fsy!!!

 Last week Tanner and I had the opportunity to go to EFY here, which is now called fsy, meaning For the Strength of youth.  It was six days long and in a place called Blaubeuren.  Neither of us had any idea what to expect because we had never been to an EFY before, not even in Provo.  They had told us before hand that there would be an English group with Americans because there were enough of us.  So that was a big comfort to me in going.  So we packed up and got on the bus and showed up and there was music playing and all the counselors were doing the EFY dance and it was a little bit crazy. We came with at least five to ten English speakers on the bus and we thought for sure we would all be in a group.  The thing was that the girls who were American were not my age.  They were all older.  But that wasn't supposed to matter because we were all going to be in a group together anyway.  So we got off the bus and they whisked us away and we got out lanyards and our books and backpacks and papers with our rooms on them.  Luckily all the counselors there spoke English so I was able to find my room and put my stuff down.  There was one girl in my room when I got there and she spoke a little bit of English so she translated the little not left on my pillow by my counselor. Then all the girls in my group met and we played all these games and I didn't know any of them.  So we played name games and getting to know you games and I had no idea what was going on. My counselor was giving instructions and this girl was trying to translate, which really helped, but she was by no means fluent in English. Sorry, this post is kind of long and all over the place, but I guess if you've made it this far then you aren't bored yet.  So the rest of the day was kind of a blur, and honestly, so was the whole week, so bear with me.  Anyway, the next morning I was able to switch groups to be with an American girl who was from my stake and her cousin.  The girls in that group were 15 to 18 so I was kind of the odd one out, but by the end of the week we were all such great friends.

This is the first day when we were walking around and found Rachel (an American from our ward) and her friend Melinda having a jam session and decided to join them.

These are some girls from my first group that first night

Here's the whole gang.

So the girls in this picture are Eliza (left) and her cousin Madison (right) and they were in my new group.  For the morning devotionals and big meetings they gave us ear pieces and someone would be live translating in the back.  It was SOOO nice.  For the smaller classes sometimes there would be counselors translating or Rachel would do it or sometimes we just listened in German.

Any time we had we would get together with Tanner and his friend Marius from Stuttgart who spoke very good English and Rachel and her German friend Clara and we would just hang out or eat or whatever.  It was really fun.  We were kind of like the American clan plus Marius.  (Clara thought she was American)

Here we have Marius on the right and Tanner on the left.  These two would just jam out to music and were like two peas in a pod.

One of the first nights we had a casual dance.  You may think this is a lovely picture of Eliza, and it is, but the point of this picture is that she's pointing to the guy next to her.  He is wearing lederhosen.  And vans.  I thought it was hilarious.

 We had a disco ball.  Everyone was doing the one dance that they all do here.  It's like ballroom and it's called the "Dico fox".  And yes, that is really what it is called.

 They were the kings of the dance

 After that dance we had a girls night and did face masks in our room and danced and sang music at the top of our lungs and ate.  I know it was EXACTLY what the boys were doing in their rooms, too.  ;)  These were the girls in my group.  Left to right it is Monique, Madison, Rahel, Fabienne, Camilla, Eva, Eliza, and me.  We all look a little scary with our face masks and pajamas on.

 One of the nights we made banners and cheers in our groups and afterwards just kind of had a dance party.  It was awesome.

 This picture about sums up my brother.

That night was the boys' night.  Who knows what they did?

At the beginning of the week they announced practices for the music program.  I convinced Tanner to come because I didn't want to go alone and he was a good sport and had a late lunch to come to the practices.  That night was so amazing.  While the choir was on stage and we were waiting for everyone to file in there was prelude music playing and someone in the choir started humming along.  Soon all of us were quietly humming with the music.  Later we asked it it had been planned and it had not, but when we did you could feel the Spirit enter almost in the form of a person.  It was the sweetest experience that I'm glad I got to take part in.

 One of the days we did a service project and made blankets for people in Bulgaria.  I think we made 130 fleece blankets.  Amazing!

 That night was the formal dance.  So all the girls ran off to get ready.  We took some pictures of our whole group.

The girls in this picture are, from left to right, Clara, me, Regina (in our ward), Eliza, and Rachel.  it was a fun evening, but most of the guys that asked me to dance were very, VERY tall Germans from my group.  I think Tanner was a little bit worried.  :)

 Here is a picture of all of us.

The last day was really hard.  At the beginning of the week all I had wanted to do was go home, but at the end of the week, all I wanted to do was stay.  It was an amazing experience that I would never trade and would do again in a heartbeat.  I made a lot of good friends and became better friends with the ones I already had.  This is my counselor Miriam (Miri) who made this week awesome.  It was hard to say goodbye to such a spiritual week full of fun memories and amazing people.

 The week truly was amazing, but at the end of it we all felt a little bit like this.