A Combined Activity to Remember

As it happened, Brendan's first Young Men's activity was also be his first combined activity with the Young Women. The Laurels and I were in charge of planning a "Chopped" tv show themed cook-off activity. We broke the youth into four color coded teams and gave them a grocery bag of ingredients they had to use to create a main dish and a dessert, then sent them off to neighboring members' homes to use their kitchens. Later, they were then judged by the Bishop and his counselor, Brother Jackson. 

Brendan wasn't too thrilled at first when I told him what the activity would be. I don't think that cooking sounded too appealing, but I assured him that it would be super fun with all the youth together, and I think that by he end, he agreed.

Brendan was on the yellow team, along with fellow new deacon - Sam Toompas, seasoned deacon - Sean Madrian, new priest - Spencer Taylor, Laurel - Allison Hartshort, and Beehive - Angela Massey.

They stayed with me and Sister Jackson at her home and created some chicken pie rolls for their main dish and ended up with a "dessert soup", which was supposed to be a layered pie, but didn't quite set. I think they still enjoyed goofing around and working together, though.

The red team made some beautiful food. Cayden Carter, Abbey Martineau, Jenna McCombs, Maddie Jackson and Maddie's friend Cameron (middle) made a caramelized banana marshmallow souffle and a chicken pie fritter.

Caleb was on the blue team along with Gabe Richardson, Kaitlyn Hartshorn, Faith Murphy, Gabe Martineau and Lincoln Carter. They made a "pile o' chicken" with sauteed green bell peppers and a marshmallow, chocolate, cheesecake dessert pizza.

The green team with Zach Merritt, Shayne Westlake, Bronson Taylor, Paige Jackson and Katie Madrian made little mini chicken pies and (the boys) created a "plop" of marshmallow chocolate for dessert. The funny thing was that the dessert was stuck to the plate. Like a blizzard at Dairy Queen, you could literally turn the plate completely upside down and it would not fall off! Bishop tried to taste it and couldn't cut it with a fork, so he got a knife. He still had to chisel off a piece to try it, but I guess it ended up tasting pretty good because the green team won the competition! Craziness!

The teams were graded on how well they cleaned up after themselves at their host houses, how their foods tasted, the presentation, and their creativity. Everyone sounded like they had a good time working together and testing their skills. They all had a pretty good laugh when Bishop was turning the plop dessert upside down there at the end, too. Hilarious! And that face!

As leaders, we felt that it was a pretty awesome activity. Almost all the youth came, everyone participated, and there were a lot of smiles and laughs. One Young Woman even posted on Instagram about it within an hour of the activity ending! Not bad for Brendan's first experience with the youth, either. They are a pretty funny bunch!