The Cowboy Bold...at the Dance.

Campfire was one of the best times at youth conference for Sister Davis.  She loves to see LDS youth just have good, clean fun with other LDS youth. Sometimes the youth seem so serious here, they needed to loosen up a little bit and that is what campfire was all about.

One night, Sister Davis taught the Boom-chicka-boom song...it is a song where the leader says the words and the youth just repeat them.

I said a-boom-chicka-boom....

I said a-boom-chicka-boom....

I said a boom-chicka-rocka-chicka-rocka-chicka-boom.

Uh huh,

Oh, yeah...one more time now....

and someone else takes over the song

The youth thought it was hilarious and the funniest part was when Antti came up and couldn't remember any of the words...so the kids just echoed whatever he said.

The second night of youth conference, Sister Davis put together an impromptu talent show with some of the youth.  Viktoria had written a song that she wanted to share,  Luiza wanted to teach an action song and the Estonian boys played their guitar and sang.

Sister Davis wanted to have the senior couples do something...and she had just the song in mind.

The Cowboy Bold

This song has many different versions but Sister Davis learned this one at girls camp in California. She even found two cowboy hats in a party supply store. The only problem was getting everyone together to practice the song.  All the senior couples were busy during the day.  We had food to serve, classes to teach, medical problems to solve...when could we all learn the song at the same time?    The answer was never.  Sister Davis taught the song to a few at one time, and a few at another time but we never got all the senior missionaries together at the same time.  Which isn't a good thing before a live performance.... and so the  story goes.

Sister Davis leading the campfire program...

Elders Davis, Flake and Millet start off the song....

It's supposed to go like this:

The cowboy bold,

He was a desperado....

He came from Cripple Creek,

The State of Colorado....

Sister Davis is cracking up with laughter because this is how the song sounded...

"The cowboy,.... the bold cowboy,..... He bold ....was cowboy ....a he desperado was,..... He desperado,....

Elder Davis started the song but Elders Flake and Millet didn't follow at the same time and the sounds they  made as the words clashed together.....sounded horrible.

Sister Davis was laughing so hard, as she walked in front of the guys, she shouted, 

 'STOP! You're butchering the song!"

EVERYONE busted-up laughing!

But the greatest laughter came from us missionaries....who knew how awful it was.

 Through his own laughter, Elder Davis says to Sister Davis, 

"Go back! Go back! We want to try again!"

And try again they did...and this time they all started at the same time. But it was hard to control those chuckles that kept bursting to the surface!

The cowboy bold,   He was a desperado....

He came from Cripple Creek,  the State of Colorado....
He made more dust than a wild tornaado...
And everywhere he went, he gave a war whoop... Whoop!

Now they are on the right track and it's the Sisters turn...

Now the cowgirl fair,

She rode across the prairie.

She rode side-saddle

And her front name was Mary...

She had a voice like a wiii-ld Canary!

And everywhere she went, she gave a war whoop...Whoop!

And now the men and women take turns....

Oh the cowgirl fair

And the desperado

They fell in love

in the state of Colorado

They made more dust

than a wild tornado

And everywhere they went they gave a war whoop. Whoop!

And then we taught the song to the youth!

Sometimes the things you do wrong become endearing and wonderful.  We should always try to learn from our mistakes and laugh about the little ones without embarrassment. That is what we hope we taught the youth that night...don't give up, just start over and work it out....and don't be embarrassed when you make a mistake, everyone makes them.

Right after campfire a district activity had been planned and we are happy to report that every district had someone come to talk with their youth.  Martins and Noemi Birkenfeld came to represent Latvia and gave a great presentation.  President Lepp came from Estonia and Donatas  Blindarukas and Elder Flake represented Lithuania.

President Birkenfeld with the Latvian youth...

President Lepp with the Estonian youth...

and then it was time for the dance.

Some of the youth had complained about not having enough time to prepare for the dance (after all they just had that hygiene class today), so we added an extra 30 minutes to the schedule to allow for "primping".

And within 30 minutes, the girls looked beautiful...and were waiting for the guys.

The dance was supposed to be a  1920's theme...

Even Sister Flake got all "dolled" up....

Maris, Kristiina, & Riina...

Then the boys showed up in the dining hall and started fiddling with the sound system...

oh, oh...the computer needs some wires to connect the big speakers to it. Since no one had checked it out before hand, we didn't have enough volume for a dance.  Okay, Plan B...

Everyone outside!

Donatas gets in his car and backs it in next to the patio...where he turns on his sound system and cranks up the volume to "lets dance" level. And of course the kids started to dance right away.... NOT!

The boys were about 15 feet away from the girls and the girls were moving to the beat on the patio just waiting for the guys to show up.

 Elder Davis thought,  "This is totally unacceptable!" 

He waded into the group of boys and said, "Come on, guys. Follow me!"

And Sister Davis had to smile....all the boys got in a line and followed him like little ducklings.

Elder Davis put them into a circle, boys on one side and girls on the other and everyone started dancing in place (Elder & Sister Davis leading the way). Hey, we LOVE to dance!   Sister Davis is on the right of Elder Davis' elbow with the pink feather in her hair.

A little while later, a brave young man danced across the circle and grabbed a girl by the hand and led her into the circle to dance....And then another brave young man...and because they had been coached well in their dance etiquette class, the young men asked every girl to dance sometime during the evening.

Anna and Sintija rocking out!

Even Sister Millet started swaying to the beat...

Oliver and Sondra having a "swinging" good time!

Wow,  what a fun time! Since the dance started late, we didn't end it at 10:30 like it was supposed to.  The youth begged and begged Sister Davis to let them dance more and she gave them three more songs.  After all, we did have seminary the next day at 8:00AM. So at 11:15 we told the youth it was time for bed....but the senior couples needed some time to unwind after all that excitement, so we all headed to the sauna...

SAUNA!

What do senior missionaries look like in a Latvian sauna?

This....

it was very hot in the sauna with all our clothes on!

In fact, we could hardly breath in there it was so hot and humid...

and thus we leave this blog for another day when we aren't so breathless and sweaty.