In the midst of severe opposition, 35 members of the Lake of the Pines Ward in California, most of whom were youth, showed up Saturday morning to watch their prophet address the world.

"I'm totally excited," said Reesa Wamser, one of the parents on the trip. "This is my first time to be here."

The group, braving the cold and wet Saturday weather, cheerfully waited in the stand-by line for nearly an hour.

"We came all this way without tickets," said Selby Bearry, the bishop of the ward. "I hope we get in."

Getting up to the Conference Center and standing in the cold was only a taste of the group's previous challenges, Reesa Wamser said.

"Two drivers backed out at the last minute, there was a snow storm coming, I had to work late the day before, only had four hours of sleep and we had a crisis with one of our animals," she said. "It would have been so easy to say 'we're not going,' but we didn't. Everyone was really positive and said it'll work out, and it did."

The snowstorm in California was deep enough to require snow chains, said Ashley Wamser, the president of the Laurels and the daughter of Reesa Wamser.

"The snow chains weren't fitting and were out in the snow for an hour," Ashley Wamser said. "Then when they did fit, they ripped holes in the wheel wells of the car. The windshield was all icy and we couldn't really see, but we made it."

The group arrived Friday night with only five minutes to spare to watch "The Testaments" in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for which they had reservations, Bearry said.

The group planned to get into Conference Center for the first session, watch the second session in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and listen to the Sunday sessions on the radio as they travel home, Bearry said.

All but two of the youth from their ward were able to come.

"This is for the youth; we want them to come and see the many people excited to see conference on temple square and feel the spirit that is here," Bearry said. "We did it two years ago and I think we'll plan on doing it every two years."

Reesa Wamser said she was pleased that her son and daughter were excited to go.

"It gives me hope that I'm doing the right thing," she said.

Ashley Wamser said going to Conference is a great experience, even with the cold weather.

"It's worth it," she said as she waited in the cold weather. "You don't remember the cold down the line. You only remember what you learned and how you felt. Also, not only can we learn a lot from the conference, but it helps us bond as a group."

She said one of the memorable bonding experiences from the last trip was talking on the way up and then discussing what they learned on the way home.

It was the youth of the ward told that asked the bishop if they could go to general conference again.

"We had a lot of new kids coming up that didn't go last time so I wanted them to experience it," he said. "It was one of my highlights of that year."

As the stand-by line started to move forward, the group's excitement rose.

Unfortunately, the group didn't make it into the session. The officials stopped letting people into the Conference Center before they entered the building.

The group's experience is still wonderful, Reesa Wamser said.

"Just to be in this atmosphere is great," she said.

"Most of the youth are going to walk away and remember feeling the spirit and the atmosphere," she said. "Where else in the world are you going to find as high of a concentration of people that believe and feel the same way as you? Nowhere."

Copyright Brigham Young University 7 Apr 2003