SANDY, Utah — Young single adults in the Utah Area joined together at the Mountain America Expo Center in Sandy, Utah, to have fun and strengthen each others’ faith during the “Together In Christ” dance on Friday, Aug. 11.
DA Dent, a California-based DJ, provided music for the first half of the event. After DA Dent, music for the second half was provided by Kaskade, a songwriter, singer, producer and remixer who has received several Grammy nominations and two “America’s Best DJ” awards from DJ Magazine.
The YSA participants danced and jumped in a large crowd inside the expo center among the loud music and bright stage lights, creating an environment that Makele Neuberger, a young single adult from Salina, Utah, called “chaotic.”
“It was fun,” she added. “We’re close together, and we’re just all having fun together.”
Salina is a small town about a two-hour drive south from Sandy, and for Neuberger, the chance to see so many of her YSA peers strengthened her testimony.
“It’s helping me realize that there’s more people — not just me — that are going to Church. It’s kind of hard to feel faith when you feel like you’re the only one who believes,” she said.
Coming together and strengthening each others’ faith through connection was a common theme of the night for many of the young single adults in attendance.
Jessica Ulrich, from Sandy, Utah, said that she felt a power in the connection present among the participants.
“I love that you can grab a whole bunch of people that are all in the same age group, all with the same experience with the gospel, with our beliefs, and that we get to have this fun experience together,” she said. “It’s such a powerful experience, and you can feel that power while you’re here.”
Ulrich said the event was a great opportunity to see friends she hadn’t seen in a long time as well as make new friends, maintaining and creating connections that helped her feel closer to the Savior.
“You have an opportunity to have those connections with other people, and that feels like power to me,” she continued. “As we all come together, you can feel that connection. You feel that connection with Christ as well.”
In addition to the dance, the venue also housed several game rooms for the attendees to play board and video games together, or just hang out.
Tristan Bennett, a young single adult who recently graduated high school in Bountiful, Utah, enjoyed playing Mario Kart in one of these rooms.
Bennett recently won a national Mario Kart tournament as a part of his high school’s esports team, and he said that sharing common interests with the other young single adults was an opportunity to see “the true meaning of the Church.”
“This is cool because you get to hang out with people the same age as you, and you get to be closer to the Lord and share your gift with everybody,” he said. “There’s people out there who came here just to have fun, but they get to see the true meaning of how the Church is run. And it’s really awesome that it happens like that.”
Saul Flores, a young single adult from South Jordan, Utah, said the Friday night event was a great opportunity to get together and make new friends.
“There’s a lot of things to do — there’s a little bit of everything. … There’s a chance to do everything, and I like that because that makes everyone feel a lot more comfortable,” he said.
He attended the event with one of his former full-time mission companions who was visiting Utah during the conference. For Flores, the feelings of connection between young single adults was a strengthening power for their faith.
“The theme of the conference is ‘Together in Christ,’ and I feel like, in a sense, we’re getting together and gathering all the YSAs to have fun … I think that’s how it relates to the gospel — getting people together to have fun and make new friends.”
More Utah Area YSA Conference events
The dance is part of the monthlong Utah Area Young Single Adult Conference that featured a concert with OneRepublic, Jordan Smith and Jordin Sparks last weekend.
Other upcoming events include a 5K run on Aug. 12; the Aug. 19 Gather Together Conference, with keynote speaker Relief Society General President Camille N. Johnson, TED Talk-style messages from Church leaders, service, life coaching, speed dating world record attempt and a karaoke competition; and the Aug. 20 devotional with Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. See utahysaconference.org for event and ticket information.
