HOBY and General Thoughts About Life.

Each year, Payson High selects two students who show leadership potential to represent them at a leadership conference, called HOBY. I heard about HOBY from one of the yw in my ward, and decided to apply. The application process basically consists of me writing an essay about leadership and answering a few questions to go along with that. After you turn in the essay, the HOBY adviser (Mrs. Earl) reads over them and looks over teacher recommendations and GPA's. Any ways, you guys get the idea. So.... By some crazy miracle, I was one of the students selected to represent PHS, and I have to say that HOBY was one of the best experiences of my entire life.

When I first was placed in my group, the orange group, I was a little skeptical. It seemed like when we were creating our flag, there were just so many "leaders." Everybody had something to say and it felt like everybody wanted to be in charge. It was a little stressful to be quite honest. Nevertheless, we completed our banner and it looked awesome! I was so so proud of us... Any ways, we continued on. For our first meal, everybody's wrists were tied together, let me tell ya. It was quite an adventure. Our basic strategy was that everybody would let their left arm go limp and eat with their right hand. Our idea actually worked pretty well. (for me, this meant, yes, there is hope that we may amount to something). As the weekend went on, I really appreciated all of the activities we had. We talked a lot about leading by following, and how sometimes, the best leader isn't the loudest. Typically in life, I've been one of those types of leaders who is deemed "the leader" basically because I can talk louder than everybody else. I'm grateful that the activities we did forced me to sometimes sit in the background and just try to be a contributor rather than the one in charge.

I met a lot of truly amazing people at HOBY, and they taught me so much. I made some amazing friends that I hope to continue to have for the rest of my life. They taught me so much about what it means to be a leader, and what it means to be a friend. We only knew each other for three days, and yet, we were so willing to share our lives with one another. It amazes me how close we got, and how much I now miss all of them. They changed something in the space where my brain is suppose to be, and I'm so happy I was able to meet all of these incredible people.

I had the best councilor and JC ever. Hands down. They both taught me so much about service and judging a book by it's cover, and just life in general. I appreciated their insight and caring. I really loved the one word pep talks my councilor Jackie gave us. Words like "electric" "juice" and "krush" will never be the same for me again. Man, do I miss em.

I sure do miss all of the friendship and support these people gave me. Thank goodness for things like being a JC and Clews to get us all back together. Anyways, HOBY was incredible. I learned so much about service, and how much we can really do to help our communities. I love HOBY. I can't believe it was only a week ago. Time flies.

Oh and we went on this AH-MAZ-ING trust walk. Everyone in our group was blindfolded and we weren't allowed to talk. We were led up, down, and through things, going through puddles, sand, and all sorts of stuff. It was so cool how we created our own language. It was full of sounds, textures, and hand gestures.I loved it. loved it. loved it. Afterwords, we as a group talked about how we as leaders, need to follow as well. We can't make a difference in the world alone, just like we couldn't get anywhere alone during the walk. I just loved this activity and I love my group.... Did I mention we won the award MOST OUTSTANDING out of all the groups at HOBY??!! This means we were the best there. We were the closest,had the best discussions, and we were just an amazing group of youth to have together!

I'm not sure what else to put, so much was packed into those incredible three days, and to be honest, I don't know that anyone really is interested in each individual panel, so I think I'll just stick to the summary idea.

I think one thing that has made it easier to come home is the fact that I have so much here. I have the best friends in the world and I love them so much.I have a loving family, with two parents who work so hard to teach me, and I have an amazing ward to takes care of each other. I love it here in this little town.