{The Cultural Celebration}

At the end of April all of the youth in the Atlanta Temple district got to participate in the Southern Lights Cultural Celebration for the rededication of the Atlanta Georgia Temple. Brianna, along with the rest of the youth in the stake, practiced for the last two months in preparation for this special occasion. Wednesday night activities and some Fridays were spent dancing to learn to routine, and perfecting their dance they would perform for the prophet.

Several women in the ward, myself included, spent many hours sewing costumes for them to wear. They turned out really cute, and it felt like such a bonding experience to all be working together for this special time for the youth. It truly was a once in a lifetime experience for them.

The performance was at a small venue where only a few thousand could fit, so only one ticket per child performing was passed out. Aaron went up to Atlanta along with the other youth in our ward, and the kids and I got to watch all of the performances at the church building where they had it broadcast live. Thank you Mychel-Anne for all the great pictures you shared with us. Most of the pictures here were from her. Thanks!

Here is details about the special night in Brianna’s own words:

“On Friday I checked out of school and met some people somewhere so that we could all car pool up to Atlanta. On the way up there we played, “Would you Rather..” and watched part of Secretariat. The Celebration would be at the Atlanta Civic Center so we went there and when we got there we got on our costumes. Our stake were cheerleaders and football players.

When we got inside we had to follow blue tape to this huge tent. Inside the tent they divided the tent into sections. One section was for all the cheerleaders, one was for all the football players, and so on.

The plan was on Friday for us to go through the whole thing 2 times, so we got there around 4 and we stayed there until about 12 midnight that night.

At the very beginning of the show some of the youth walked in the audience and sang while some people were on the stage. Not all the youth went in the first time because in this celebration there were thousands of youth participating.  So when we did that we had to wait in these long lines to get in and sing and when we did we had to full on sprint in there and run out and in again and again.

When we were done with that we had to wait in our tents for like 4 hours to finally do our dance.  When we were waiting we just walked around outside and talked and visited.

We were getting kind of silly and crazy as you can see with Hailey.

 

 

When we were waiting Mychel-Anne (an older sister of 2 youth members participating in the celebration) came and we took pictures together. 

 

    

    Young Women being silly!!!

P.S We had bicycle shorts underneath our skirts!

 

 

   Young Men being silly!!

We got so tired that we wanted to leave!!!

HELP!!!!

When we went home that night some of us only got a couple of hours of sleep.

I stayed in a hotel with a couple of other people from our ward. Even though we didn’t have to go back to the civic center until 2:00pm we still had to have breakfast, take showers, go buy lunch and dinner, and of course go to the mall!!

When we got back from the mall, we went to the civic center and we went through the whole thing 1 time and then it was time for the actual thing.

That night everyone was nervous. First the prophet spoke and then the show began. We went in there and sang and we had to wait in the tent for awhile and then it was our turn to perform.

When we were done we went home!!

This was a great experience and it was great to be able to meet other people with our same standards and to be able to perform in for the prophet!!”