Trust & Obey

This time last week, I woke up bright and early to catch a plane to Dallas- Forth Worth in Texas with my sixteen year old sister, Livi. We hadn’t done something like this without our parents so we were hesitant about venturing off without them into a state hundreds of miles away. We were also nervous to go to a leadership summit we didn’t know too much about. Despite our concerns, we prayed and felt this was the right move. When my parents dropped us off at our terminal, they gave us a hug and we went into the airport.

After our two hour flight, we were dropped off at our hotel by a gentleman from a transportation company. Livi and I grabbed our luggage and headed into the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine, Texas. Once we checked into the hotel and got registered for our summit we were ready to rock and roll with Turning Point USA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit (YWLS).

To give you a bit of background, Turning Point USA is an organization designed to teach and equip young people with the tools needed to defend their political ideologies. They do that through conferences, social media, and get togethers. This gets young people connected with each other and with adults who have been or are involved in politics.

I had never been to anything like this but when Charlie Kirk, the CEO and founder of T.P. USA, shared for ten minutes I knew that this was going to be an incredible adventure.

I think the best part about this summit, besides all of the amazing speakers and breakout sessions, was that I could talk to anyone about politics. There were two thousand five hundred attendees, all sharing in conservative beliefs. I could have a political discussion with any of them! I would be in line getting coffee and next thing you know, some girl and I would be having a complex discussion on the Chinese Communist Party! It was amazing! I have never been able to do that and it was so exciting. I didn’t feel I had to defend what I thought or explain things because everyone got it. We were on the same page the whole conversation and if not, there was a respect for each other’s opinion. Now that I’m back and have had time to really ponder the experience, I truly think politics is where I belong. For once in so long, I wasn’t alone. There were thousands of women just like me out there wanting to engage in political discussion, not angry debate. There was true community among people I didn’t know or hardly knew!

One of the craziest things that happened was other guests at this hotel would ask me and my friends if we were apart of the “conference” going on. At first, I was very nervous to respond. In the past, I have had many issues with people disliking my conservative beliefs. Overriding my concerns, I told each person who asked “yes”. Everytime, they would express their joy and excitement that this was going on! They were estatic to see so many young women excited and engaged in politics. I think it was incredibly refreshing for the hotel guests seeing it and for us young women experiencing it.

Thanks for letting me share all about Turning Point USA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit! I hope you guys will check out their website, they have a lot of great shows to watch (like POPlitics) and events going on for young people!