Return To EFY

This past week I’ve been gone to EFY. If you keep up with my spiritual blog “The Rainmaker Confessions”, then you know what EFY is. When I got home, my mom told me how the whole world started calling for me. I’m sorry; I know that some of my friends thought that I got raptured or something for a week.

I absolutely loved EFY (Especially For Youth). The theme for 2005 is “A More Excellent Way”, and I learned a lot about that more excellent way, which is referring to a Mormon scripture (Ether 12:7, in case you’re interested).

The only way to describe the difference between EFY 2002: “We Believe” and EFY 2005: “A More Excellent Way” is the word upgrade. Everything was different except for the building. I had a different session director, and the classes seemed better put together. The food wasn’t as good. I had a roommate. The rules were a lot harsher and stricter. The dorm was different. It was my counselor’s first week. The games were a bigger deal. The dances were on different days. There was an art, poetry and dance contest.

On Monday, I walked in late to my group’s first meeting. At EFY, you live in the dorms of the university campus you’re staying at, which was Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah for me. The hallway of the dorm your room is in is usually your group, which is usually made up of five rooms—ten guys, and then also a counselor.

So I walked into that late, and we each introduced ourselves. There was Aaron Taylor, and Brenton Keele, and Chris Pinchak, who seemed to be kinda quiet in the beginning. Other than that, there was Robert Warby, who was the son of a bishop and just plain cool; Jimmy Sweeney, who was awesome; Andrew Quensenberry, who was nicknamed ‘Q’ because of his last name and he did debate, drama, and was a recent convert to the church; Mike Larson, who was about to leave for a mission in Ogden, Utah; Brett Lodholm, who was kinda short and had a lot of spirit and walked in the last (he checked his watch and was like, “Oh, shoot—I forgot about time zones!”); and my roommate Evan Herrera, who played football and was on the wrestling team. My counselor’s name was Brandon, and this was his first week ever teaching EFY.

All of Monday was pretty much a get-to-know-each-other day. We met the other dorm of guys. There were these two friends named Cameron and Tyler—we called Tyler ‘Shep’—and these guys were hilarious.

And then the best part of Monday (of course…) was meeting the girls. There were so many cute girls in my group! Last year few of them were cute and the ones that were acted really snobby about it. This year the girls were all very incredible personalities and good-natured. Like Tamra, and Jessica (Robert hit it off with Jessica really fast, let me tell ya), and Jocelyn, Tara and Kaytlin, Soojin and Becky (Soojin was a girl in my calculus class), Leah, Sydney, Erica…just lots of fun.

Everyone came from all over. We actually found out on Wednesday that Brett came from Guam. You’d never guess that if you saw a picture of him, though.

You could tell just by looking around that our group was gonna be so awesome. At EFY, they give your groups names like your “company” or your “league” or “county”…this year mine was a company. And then they give the companies names, so ours was Joy Is Full. (In 2002, the names were simpler, like words of virtues. Mine was Service.)

Anyway, by Wednesday everyone was having a total blast. Q and I led the company in our official group cheer, which was neat. The guys in my dorm ordered pizza on Wednesday night. And in the evening there was this cool sunset on Mount Timpanogos. It was incredible.

All of us guys in the dorm all grew very close within just the first two days—which was unusual. In 2002, we didn’t become united the way I did with the guys in my dorm until Friday. And here we all were like a mini fraternity, a brotherhood. Like I think it was Tuesday that Robert’s hair gel went missing and he was totally nuts over it. He was like, “Where’s my gel? Hah, hah, so funny. Who took my gel…” And Q was in the musical program with Aaron, and Q taught me so much about different things. And Brett ballroom danced at the Tuesday night dance. He could do everything: swing, waltz, twists...it was awesome.

My roommate Evan from Manteca, California, would talk to me at night about all kinds of stuff, like how he had a crush on Brooke. He’d never felt for any girl ever the way he felt about her. Brooke left all his girlfriends behind. He was so proud of her school accomplishments. Plus she was a cheerleader, so they connected fast since he was a jock. Plus, he taught me a cool workout I could do every night.

Looking back on it now, if I could have picked a roommate, it would have been Evan, Brett, or Q.

I entered into the poetry contest on Thursday, and it turns out that I actually won first place in the poetry contest, but I didn’t contribute a poem. Instead I contributed a song I wrote called “Innocent”. The song is a tribute to Joseph Smith, Jr. There’s so much more that happened on Thursday night, but you can refer to my “Confessions” for that.

Come Friday night, everyone was so sad and crying because now everyone was close and didn’t want to leave. Everyone was saying, “Just a few more days, or one more week…” That's what one girl said to me. I danced with only three sixteen/seventeen year-old girls the entire week; the rest of them were fourteen and fifteen. It was weird.

After the dance that night I walked into my room to find Evan on the bed. At first I was startled ‘cause I didn’t see him there, but I thought he was praying. It turns out that he was crying, and it was about Brooke. First time he ever fell in love, and first time he ever got his heart broken. I tried to talk to him—I only hope that I helped him. The next day he and Brooke got to talking and he told me that everything would be all right. I sure hope so. Evan kinda grew on me. (Not that I wanna pick out curtains or anything. You know what I mean.)

Saturday morning was just so…I can’t describe it. That helpless feeling you get when you say goodbye to someone you might never see again. Sure, we might email each other and all that jazz, but…it just won’t be the same. Everyone was hugging each other so hard, because we all missed each other already. Robert said that he had graduation goodbyes, and now EFY goodbyes, and soon he’d have mission goodbyes. “It’s too many goodbyes for my liking,” he said.

If you’re one of the guys from Joy Is Full, please know that I miss you all so much, and even though we met for a week it felt so great to know every single one of you guys. I’ll keep in touch just like I said, and hope you do the same. Comment on this!! You’re allowed to!!! Thanks for all the memories I’ve got now of EFY 2005.

For more on my return to EFY, go to “The Rainmaker Confessions” (in the list of links to your right) for a deeper spiritual account, and about what happened on Thursday night.

Go to “A Poet In Wicker Park” to read “Innocent” and details surrounding that. I know that after the huge awards fiasco some of you wanted to read it, like Jimmy, so go there. Also, soon I’ll post a song that I started writing while at EFY that’s about Evan and Robert’s dramas, and saying goodbye.

In addition, soon there’ll be a link on this post to pictures from EFY taken by my friend Q. A big thanks to Q for all the pictures he took, and also thanks to Tara for taking the picture of me and Brother Larson!

Mmmmkay!! (Thanks for the phrase and the dance move Shep, you were awesome!)