 As-Salaamu Alaykum, peace be upon you to everyone. Thank you so much for inviting me to speak. And welcome to our space, the MCC Mosque. You're our guests and so we have, you have a number of rights over us as being our guests. And I'm honored again to speak and to share a little bit about what we've learned through our experience in doing some youth programs. And also I was very excited to hear about the hearing from the youth programs from the Mormon community and hearing about what they've experienced. Because I'm very big on not reinventing the wheel and for those of us who build their life and their world outlook based on Scripture, we share that commonality. We differ on certain points of theological points and other lifestyle customs diets, but for those of us who have chosen to use Scripture and reveal Scripture as our guiding force, that's a common thread. And I believe that's the work that this organization is doing to try to remind us of that. I'd also like to begin by wishing everybody a happy New Year, not late. For the Muslims it's our New Year, it's a Muharram. We go by the lunar calendar and so Muharram is, this month was just started. And for us it also signifies one of the most momentous occasions for celebration in the Muslim tradition, which is the exodus of the Messenger of God Moses from the land of Egypt and bringing the children of Israel out of the bondage of the Pharaoh and into freedom. And so this for us is on the 10th day of Muharram and so it's a day of celebration. And I think it's quite appropriate that we're having this event in that month with that occasion because Moses, if anybody was a youth leader, Moses is at the helm of that youth leadership. And we actually, in our tradition, in the Muslim tradition, we read the middle chapter of the Quran every Friday. And in that story is a story of Moses and his helper who was named Yusha, Joshua. And my mother actually took me to visit his grave in Jordan, which is just above the hometown of my father in Jordan. And Joshua is known to have led the youth from amongst the children of Israel in our understanding of the tradition. So I think it's very appropriate that this event and speaking about youth leadership and youth programs in this month. Again, I think it's really important for us to not reinvent the wheel and so these occasions where we can come and share our experiences is really important. And I'll mention a few points where I think that really comes out. Even though we have a program for Muslim youth in the mosques led by Muslim youth counselors, I also encourage all of our counselors that are working in the programs to look at other programs that have been successful and to look at the programs that work and what don't work. And I think that's very important for youth leaders or youth directors or anyone doing youth program to look at what works and what doesn't work because we don't have to reinvent the wheel. So just as an example, I have a friend of mine, a colleague who does a lot of youth programs with the Muslims in Ohio and his daughter is one of the first Boy Scouts. They've now changed it. So if you're interested in that story, you can type in Terese T-A-R-I-Z-I and Boy Scouts and his daughter, 10 years old, will come up as one of the first Boy Scouts and I think now it's Scouts, right? And so we were talking about some development of code and conducts for our youth programs across the U.S. and for our massage in Moscow. And he said, well, you know, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. The Boy Scouts have already dealt with a lot of ethical issues, code of conduct issues, health counselors and let's bring some of that experience, it's over 100 years of experience into our spaces and that's something that he's worked on with me and we're bringing it into our space. I also myself subscribed to some Christian news newsletters just to see what's going on, what's working and what's not for other communities. And so I appreciate this opportunity to share with the other faith communities of what's been working for us. One of the things that has really worked for myself and the programs that I do is appreciating what each individual brings into the room. Sometimes when we're doing youth programs, we take the attitude of sage on the stage and there's a lot of movement within education to take the idea of lecturing and that the teacher knows it all to turn it around to where it's learner centered. And so in the same way, I think it's very important that the youth programs are youth centered, not youth directed because they sometimes need the advice of the elders in the community and experience and as I gain in years as well, I start realizing some of what my elders or what my parents had mentioned to me and I said, oh, that's what they were talking about. It's not that we got it all figured out when I was 15 or 16 and everybody else doesn't know. And so I'm coming to appreciate more and more of that wisdom but at the same time appreciating what each individual brings into the room and making sure that the program is about them and not just listen, this is what we have to offer and what they call sage on the stage or lecture or chalk and talk in the educational literature where the teacher just writes on the board and talks and it should change to where now let's hear what you have to say. And I actually use this as a technique. If somebody asks me a question and a lot of times they bring me questions that are very sensitive in nature and by that I mean theological issues or what is our Muslim outlook or what is our view and rather than take the approach of here this is what it is, I'll ask them to say, well, what do you think? Not to regulate the definition of our tradition and of our faith to their opinion because as Muslims we believe that the understanding of the faith comes through revelation but to see where you're coming from and then to mold that into adding maybe asking questions and so forth and so I think it has been beneficial for me to use that philosophy in bringing into the room and this is what I believe is also the prophetic philosophy or the prophetic method of education and programs so to speak that the men that God sent to convey to humanity the message of God were not dictators they built people and they built individuals and worked to form the best that that person can be and one of the traditions narrated by the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him is that he said that people are like oars of gold and silver the best of them before Islam is the best of them after Islam if they gain understanding and what that means is that everybody has a core metal and before that metal can really come to fruition before you can take gold and put it into a semiconductor to operate some of this digital equipment that we have or to use it as jewelry you have to refine it and so that's also the process that the human being has to go to what is there or because there's different properties silver has properties copper and gold and so the person who is helping to develop the youth really has to learn to recognize what are the strengths in this individual and help develop those those strengths at the same time it's not all directed by the youth there should be and there should be a guy or a coach and in the Muslim tradition this is called the Murabbi or the nurturer and it comes from the same word that the word Rab comes from and if I say Murabbi what does it sound like in another language or tradition? Rabbi and it comes from because Arabic and Hebrew are Semitic languages they share a lot of words similarities in words and in structures and in roots and so the Murabbi is the person who does tarbiyah is the person who nurtures just like one of my teachers told me he said just like the bird nurtures its young so when it's in its egg when it doesn't have feathers you know and taking the youth through the various stages so these Murabbi's that we're helping to train the other thing is that they need training too and they need counseling too so for the youth counselors the youth directors the deputy youth leaders in our community they need training too and sometimes in the programs what happens is it all becomes about the participants in the program and are we making sure to get the best experience for the participant and the best program for the participant and we forget that the facilitators they need the help and direction and support and so forth and so making sure that the facilitators have just as much attention and time as the participants in the program is very important for the sustainability of the program and that's what we found here at MCC especially in the girls program which has been going for about 10 years the boys program that we've started that we've modeled it after the girls program here has a very strong emphasis on developing the Murabbi's in our communities because at the end of the day if a young person needs to reach out to somebody they may reach out to the leader of that community in our case the Imam or the Sheikh of the Masjid they may reach out to their parents but who are they more likely to reach out to friends and peers and so if we can develop these friends and peers to be youth mentors and Murabbi's then that makes them more sustainable and long-term program the other thing that it does is that it helps make sure that it's sustainable in that the program is not centered around one person because if that person moves away then the program will fall apart but if it's more organic in nature that it's a community and you have multiple people who are emboldened and empowered and strengthened then you can have multiple people to make sure that that Talbiya is happening really in every portion of the center where we gather it can happen in the hallways which it does here it can happen in the parking lot and those conversations but it has to be under training and counseling another point in addition to the Murabbi's is that and from what I've seen and experienced is the importance of including the parents and so sometimes in youth programs the focus again becomes on the participants and then also the facilitators of that the people in that space, the religious space in our cases the mosque and we forget that really the biggest influence on the child's life are the parents and so if we're not working with the parents as a team then we're missing out on a big factor of change that can happen through the parents and then also involving the parents in the same way when we involve the youth and we hear their voices and say what do you think about this program, should we direct it towards this this way we want to hear those voices from the parents so over the summer one of the parents who just came in and he was bringing his sons in to volunteer for the program and I was really amazed by his five boys that were there really helping us out of the program and then I started talking to him rather than just dropping off your boys would you like to participate in the program and then he did and when he did he brought in I didn't even know that he had 30 years of experience in doing programs with boys and his own boys he brought in one of his sons had memorized the Holy Quran which is over 500 pages and was an Eagle Scout almost an Eagle Scout so how did you do that and so I asked him and we're now incorporating some of his experience into the programs that we're developing here at MCC the other thing is so making sure that it's a learner center that we have the Murabbi component we're including the parents and then I'll kind of wrap up around this but it's reaching the youth where they are and this is something that really took me a while to recognize which is for the most part our mosques programs and when I say our mosques I don't mean just MCC but around the country the programs are happening in the mosque well the majority of people who really would benefit from the programs and I should say not necessarily benefit but need the programs the most are not coming to the mosques and one of my mentors I also do outreach work in the prisons sometimes people say how do you work with youths and prisoners that's another story not saying there's coming out of these but I've found both callings and people say who do you love teaching I said I love teaching young children and prisoners okay but one of my mentors in that field of work and outreach in the prisons he did a chaplain training and this was for the chaplains of all the CDCR I don't work with the Department of Corrections but I was there at the chaplain training program and there were Native American, Protestant, Catholic, Hindu, Jewish chaplains Muslim chaplains all faiths were represented and one of the things that he was really stressing to the chaplains is that he said for the majority of the chaplains your programs are happening in the chapel he said but the people who are coming to the chapel they're the ones who are most likely that if they get out of prison they're not going to recidivate they're not going to come back to prison they're going to take this message and keep going forward so what he was saying is that some of those people who are in the mosque or in the chapel they can help you facilitate programs but you as the chaplain should really be out there in the community and reaching the people where they are and so I'd like to just take a moment to read something I found from another this was some advice for developing Muslim youth programs and so this person after speaking with a lot of people who do youth programs said that we can categorize the youth into three groups and I'm going to read the descriptions of each of these groups and it's talking about the Muslim groups but just enter add in whatever name for your youth leader or your pastor or your Imam or your religious representative so the three groups are religious youth mostly religious youth and not so religious youth he said for the religious youth these are your MSA going Muslim Student Association the clubs in the school MSA going weekend seminar attending Shaykh so-and-so rocks are there anybody in your community you know pastor so-and-so rocks do you have youth like that that are really a gung-ho Shaykh so-and-so rocks type of brothers and sisters you know who they are they keep on gaining knowledge want to go study overseas attend college high school at the same time they're active in missionary work they're recognizing their community they teach at Sunday school they conduct weekly lessons in their mosque they truly care about the communities they are the rising leaders of the Muslim youth the mostly religious youth these are the youth these are the youth the religious crew needs to focus on who are they they come to the mosque for the Friday prayer the Friday night youth group Islamic events at the same time they may listen to Lady Gaga could find something better friends to hang out and may even let a few curse words fly him here and there while they are with their friends they have a relationship with the religious youth and with the third category who we will be talking about next the non-religious youth the religious youth need to understand that these are the people who they need to work with and build a rock-solid relationship with they are the most effective route to getting across to the non-religious Muslim youth the not so religious youth these youth have a bit of a long road ahead of them they may not have come to the Masjid except on Fridays when their parents bring them they may also not be involved in the mosque in the MSA or even pray regularly they have girlfriends, boyfriends, do drugs, alcohol and also do not hang out with a healthy group of friends the middlemen youth are really the only group to have a grip on these guys they are the ones that can bring the not so Islamic youth towards the tour of the mosque and to activities planned by the religious youth and so what he was showing or the author was showing in this article a lot of our programs are really directed towards religious youth in the mosque space and they're coming into the mosque whereas how are we reaching the people who don't even want to step into our space and so this is something that I've used to try to then do outreach in our community work with the MSAs in the high schools help train them to bridge that gap with the third group and it's still our programs are always developing the last thing and I think I'll end on this I think it's my time up 20 minutes we have about about 3 more minutes my mom always tells me Rami you need to stop talking so fast and smile more so I hope I'm smiling more and I'm not talking as fast as I usually do so the last thing I will say is that one thing that we've found that has become more and more a request of the youth themselves to have programs are about programs for addressing the mental health component and mental health status of our communities in fact just this past weekend there was a youth focus group and they were developing their own youth committee and the first thing they asked each other what type of programs do we want to see for the youth rather than adults saying okay we're gonna have this program this program this program what are the youth what are you saying you would like to see and the first hand was more programs for the youth addressing mental health concerns in our community and that you know the whole range of that and including suicide awareness and bringing those discussions removing stigma around those discussions groups around just today speaking with a parent who specifically asked she said can we have an MCC can we have programs youth support groups for mental health and dealing with addiction issues these are issues these are human need to have those discussions in our in our mosques if we can the last thing I will say is that I'll end on this is that on the story I was taking a flight and there was a young evangelical pastor and his wife they were sitting next to me we started talking my wife always says you can talk with anybody I enjoy talking to people I'll talk with the toll booth attendant I ask them for discounts and that gets them out of the robot mode any discounts today? no any coupons so the young evangelical pastor he was on a way to some missionary and relief work that he was doing in Thailand and we got to talking and so we got to the point of saying you know I think we each have misconceptions about each other's community and faith let's use this point of plane to talk about that and so he asked me some questions about Islam and understanding and I said you know and to be I'll be totally honest I know Muslims are very misunderstood but in our community and the Muslims I think we misunderstand the evangelical community especially because of all of the rhetoric in the news about who are the evangelical communities and no one group of religion it's monolithic in nature and so we have to speak to the individuals so after we exchange some ideas and we're still in contact we email from time to time I said you know I think one thing that we can't do is and this is a call Allah God mentions this in the Quran it says speak to the people of faith the Christians in this scenario where the scripture was revealed to and say can we come together on a common word and so this common word is we have to look for what are those commonalities amongst us and I think the common word that we can come to within our various faith communities is that there is a push within modern society right now to discount religion and to even mock religion and there's no faith that agrees that we can mock another our own religion another's religion another person's faith in their scripture what they worship who they worship we cannot mock them and this is happening this mockery of religion is happening in the cartoons it's happening in social media it's happening in media in the midnight talk shows and just a mockery of religion and a disrespect of religion and a push for people to move away from religion and a push towards atheism and so I said you know I think one thing that we can agree on both believe in God and one thing that our youth and our communities and the members of our community struggle with is this push towards is there a God or is there not a God and that's something that we can work together on to help each other's communities say look we do have theological differences amongst our various faiths but we can agree on certain things and let's have conversations around those in addition to having healthy dialogues about differences that we may have so all of them there I apologize if I went over my time limit and I look forward to hearing from Scott Allen about what they've experienced in that community We have five minutes for questions if you have the time Yes, yes Okay Anybody have some questions? One question Since your probably religious affairs are on Friday Friday in the US we have one day Right How do you handle it? Well, that's a very good question and it's very difficult and Monir handles a lot of difficulties here with the parking because we have people who come on their lunch breaks and we have so a lot of people will use their lunch breaks some people will actually design their lives around that and so I think one of the benefits of living in the area where you have a lot of tech workers is that there is the ability to work from home and so we do find a lot of community members who will work from home Fridays or work half a day to make it to the Friday prayers there's also a lot of companies that offer the Friday prayers at the company Facebook, Google, Cisco a lot of the big companies they even have rooms dedicated for prayer rooms and for the Friday prayers I think one of the so people who work they work around it they take their lunch breaks or have their prayers there at their place of work take half days really where it becomes difficult is with the youth in high schools where they want to pray and sometimes there's some constraints MCC has been very accommodating to the local high schools in that they actually have three Friday prayers so normally they'll have just one service but as the congregation grew a lot of mosques added a second Friday prayer MCC took an initiative and added a third Friday prayer that actually is after school and a lot of times led by some of the youth in the community and so that allows them to have the Friday prayers here I've also worked with people in their high schools to help them facilitate Friday prayers in the actual high schools I have a question do you need an email to have a prayer session? Oh, very good question do you need an email to have a prayer session and one of the things that one of and I'm actually looking forward to hearing about the Mormon community and their programs because one big difference between the Muslim community and I think the Mormon church from the way I understand it is that the Mormon church is very centralized and the Muslim community is not so there's some benefits and drawbacks to not having a centralized community and in terms of what messages are delivered on the Friday prayers and how messages get delivered to the communities especially in times when it's very critical and sensitive in terms of the topic but one of the benefits is that you can have pretty much anybody can lead a prayer and so we help train we actually had a hookah training which is the lecture training for the high schoolers and so we have the high schoolers they can lead the prayer themselves so you don't necessarily need an Imam who's trained as long as the person knows the rules of the prayer and how to deliver the sermon they can deliver it Other questions What is the difference between an Imam and a Sheik? Oh, good question what is the difference between an Imam and a Sheik? The Sheik or the Sheik in Arabic linguistically means old man and so it just became there's no it's not a specific it became customary that the elder it literally means elder so Sheik means elder and the title even though linguistically was only given to a person 60 years and above once the Muslim community inherited that word they used it for anybody that has the wisdom of the elders basically anybody who's studied so you might find somebody who's 20 years old and they refer to him as Sheik so the closest equivalent would be teacher so it's the same the same teacher Imam just literally means the person in front and so because in our prayer it's multiple lines and it's one person at the front the Imam is that one person in front that leads the congregation Are they trained or not? Yes, the Imam has to be trained and the Sheik to gain the title of Sheik the person would have had to have studied Any insight you can give Muslim or Islamic religion picked Friday for the prayers Most others have picked Sunday Any history to that? Oh that's a very good question some of the wisdom of why Friday was chosen as a day I don't know that's a very good question I mean in Jordan when I grew up there we had because there are 10% of Jordan's population is Christian and so our weekend was Friday and Sunday and so and Saturday was a school day and for the Jewish population it's Saturday Who knows why? Okay, we'll take one more question Yes Are your youth leaders or counselors I'm sorry I can't pronounce the word that you say Sheik? Rabbi? Are they volunteers taken from the community or are they paid? Very good question The question was are the Marupis or the counselors or the youth counselors are they volunteers or paid? The girls program which has 10 years of running here at the MCC they completely run on volunteers and one of the ways that they were able to do that is since they started 10 years ago somebody who started when they were 10 years old is now a 20 year old college student and so they're giving back and so they run a lot on volunteers We tried that with the boys it worked easier to pay them hourly to have them commit The girls were able to commit as volunteers the boys Thank you so much You're welcome Thank you Thanks so much to everyone here at the MCC for being the hosts and I appreciate getting the perspective from Romy and Muneer and I corresponded a little bit via email just to dispel any myths even though my name is Scott Adams I'm not the cartoonist Scott Adams that writes Gilbert but I do have a book signed from him that says to Scott Adams from Scott Adams So as been said the official name of our church is the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints We go by some nicknames the Mormon church or the LDS church which stands for Latter-day Saints because the name of the church is pretty long as you see and our church doesn't really have a paid ministry so literally the same it takes a village we rely on lots of brothers and sisters in various types of what we call callings or assignments to shepherd our youth and so my wife Kathy just raise your hand there Kathy, your wife there Kathy and I have throughout many years in Livermore for about 22 years now we've served in a variety of different capacities over those years a lot of times with the youth so my wife Kathy has served as a primary president which that's the age of our children we have a nursery that goes up to age a year and a half and then a year and a half to 11 that's what we call our primary program and so she was a president now when we say president it's not like the political term president right? a president means preside and so it's a servant leader basically you preside and she'll compassion and love and shepherd the youth that's what a president we have lots of titles of president in our church and so as a primary president she would have a couple of counselors and they would preside over that group of several teachers that would teach the instruction on Sunday as well as music time and all sorts of things in addition Kathy and I served as what we call seminary teachers so our teenage youth they get up early in the morning in Livermore they have a service that starts 6.40 in the morning that lasts about 45 minutes and it's to study scripture every single day of the school year Monday through Friday every single day or further we call it early morning seminary right? so Kathy and I were team teachers and that for a couple of years as well and really enjoyed teaching the youth right? and I agree what Romy said we have a very very similar philosophy in our church it's not the sage on the stage we kind of also refer to it as the guide from the side we want the youth to be engaged we want the youth to teach we have Sunday lessons where we want them to actually present lessons and clearly under the guidance of the leaders as Romy has mentioned but have them experience it have them lead activities have them really how to come from them because that's where they get the deep conviction right? so we also have in addition to the younger children we have a youth group that starts from age 12 to 18 and Kathy and I have both served in various capacities there we have presidencies of sisters that preside over the young women and brothers that preside over the young men so you have a president again a servant leader that has a couple of counselors that help shepherd that group within those presidencies Kathy and I have served as presidents and counselors in those capacities I've served as a scout master running around camping with the scouts and really enjoyed that our son achieved the rank of Eagle Scout and we have two daughters that went to what we call a girls camp program that is basically a six year program and it gets progressively difficult each year with different activities and hikes and I still lead an overnight hike up in the high seas with backpacks and everything teaching young girls how to camp and use camp stoves and use backpacks and all of that so that's kind of a fun thing as well we do other high adventure things like water rafting and some of those things a lot of things involved in scouting and then this young women's camp program so currently I've served previously in Collins as bishop a bishop is a person that presides over a congregation but one of their main focuses is the youth they have a youth committee that meets once a month with other other youth leaders that help plan the activities for the year and they have a monthly calendar and an annual calendar and they say what are we going to do to do a variety of things so currently my calling is a little confusing because we have several wards within what we call a state so several wards or several congregations so Livermore where I'm from we have six congregations one of them is a Spanish congregation and one of them is a young single adult congregation so the ages of 18 and 30 where they meet together and provide a lot of their own leadership and teaching of classes etc and then over all those wards there's what we call a state president state president in our congregation in our state is President Wood and then he has two counselors or assistants and I'm one of those counselors so that's kind of a little bit about the church to summarize kind of our youth program what we try and focus on this is not out of any book this is just me kind of reflecting what are some of the key areas we try and focus with our youth so again you're not going to find this written anywhere this is just in Scott Adams head here but hold out six the six s's okay the six s's are are standards we believe in setting standards for the youth to follow scriptures as the Muslim faith and many other faiths have scriptures that are very important to them and I'll talk a little bit more about that spiritual as for spiritual social the youth clearly enjoy socializing with one another service services a fundamental of most religions right and sacrifice and so I'll talk a little bit more in my remaining time about each of those standards I brought over on the side board over here I brought some different booklets that you're all welcome to take with you one we actually start with our younger children our children in the age of eight they're baptized and so that we have a faith in God booklet for young men or for girls and one for boys and in here there are different standards that they talk about prayer reading scriptures keeping commandments all sorts of different things and they set goals at a young age and then they actually went a little award for completing those little activities and they would get that award probably somewhere in the range of about 10 or 11 years old to complete these little booklets then they graduate to the youth program and there are two programs one is called duty to God for the young men and personal progress for the young women and they're separate programs involved with lots of different activities that they need to do involving parents and leaders the just to give you an idea of some of the standards for example for the young women the young women they have several values that they focus on and they do projects within each one of these values the values are faith, divine nature individual worth knowledge, choice and accountability good works, integrity and virtue so those are just an example of it the duty to God has similar things and we also have done a lot with scouting so the scout oaths, the scout law all of those things tie right back into a lot of the things that we believe in duty to God, country and our fellow men so that's standards scriptures, we actually have what we call four standard works we believe in the Bible, both the Old and the New Testament we have a separate book called the Book of Mormon and I could spend half an hour talking about that but I don't have the time tonight and then we have the Doctrine and Covenants and then the Pearl of Grave Price and in the Seminary program that my wife and I taught the early morning Seminary students every year it's a four year program and you rotate so one year the whole focus is on the Old Testament the next year New Testament next year Book of Mormon and then the final year Doctrine and Covenants and Church History and it just rotates so our views get very involved and part of the requirements of that course is you have to read the entire New Testament the Old Testament is a little longer so it's a lot of selections from the Old Testament and quite a bit of that book as well so that's a little bit about Scriptures let's talk about spiritual experiences we have a lot of what we call youth conferences where we have special speakers sometimes really interesting speakers that have had interesting experiences in their life and a lot of times we unite with other groups so here in the Tri Valley we have what we call a stake in Livermore, Pleasanton and Danville the youth from each of those stakes will get together for either dances or youth conferences lots of different types of things music is very important in our church we have a lot of musical numbers the kids learn from from a young age one of them that most of them memorized is called I Am a Child of God and that's very important we do a lot of family history we believe that the whole human family is connected so we do lots of family history we have a family history center in Livermore where you can research your ancestors and the youth because they're more high tech than some of the rest of us are very involved in that family history work and a lot of it's looking at records and putting that into the computer we have a lot of online tools websites, videos podcasts I talked about youth teaching classes to other youth we actually have a world we have a satellite system that connects typically one of our churches in each one of our cities and through those the headquarters of our churches in Salt Lake City, Utah we have a prophet there we just had a new prophet within the last year his name is Russell M. Nelson and he used to be a heart surgeon in his career and he's been serving in the church for many many years he's 93 years old he had a broadcast because we're a world by church with all the satellite system where people could ask questions via satellite and he put out some challenges he asked the youth to go on a 7 day social media fast now we believe in fasting in our church similar to the Muslim faith from food and water and those things but he said social media for a week and just see how that impacts your spirit and so they took on that challenge so that's another thing that we do social experiences is the other as we have mutual activities which is a weekly, typically on a Tuesday or Wednesday night where the youth get together and have social activities sometimes it's a service activity where they're out helping somebody in need I'll get into that in my service section but we have dance festivals, if you've been in our churches we have kind of a gymnasium as well as a theater stage and so we do what we call road shows or little theatrical plays that the youth get involved in and then we do dance festivals where they learn different dances and perform those as well but let's see we talked about scout camp and girls camp and the service to your fellow men is extremely important and we also get involved in community events the open heart kitchen which many of us get involved in and from a variety of religions and help in that effort there's a backpack project that the air faith group gets involved in that help with backpacks in need there's a city community day of service that we get all our kids from age 3 and maybe even younger out there pulling weeds or spreading bark or whatever they can and then my last topic is sacrifice I mentioned seminary so can you imagine it was kind of my job to wake up my kids so my wife Kathy and I have 3 kids they're all retired teenagers now so they're in their 20s we have 5 grandchildren we only had 3 and 2 more as of last month so the family is growing but can you imagine getting teenagers out of bed just for regular school now try 6.40 in the morning right so to be there by 6.40 in the morning now luckily our churches are pretty close to our high schools and so they can hopefully once they leave the religious service that morning they can go over to the high school really good start to their day to pray, sing hymns study the scriptures before they go into what the crazy life of high school is like if I need to remind anyone sometimes it can be pretty crazy out there and a lot of bullying and intolerance and other things so we want to prepare our youth in a strong spiritual manner every day before they go to high school part of the sacrifice we have church universities and educational systems the main university is Brigham Young University in Utah there's an Idaho campus and a Hawaii campus as well and then we sponsor other types of programs there's actually an online degree program that is worldwide now we're helping those for a fraction of a cost to get a college degree so that's a worldwide program missionaries, many of you have associated our church with missionaries and so at the age of 18 a young man can go on a two year mission they put in an application and they get called anywhere in the world young women at the age of 19 can also serve and they serve for 18 months and then people older in life couples can serve as missionaries and we have proselyting missionaries we have humanitarian missionaries that go all over the world helping with whether it's a well system for drinking water or all sorts of things but the missionary service I think my times are not the missionary service is I served my mission in Spain for two years and at an early age you're learning how to focus outward which is what we want our youth to do not be so focused about yourself but how you respect and treat other people and serve them I learned at age 19 how to help people overcome addictions and how to treat people with respect and learn different cultures and all those things and that is something that I think is something that sticks with our youth for their entire life it sets them up in a foundation as they go into their work life and career focusing outward and loving others one last quote I'll say from our president, president Witt that presides over our state that I support as one of his assistants or counselors he likes to talk about friends and the importance of connecting our youth with good friends and being a good influence on each other and he likes to say friends are like elevators they either take you up or take you down and so he's always encouraging the youth to push the right button to the right friend and take you up and if it's a friend that's taking you down get off the elevator that'll open it up to questions questions for Scott I actually have a few questions yes what would we call you elder my title is elder well I've had the title of elder in the priesthood Bishop my current title is president because the three of us as a group we preside over a group of congregations so it's president Adams but you can call Scott my manager actually my last job was named Scott and he was Mormon he was a great manager and he was really part related to his faith he was amazing but anyway sorry so I had three questions so first of all do you feel is like the actual percentage of the youth that you guys are able to engage with in your activities like you listed off a whole bunch of activities but do you feel like it's the same kids coming over and over like the same kids or is it actually are you able to kind of reach out and engage like the wide range of kids that's a great question some kids are into camping and scouts and others are not and so that's the purpose of this youth council that meets every literally every congregation has a youth council that meets with their bishop on a monthly basis and so they may say hey you know we didn't see Bobby and Sally and all these folks last month because they didn't like that activity how about if we do this activity and so we involve the youth in planning so they can outreach and we try and get them to invite their friends do we do we get 100% attendance every time and are there youth that we're concerned about with some of the problems we mentioned depression and anxiety and some of these rising things that are plaguing our youth we have all sorts of outreach programs for those as well but we're constantly looking to get as many people as we can and to appeal to them and bring them and get them to be better and help others so a great idea of like engaging with youth different types of activities so regarding your daily morning study that you had what age did that start then and how did you motivate the kids like your kids and was it group of kids all across the church all across the world age 14 to 18 so high school age we want them as they're a freshman in high school to go have this religious instruction and it really helps prepare them to be missionaries as well as a matter of fact some countries like Brazil they require some kind of ministerial certificate and there's a graduation program where you have to meet all these requirements to graduate and then they get that certificate of seminary so did I answer your question and then they would have to actually be somewhere else outside of the house that says one they actually come to the church there are so in Livermore we have two church buildings and we have five different classrooms based on age so sometimes there's a freshman class a junior class a sophomore senior sometimes we combine a couple of age groups based on how many people are coming but we have so we have five different teachers in Livermore teaching different classes every morning at school's session and that's common throughout our church throughout the world and I have so who's making sorry one more question so well we I have a problem we are starting to run out of time and we want to give everybody a chance to get a snack and then come back and do a discussion so I was on Scott would you be willing to stay afterwards for a minute so maybe you could take the last question and give it to Scott afterwards so that we can get another person or two to ask one question alright sure sir yes is the mission experience required when the child is 18, 19 different ages for men and women very good question we strongly encourage our young men to go we say we really want you to go and at the end of the day everyone has their free will right and so there's some that choose not to go but we strongly encourage our young men to go our young women on a volunteer basis recently the age was changed from 21 for young women to 19 and we had a huge influx of what we call our sister missionaries our young missionaries go out into the world so it's a voluntary thing but many more of the young women are going for it and really enjoying of that experience okay let's have one more question one more question once the kids go from youth to term youths but the teenagers which is we call enter into puberty what percent they do interest in religion what percent lose interest in religion I would say a common statistic would be about 80% of our youth are engaged up until 12 and then there is a drop-off it's probably about 2 thirds after that that remain interested so about 66% so there is there is a drop-off and again we hold another topic on what we call our plan of salvation to the that allows all of us in this room in the world to return to our God we believe that we are children of God everyone we're all brothers and sisters right we all have a God that loves us and we all have the right to return but at the end of the day everyone has a choice right and so are there certain youth that don't want to stay engaged yes and what's our advice love them pray for them continue to help guide them unconditional love is and who knows years later they may return or they may not but you never stop loving them we don't do up to 15s well thank you very very much God