Like 2000 Stripling Warriors

I remember when they first announced that we were going to have the cultural celebration. I was so exited and when we did our first practice I thought it was fun. We had a ton of practices and by the time we got to the real thing I was tired of doing it. Then I thought to myself this is a once in a life time experience so lets make this the best it can be. When we were doing one more practice right before it started sprinkling. I was wish for some rain but when we started the real one the rain started pouring harder and harder until everyone was froze to the bone. Even though everyone was cold I knew that we were going to keep working on it. That was one of the best experiences I have ever had and I like to bare my testimony that I know the church is true and that the temple is the house of God and I will follow this church until I die.

 -Bitner Workman

The cultural celebration was an amazing experience. It was probably one of the funnest days of my life. I was part of region four and that was the region of the fire dance. The fire dance was definitely the coolest dance because there was a lot of running around with screaming and yelling. During the dance even though there was people screaming and yelling there was still an incredible spirit throughout every single one of the dances. It rained through the whole performance but we still had no problem doing each of our dances. At first when it started to rain everyone was running around playing in the rain but when the performance was over everyone there was soaked to the bone, tired, and sore even if you had an umbrella or rain poncho.

A really cool experience that happened during the cultural celebration was when we were waiting for the prophet to come. It started raining harder than it had been all night but right when the prophet stepped out of the car, the rain almost immediately stopped. Then of course it picked up again later in the performance but for that minute or two while the prophet spoke the spirit was the strongest I've ever felt it.

Another cool experience for me was during the last song we sang. It was “2000 Stripling Warriors” it was really cool to me because we were like the 15000 stripling warriors marching on the field to battle. You could see that everyone was tired and worn out from all the rain and dancing but every single one of the youth were on the field. All you could see from the inside of the mass of people were first a ton of different colored t-shirts and second a bunch of faithful youth surrounding you. Again at the time we were singing this song the spirit was super strong. When the performance was over I could barley walk I was so cold but it was great to think that I was able to be part of the temple dedication in the place that I've grown up my whole life.

-Gage Workman