Adam's Summer as an FSY Counselor

 JUNE - JULY 2022

When Adam told me that he wanted to be an FSY counselor this past summer, I was pretty skeptical for three big reasons. 

 #1--it would delay his availability for his mission,
 #2--it would mean that he'd spend the summer away from home in the weeks leading up to his mission
#3--the mandatory training session was scheduled for the week we were in Hawaii, meaning he'd have to miss all but a day or so of our family vacation.  

I thought that all of these reservations on my part (especially my stress about him mostly missing our trip to Hawaii--our first trip all together in years) might cause him to reconsider, but he felt strongly enough about it that I realized quickly that I needed to stop trying to dissuade him. I tried to embrace the idea of him only being in Hawaii with us for a day and a half, and then him being away from home for most of the summer.   I didn't like it, but who am I to argue when my son has a spiritual impression to do something good like this?   

 Instead I started encouraging him to petition the planners to create an alternate training week.  The planners left us hanging for a long time, but eventually they did add a second week of training.  This meant that instead of only being able to come for a day and a half, that he would be with us all week and just miss a day and a half.   It still wasn't my ideal, but it was a much better outcome than the original plan!  

 Here are a few facts from his time as a counselor: 

1.  He spent six weeks as a FSY counselor
2. The first two weeks were held at California State University at Fresno--the second week got decimated when a bunch of the counselors (including Adam's "Co") tested positive for COVID.  He ended up having to take a double group of kids and had ZERO breaks.  
3. The third week was at BYU in Provo
4.   He had a week in the middle off and spent it at home.  He slept A LOT that week! 
5.  He spent his last three weeks at Snow College in Ephraim.
6.  He preferred weeks when his kids were a little on the older side.
7.  Even when he had a "Co" and regular breaks, it was exhausting work.
8.  It was the best kind of mission prep he could have ever asked for--he learned how to work with his "Co" each week and they taught gospel principles all week long
9.  He was a very young counselor--the only pre-mission male counselor he knew of.  Some of his kids were leaving on their missions before he was.  
10.  He came home at the end of the six weeks totally exhausted, but beaming.  It was clearly a wonderful experience for him and I'm grateful that he followed the prompting to go forward with it.  

Adam is now on his mission and is not here to tell me about any of his pictures, so here is a completely random assortment of photos taken from the FSY photo album in our iPhotos.   When I say, they're random, I mean that I have no idea which locations these were taken at, nor which weeks they were.   Hopefully they'll be a fun memory for him to look back on someday though, which is why I'm blogging about it.   😃

I believe these were two of his "Cos"