrow AND in a couple of weeks. We are planning a day trip to Oakland this summer so the girls can say that they have done baptisms in all 7 of the California Temples!
RECAP - 7 young women, 3 young women leaders, 1 bishop, 1300 miles, 4 days, 5 temples, 330 baptisms, 243 confirmations...that's a lot of "new friends" waiting to meet us on the other side! It was a great bonding experience - we have some terrific young women!
3 comments:
Such a great idea. I bet those girls will never forget it.
What a great trip. Wish I had known ahead of time and I would have alerted Elder and Sister Miller who are serving their mission at the Mormon Battalion that you were all coming. They went into the MTC the same time as us.
Good memories for those girls.
that is the greatest idea! I want to do it just for me! what a fun and spiritual experience.
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