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July 16 – 27, 2019

Youth Church History Tour

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Thank you for considering a Church History Tour for Youth with Living Heritage Tours.  We are very excited to help those that participate have an incredible experience that they will remember for the rest of their lives!  We will be providing a wonderful spiritual experience while creating a ton of fun along the way.  The purpose of this tour is threefold:

  1. To strengthen testimonies of the Savior and His restored gospel.
  2. To strengthen testimonies of the Book of Mormon through reading, pondering, and feeling the Spirit.
  3. To liken the lessons of the past to our daily lives as a way to draw closer to the Savior.

 We expect participants to return home with greater faith, stronger testimonies, and a determination to represent their Savior in all things and in all places.

 After completing the online registration, you will receive a Welcome Packet which will provide you with everything you will need to prepare for this upcoming tour.  Included with the packet will be a few General Conference talks.  Reading these talks prior to departure will help each participant have a much more meaningful spiritual experience!

We look forward to hearing from you soon as you prepare for this incredible journey to the historical sites of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

 

Tom Pettit
Owner/Director
Living Heritage Tours
801-573-0357
LivingHeritageTours@gmail.com

General Information
Each tour begins in Rochester, NY and ends in Kansas City, MO.  Attendees can fly with the group from Salt Lake City or meet the group in Rochester, NY.  This arrangement allows youth from all over the country to attend this once-in-a-lifetime spiritual adventure!

The safety of our participating youth is our first priority.  We only stay in name brand hotels in great neighborhoods.  We rely on nationally recognized transportation that has a history of safety and customer satisfaction.  We eat at well established, and national/regional chain restaurants.  We provide honorable and trustworthy chaperons to help each youth feel comfortable, welcomed, and safe.

Chaperons
We hand select our chaperons to make sure we take the best-of-the-best.  Most chaperones are recently returned sister missionaries who bring a contagious passion for the gospel to the tour.  They are living proof that living the gospel can bring so much happiness into our lives.  They are anxious to share their testimonies, knowledge of the gospel, and their righteous examples with those who join the tour.  Our chaperons will be announced 5-6 months prior to departure.  The number of chaperons will be based on how many youth we will have on the trip.  Generally, we will have one chaperon for every fifteen youth.  Our chaperons will not be compensated by Living Heritage Tours.  Each chaperon will volunteer their time for the tour simply because they have a desire to serve the youth.  However, Living Heritage Tours will pay for the lodging, meals, airfare, and ground transportation for each of our chaperons.

Chaperons will have many responsibilities.  Each chaperon will be responsible for the youth assigned to them.  This includes keeping the group together, encouraging each youth to participate in the tour activities, caring for each youth’s individual needs as those needs arise, and generally making sure that everyone is having an amazing time.

Families & Others
We often have others outside the “youth” age range that want to join this tour.  That’s okay!  We have had parents and grandparents join past tours.  We’ve even had whole families join too.  The pace of the tour is designed for teenagers, and we relate the historical information and the scriptures to that age group.  If you fall outside the age range but you are alright with the pace and the focus of the messages, then contact us about joining the tour!

Transportation
Arrangements will be made for a chaperon to meet the youth who are arriving in Rochester, New York from an airport other than Salt Lake City.  For those youth flying with the group from Salt Lake City, we will meet the rest of the group once we land in Rochester.

We have never lost anyone and we intend to never do so!  We do frequent head counts at each site we visit and the bus never leaves until everyone is accounted for.

Hotels and Restaurants
The hotels we stay at are national brand hotels situated in desirable areas of major towns or cities.  Each hotel has been specifically chosen for our group.  All the hotels offer a hot complimentary breakfast, swimming pool, and self-served laundry.  We have also intentionally chosen hotels that are situated on large grassy lots which we can use for games and devotionals.

We understand that having a great time and socializing during the trip is important.  Once we arrive at the hotel each night, it is required that no one leaves the hotel property but being together in the lobby area, swimming pool, or other public areas is encouraged.  Plan on strong friendships being developed on this tour which will last a lifetime.  We will have a curfew and it is expected that everyone will be in their own room by that time.  Two chaperons will come around to each room just after curfew.  Beyond making sure that everyone is accounted for, the chaperons will take this time to visit with the youth and ensure that they are having an uplifting, spiritual, and enjoyable time.  This is an additional time when the youth can ask questions, or express concerns to the chaperons.

When possible, we will have the young men on one floor of the hotel and the young women on a different floor.  Anyone found outside their room after curfew or found in the room of someone of the opposite gender will be dismissed from the tour.

A list of our hotels, with contact information, will be provided three months prior to departure.

What to bring
A complete packing list will be provided to you in the Welcome Packet which will be sent to you after your reservation is complete.  As you start to prepare for the trip, please be courteous to others and plan to bring just one suitcase and one personal carry on item.  Plus, save some room for all the things we will send you home with!

Hotel Rooms
Each hotel room will have 2 queen sized beds.  Roll away beds will not be available.  The price of the tour is based on your desired room occupancy:

Quad Occupancy:   $1,299
Triple Occupancy:  $1,399
Double Occupancy: $1,599

Come with your friends, or we can help find roommates for you!

Prices include deluxe chartered bus, all hotels, 3 meals per day, personal tour guides & historians, chaperons, materials & handouts, ground transportation for the airport, daily snacks & water, backpack, journal, and all entrance fees.  Price does not include airfare.  Please see below for airfare details.

Airfare
Flying saves time and money.  Airfare is in addition to the cost of the tour.  Instead of driving 47 hours on a bus, we fly to Rochester, NY and fly home from Kansas City, MO.  This arrangement allows youth from all over the country to attend this tour since you can either fly with the group from Salt Lake or meet us in Rochester.  If you wish to fly with the group, we will invoice you for this expense.  If you are arriving/departing from somewhere other than Salt Lake City, please provide your flight details to us so we can arrange to have our chaperones meet you at the airport in Rochester. 

Traveling
Each Youth will be provided with a journal.  They will be encouraged to take time to record in their journals their thoughts, impressions, and feelings they had at each historical site we visit.  The youth will also be encouraged to answer these two questions regarding each site we visit:

  1. How will my understanding of the historical lessons I just learned about help me draw closer to the Savior in my everyday life?
  2. How will the feelings I felt at this historical site help me in my personal life?

While traveling on the bus, the youth will hear the history, personal accounts, and the stories of the events surrounding the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ (but we’ll watch movies during the long drives too!).  By the time we return home, they will have heard the history of the Church from 1805 to 1846…while standing in the actual places the events took place!

While this is a history tour, this tour should not be confused with school.  We are going mix so much fun into our learning that it is expected that each person will return home having made many new close friends with which they will want to stay in touch with for a very long time!

We make sure that we learn a lot and have a ton of fun along the way!  We will visit many sites of the early days of the church, but we won’t just focus on the dates, locations, and events that occurred at each historical site.  We are going to focus on how the lessons learned at each site can help us grow closer to the Savior in our everyday life.

Each day will be full of historical stories and details.  Each night will include devotionals, testimonies, and games.

 

Tom Pettit is the owner of Living Heritage Tours and conducts Church History Tours several times each year.   Of all the tours he leads, the annual Youth Church History Tours is his absolute favorite one to do.  Since returning from his mission to Australia, Tom has spent the past 16 years teaching the gospel to youth and adults through church callings, church history tours, and speaking engagements.  Tom also shares the gospel by teaching the events of the Restoration and by teaching the doctrine of the Latter-Day revelations at the actual sites where they took place!  Tom’s unique focus on these tours is not to just teach the history, but to help you draw closer to the Savior by applying the lessons learned from these historical events to your own daily life.  Tom loves church history because of the revealed truths, the clarity of God’s love for His children, and the inspiring stories of those early Saints.  Check out our About Us page to learn more about Tom Pettit and Living Heritage Tours.   Find articles relating the Church History written by Tom by visiting his  Blog.

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Space is limited and will sell out very soon.