Posted by:
Nona
(
)
Date: December 15, 2011 08:32PM
I went to one a few years ago, when I was 15 I think.
There was actually a LOT of non-members and less-actives there. Active mormons were in the minority of the people there.
As for what happened, there was a lot of gospel stuff. I found it quite boring. A lot of things similar to Sunday School lessons.
In the evenings there would usually be some moderately-physical activities. I didn't like them, although most of the people there seemed to love the games. It was like team games every evening.
The youth were HEAVILY supervised, and males and females are seperated most of the time. And they group people by age a lot aswell.
I was quite an introvert, so I often wanted to go back to my room just to be alone every now and then, but it was almost impossible. The organizers would take my keys and only give them to me after the night-time prayer and scripture study. That was probably the most annoying thing about it all.
There were also dances at the night, until about 9pm. Nobody ever "danced" though. They'd just have Timbaland, 50 Cent, Justin Timberlake, Akon, Eminem, Gwen Stefani, Fergie, Nelly Furtado, Rihanna, Britney Spears, etc. songs playing while all the youth just stood around and chatted to each other. Again, as an introvert, I HATED this, as they forced you to go there, and talk to people you didn't know for hours on end. It wasn't my type of thing.
From my experience, there was practically no male/female interaction at all. Even if anybody held hands they'd be promptly told off about it.
It wasn't too bad. It's probably fun if you're an extrovert. A lot of the non-members that went there seemed to want to convert to mormonism by the time it ended. But I think you should let your son go if he wants to. He is 14, and it's possible it could drive him away from the church, since it's very strict.