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


Hello my friend and friends. Today I have an important message to share with you and it's important enough I'm fighting a cold right now and all of that I'm feeling kind of miserable but I felt like it was worth it to issue sort of a public service announcement of sorts where I want you to stop wasting your custom properties and the awesomeness that our custom properties because people always do it like this where we have you know some custom properties all set up in the root which is awesome that's fine no problems with that but then if we look lower down in my code we'll find stuff like this so here like on these sort of background thingies I did them as custom properties so then I'm putting the colors in there and then I have the icons that I need to change the fill on for each one of them to have the right color so I'm changing the fill of each one like this and this is fine it works but it's a little bit annoying and we end up with a whole bunch of selectors we don't actually need so how do we improve on this how do we use custom properties in a smarter way that leads to more maintainable projects and easier to deal with code bases well it's actually pretty simple and I'm actually going to delete all of this that I have right here or let's comment it out actually just in case we want to reference it a little bit later and we're going to dive in here and make some code so it's hit save you can see all of those colors disappear and let's go back up now to the main selector I have for my plans and let's look really fast here just to get an idea you can see I have these three that are set up very typical we have the plan and then a modifier here that I'm using to control the colors and potentially make other changes if I had to insight each one of those I have my icon at the top I have my title in there just a paragraph my price and a button down at the bottom of each one so nothing too complicated in the html so the plan is for each one of these and the first thing I would recommend when we have elements especially like this or components or different things where you might have different colors for each one this could even be for like your pricing tables it could there's so many different things that this could apply to it could even be for lists and other stuff where you have like different icon colors there's a lot of different places where we could do this I'd recommend using a locally scoped custom property and we're going to be exploring the idea of private properties or this term comes from Leia veru who called them pseudo private properties as an idea of sort of stealing from javascript where we just put an underscore here to sort of indicate that they're they are private properties and I'll put a link to her article where she first explored this idea in the description if you want to read more about it but on my plan here what we might want to do is well we have those two colors that were coming in and that background color was like that pseudo element but it sort of looked like a shadow like you know some sort of weird shadowy things oh let's just call that shadow and the other one that we had on there was our icon so we can just say icon like this and we obviously need to apply something to each one of these and again this is just saying this is sort of like a private property it's something that's unique to my plan it's not something we find up in our route that we're just you know we're dealing with this locally right here and what we're going to do here is actually use a custom property as well and this can seem a little bit weird and I'm going to call it shadow but I'm going to give it a fallback right because right now shadow doesn't actually exist anywhere I ideally wouldn't have that maybe existing somewhere but we'll talk about why this could exist in the route as well and why that's okay and for now let's just say red so it really stands out and we see it or you know those were actually a bit faded so we'll go with pink on those and then here my icon we're going to do the same thing var of icon and then on this one we'll say that the default is red just so it has a fallback that we can easily see if this wasn't a demo I would probably make those black but you could make the fallback whatever you want and because shadow and icon don't exist anywhere these are the values that are going to be used if ever I use these anywhere so let's go on that plan icon that we have right there and I'm going to say that the fill on those should be my var icon and we can see that that's working fabulously right there and then we can actually do the same thing let's go to that pseudo element that I had over here so there's the plan before and in this case let's just say that the background of it background is my var and in this case we called it shadow and you can see that's coming in right there why is this better than doing it this way and then we have the you know it's kind of weird we have this double name and I'll get to why like why is it shadow and shadow we'll talk about that and if you've been watching my videos for a while this isn't exactly how I've been using the this idea of the the pseudo private property where I usually don't bother with this side of it but it makes a lot of sense and I want to share how Vera explored this idea and so now what we go down we can go down to here and here we had to have the selector for my before of each one of them and then we also had to have the selector of the icon for each one of them which is a descendant selector which some people don't like having instead of all of that I could just come and have my plan param and on that one I do that my shadow is going to be my var and then here we just say that it's my color yellow and in this case my 300 refers to the right one and we can see it switched over and let's just we'll set up the other one too which is my icon so icon and be var color yellow 400 which is my darker yellow or more more vibrant yellow and we can see that comes in and the reason this is working is if we come back and take a look here we have the shadow which is looking for a custom property of shadow without the underscore and if it can't find that it will go to pink but as soon as we declare one now we actually have a shadow and it's going to work and the advantage to what this is I don't have any setup but I could you know if shadow existed in the root it would use that default value that's in or we'll call it defaulted to use the cascade it's being inherited into the plan and that shadow variable would work but then if we did redeclare something new it a more locally scoped thing like I'm doing here it's going to work for that as well so we can take my pram let's set up the next one so the next one here is my bike and that one I think for the two of them is my cyan color and then I can take these two and what I really like about this this is my rocket there's what I I guess the main thing that I really like with this is I only need one selector and I'm controlling things that are inside of there and of course we don't need to stop here with this sort of thing like we have these buttons that are on here and we might want to make some changes to those as well and that's a little bit where things can get more interesting here and we're going to look at how we can actually change these shadows to be a little bit better and advantages with the custom properties on that as well and a few other things but let's start with these buttons right here so if I know that I want to make my buttons something that change like say it's a different hover color every time I'm hovering on one I can come and create one of those so we're going to say our button hover which will be our var button hover and then here let's just make it red again it doesn't you know again I wouldn't do this for production necessarily or actually you know what well let's come here and do this as a another custom property because this could be a valid fallback as well where we can look at my color text which is the current color that I have in the background there already so if you ever want for fallbacks you know there's no harm in referencing back to other things the pink and the red here might not be great areas to start with you could have better fallbacks and that way if there is no modifier you're still getting something that's perfect but when the modifier comes on that's when you're getting different situations or different things that are happening so now what I can come down and let's set up my button to be able to do this and this is one area we will need a descendant selector and one of the reasons I like this is because I can keep all of this the same and I have one class that's controlling all of these changes that are happening I don't have to come on to my button and say oh this is a button yellow and then this one's a button blue and that one's a button purple or I have to worry about naming or anything like that I just have my pram my bike or you know whatever this might be yellow blue name those things the way you want but then I'm not worried about modifying anything inside of there I'm not modifying my icon class or I'm not modifying my button class I'm just relying on this one selector that can handle it all so let's come and actually we'll do it right here so we can have then my plan and any button that's inside my plan can get these and we'll look at why this is is nice because actually just really fast if I did this normally I'd have to have my plan pram and then button or have the modifier class like I said and then have to have this for each one of them that's really annoying to have to repeat that every time I want that modifier to affect the the button that's descendant inside of there so in this case we just say that I have my plan button hover and we'll do the plan button focus as well and for this we can just come and say that the background color is my var button hover with the underscore here and it's important when we're declaring it we're using the private property version of it so this is sort of setting the stage up and then when we use it then we can just use the non underscore version of it if you don't like that idea of you know having that fallback in there you could probably approach this in a slightly different way it's just the main idea here is take advantage of your locally scope custom properties so you definitely don't need to set it up exactly like this but there is this nice benefit of having sort of we can rely on the cascade but sort of break the cascade where we need to and it sort of just denotes as well that like where this is getting declared my button hover should be something that I can find on my plan it's not something I would go necessarily to find in my route so we get my button hover that's right there so let's hit save and it should still work perfectly fine because that is going let's just go look really fast that's looking at this it can't find that so it's going to the fallback really fast if I made this my yellow 400 we can see that they've gone to that yellow so they're relying on the fallback color right now so we'll go back to the text so it has a nice default fallback and then when we want to set it up well I don't need any new selectors I don't need to worry about anything like that I just come and this one the color of the text is going to be terrible on this one but I just say my button hover is we can just duplicate this actually right so we just add that in there and we can come on each one of these switch that and this one would be my cyan and then this one can be my purple and now the hover color for each one has switched over without having to worry about it I just come in here and I have these options they become like levers that I can pull for the interior of what's happening within this element which is just so nice the other big advantage of one of the best things with all of this is the way that this is really nice with transitions and animations as well when you need to make change like small changes to things but let's come and look at I have this before right now as a pseudo element that I set up here and I sort of needed to do that because I have a shadow on here right I have like a soft shadow and when I first saw this and actually I got this just so you know from icode this which is a website by florin pop who you might know and so it's a site that has like daily challenges that you can try out right so every day there's a new challenge that opens up it's completely free to join if you join for free you get the daily challenge every day and if I do the start challenge I can actually work on it within the browser the you know it's all here I can do the challenge save it submit the other people solutions and stuff it's a really fun site I'll put a link to it down in the description just so you know it is an affiliate link so well you can join for free and do the challenges every day for free if you do decide that you want to unlock more stuff and get the pro challenges and some of the other things that are available to you then I'd get a small commission from that so you'd be helping to support my channel at the same time which I'd obviously appreciate very much but if you don't know them very cool site but yeah as I was looking at this when I first looked at it to me it's instead of creating a whole pseudo element that makes more sense as a shadow but then I needed that softer shadow on the inner bits as well and the reason that presented a problem was if I take this off and I have that soft shadow that's already on there right so we have the plan and then I have my shadow if I wanted to have a second shadow on here I 100% could so let's come here and add a second shadow I'm just going to put a comma and so I guess it'd be like negative one rem offset in both vertical and horizontal zero blur zero spread and for now let's you know we've been doing red as our example you can see it comes in and it works exactly like I'd want it to the problem now is if I want to change this box shadow with a modifier class I have to come in and redeclair the entire box shadow right so I'd have to come on my plan pram and have this one and change this one just really fast we could do that one is yellow and I have to redeclair the entire thing even though the only thing that's in here that's actually changing is the color of the shot like the color here nothing else all these values everything else is identical and then I'd have to do the same thing on this one and make this one cyan and then I'd have to do the next one and change the color of that one and that's annoying when we have to redeclair entire things and I'm sure if you've done animations or transitions you've done this as well where you have to like add a different animation stop you have a like a stop in your animation you might have to declare a whole bunch of stuff especially with transforms that you've already done that aren't changing from step to step but you just have to have it there so it doesn't overwrite the existing thing because we don't want it to overwrite the other box shadow right and then get rid of the that soft shadow that was on there we need to keep both of them so that was actually why my custom property is called shadow too because I saw it as a shadow but if we're using locally scope custom properties I can completely do away with this and I can just come in and this would be my var shadow and of course I want to be doing that pointing at my private property so with the underscore and hit save and look at that it just worked right away so that's really awesome right and the reason I like this is personally I find it a lot more maintainable and easier to deal with because there's a lot less code going on I just have to pull those levers that I want and so like that's really good and also just really fast if I kept those as pseudo elements I had a negative Z index on them to have to pull that Z that background backwards but that could actually be really bad because if I had a background set for like the area here I'd actually lose it behind that it's annoying dealing with negative Z indexes so using a shadow also solves that problem but another thing that makes it another reason that I really love this and I've talked about this I keep going on about it but let's say I come in and I add another one here and actually it should be in my list but just for styling purposes let's leave it outside just so it's nice and big at the bottom and we want this item to be like this is the important one right so it's my light speed and it's a bit bigger but so I have this one and this one I have my plan light on there so I'm using the exact same HTML the only thing I'm doing is changing one class here at the top nothing else through the entire thing I update my text and then I just come down and let's just duplicate that one right there change this over to my light and I don't have any custom properties set up for an additional color because I'm not forward thinking enough with these demos all the time and then maybe this icon and this one can be lime and then this one can be like a light green and we get those colors that come in and everything updates my buttons updated again the text color I'd have to come in with something that could update my text colors too but everything just comes in and updates without me having to do a lot of work and of course I'm doing this just with colors right now this is not limited to only colors you could be using this for absolutely any custom properties that you have set up and you might want to change that are within and that's for me the real best part of locally scope custom properties is you're dealing with the parent and you can have as many pieces inside that are all being controlled with one nice simple selector when you do need to make changes and if you enjoyed this video and you like just general CSS tips and tricks and things like that you might really enjoy this video that's right here as well where I look at how you can actually transition or animate from a height of zero to a height of auto with CSS only and it's not even really that hacky or anything it just works it's awesome uh and yeah so check that out if that sounds interesting to you and with that I would really like to thank my enablers of awesome Andrew Michael Simon Tim and Johnny as well as all my other patrons for their monthly support and of course until next time don't forget to make your corner of the internet just a little bit more awesome


Hello everyone! My name is Habiba and I am very excited to be here with you today to share with you a couple of things about my home country, Morocco. I was born and raised in Morocco before moving to the United States where I am right now. In fact, I'm talking to you from the beautiful states of Arizona, but that's not what we're going to talk about today. Today, we're going to talk only about Morocco. We're going to talk about the geography of Morocco, the climate, food, culture, people of Morocco. I hope that you find this to be fun and informative and if you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them. I love Morocco. I'm proud to be a Moroccan and it's always fun for me to sit down and talk about Morocco. So before we start, I want to show you the flag of Morocco. In fact, that's what I'm wearing today. This is the flag of Morocco. It's also behind me. If you're not familiar with Morocco or you don't know where Morocco is located, it's in the north side of Africa. When you look at it in the map, it's very close to Spain and it's bordered by two major oceans. On the north side of the country, Morocco is the Mediterranean Ocean and then on the west side of Morocco is the Atlantic Ocean. So by way of having two major beautiful, rich oceans bordering Morocco, it is providing Morocco with a lot of natural resources. Now, the size of Morocco. Morocco is not a large country and if we were to compare it to Alaska, for example, Alaska is almost four times larger than the size of Morocco. So that gives you an idea about the whole country. But even though it's a small country, it's very diverse, very rich in resources and there are a lot of things going on in there. Now, the climate in Morocco. Let's just say that the Mediterranean climate is very similar to the climate in Southern California, which is always pleasant weather most of the year. And that is the area in the northwest side of Morocco. And that's where 95% of the population is living because the weather is nice and the climate is better. In the Sahara, that's where the climate is arid and dry. And as you know, the western Sahara is a major part of the country. Not a lot of people living in the Sahara, but it's an important part of the country. And I will talk about that in a little bit here. Mountains. Yeah, that's my favorite part. I love mountains anywhere, especially in Morocco. There are two main mountain ranges in Morocco. There is the Atlas Mountains, Central Morocco, and then there is the Reef Mountains in Northern Morocco. The Atlas Mountain Range is huge and it actually even goes beyond Morocco to other countries in North Africa. But it does have sub-ranges like the on-tie Atlas, the high Atlas, the middle Atlas. And this area of the country is so very beautiful. There is even the highest peak in North Africa in the Atlas Mountain Range. It's called Mount Tupacal, standing at an elevation of 13,674 feet, almost a 14er. And by the way, a 14er is what you call a mountain that is 14,000 feet, which we have a lot of them here in the United States. And by the way, the Atlas Mountain Range is a sister range to the Appalachian Mountains here in the United States. So that solely defies the relationship between Morocco and the United States, which is a strong relationship, by the way, because Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States as an independent country back in 1777. And by doing so, there was a treaty of friendships signed between Morocco and the United States. Now let's talk about people of Morocco. As of 2019, at least 37 million people called Morocco home. There are different ethnic groups in Morocco. There are Arabs, and this is the group of people who came from the Middle East back in time. There are the Amazigh or Berber, and those are the natives of not only Morocco, but other countries around North Africa. And then we also have some other ethnic groups from East Africa. And so by way of having different ethnic groups, you will see that people have different skin colors in Morocco. There are groups in the Sahara and other ethnic groups in the Reef Mountains. So it's very diverse. It's got a lot of different people in the country. And that takes us to languages in Morocco. So many languages are spoken in Morocco. Now we have two main official languages. When we go to school as kids, we learn Arabic, standard Arabic, and then we learn French. And the reason we need to have French as an official language in Morocco is because Morocco was colonized by France. And outside of Arabic and French, there is the Moroccan dialect called Darija. And Darija is the dialect that is spoken widely around Morocco. And then we have the Amazigh language. And then we have another language spoken by people who live in the Reef Mountains. And then we have some people speaking Spanish in the north of Morocco and then the south of Morocco. And the reason being is Morocco was also colonized by Spain and Portugal at some point of time. So so many languages are spoken. But like I said, when we go to school as kids from primary school up until high school, we learn in both Arabic and French. And then when you go to college, depending on what major you choose, if you choose to go to medical school or for an engineering degree, it's going to be French in high school. If you choose to go for a degree in Arabic literature, it's going to be in Arabic. And when it comes to English, we do in public schools, I'm talking because there is a difference between the curriculum in public schools and then the curriculum in private schools. In public schools, we take a few English classes in high school and few English classes in when you go to college. And so for me, for example, before moving to the United States, I kind of had to learn English by myself by watching movies and listening to English music. I want to talk about religion in Morocco. The majority of Moroccans or people who live in Morocco identify as Muslims, but there are other minorities of Christians and Jewish and other people who follow different spiritual and religious beliefs. But the majority of the country consists of Muslims. So by way of being a Muslim country, there are different things that you will see if you happen to visit Morocco. There are mosques all over the place. Almost in every neighborhood there is a mosque, just like churches here in the United States. Some women will be wearing a headscarf if they choose to. So you will see that some women are wearing headscarfs, some of them are not. And Fridays are actually religious days, just like Sunday here in the United States. So on Fridays, people would go to the mosque for a group prayer around midday. And it's very common for families to make a very popular dish called couscous. So every Friday, families would make couscous and it's basically a dish with couscous, vegetables and some sort of meat. Growing up, when I was a kid, we would go to our grandparents' house. Grandma would make couscous and then we would gather in there and share that meal together before going back to school. And I found Fridays to be really fun. And the other thing is when I was going to school in Morocco as a kid, we would go from 8 to 12 to school and then we have to go back home to have lunch. We wouldn't have lunch at school and then go back to school between 2 p.m. up until 5 or 6 p.m. But it's different during the month of Ramadan. The month of Ramadan is a religious month in not only Morocco but a lot of other Muslim countries. And Ramadan is actually a month in the Islamic calendar. So the Islamic calendar has a month called Ramadan. And during this month, it's a very important holiday. If you ever visit Morocco during Ramadan, things are going to be different. So Ramadan is 30 days long and basically people would fast from dawn to dusk. So you would refrain from eating or drinking water from dawn up until the sunset. But when the sun sets, you are allowed to eat or drink. Now this practice is not done by kids. So you would only participate in fasting when you get to puberty age. So when I was a kid, I always wanted to fast and I asked my parents why am I not fasting. I want to fast just like you. But it was a very fun month because we get to take our food with us to school. And instead of going to school from 8 to 12 and then go back home to eat and then go back to school from 2 to 6 p.m. We would just go to school from 9 up until 3 p.m. And we would take our lunch with us. And I really enjoyed the fact that I can take my lunch with me to school and share it with my friends and classmates and just have fun eating together. So Ramadan is a very important religious holiday. During Ramadan, a lot of businesses and restaurants are going to be closed during the day if you happen to visit Morocco. So it's very normal. People are fasting. Not a lot of people are going out to eat. So businesses are going to be closed and then they do reopen after the sunset. Also on the 27th of Ramadan is a fun celebration where kids would dress up and put on Moroccan traditional wear. Girls would get henna tattoos in their hands and guys would go and get haircuts and you would go and gather with family. And it's a fun celebration on the 27th of every Ramadan. Now let's talk about food. And that is my personal favorite part. And that's what I miss the most about being home. The Moroccan cuisine is one of the best cuisines around the world. It's very diverse, very tasty and I would love me some Moroccan dishes. So we'll talk about some of my favorite Moroccan dishes. The most popular one is Tajin. Actually Tajin is the name of the pot where you cook this dish. That is a Tajin right here. That is a Tajin. That's what it looks like. This is a pot you would place everything that you have to cook in this Tajin. And usually it's vegetables with meat. We have two popular Tajins. If you ever go to Morocco or if you can find the Moroccan restaurants where you live, you definitely want to try them. Chicken Tajin. And chicken Tajin you would cook chicken with pickled lemon, green olives, Moroccan spices like saffron. We use a lot of saffron in Moroccan cuisine. And there's another type of Tajin with meat, either lamb or beef with prunes, almonds and sesame seeds. And the prunes are caramelized. So it gives it a very nice mix of savory flavor and sweet flavor. We do have the popular Moroccan mint tea which is my favorite tea. It's very popular in Morocco. We have Moroccan mint tea in pretty much every Moroccan household. Three times a day breakfast after lunch and sometimes around dinner. Moroccan mint tea is really tasty. I was actually thinking about making some before filming this video, but I totally forgot. So this is an example of what a tea set looks like. This is where we make the tea. This is how we would pour the tea. There is another interesting dish in Morocco called Tangia. Not the Tajin, but Tangia. And this is very popular especially in Marrakech. Marrakech is a very touristy city in Morocco. And if you ever visit Marrakech, they have this popular dish called Tangia. It's a pot that you would fill with meat and spices. And it's cooked underground. So very tasty. I tried to make it once here, but it didn't go so well. Because you definitely need that underground oven to slow cook it. Really delicious. Marrakech is a very touristy city. A lot of people who come visit Morocco for the first time choose to visit Marrakech. So that takes me to talk about the capital of Morocco. The capital of Morocco is called Rabat. And the largest city in Morocco is Casa Blanca. This is where most of the businesses are. A lot of job opportunities. So it's very common for people after school or after high school to move to Casa Blanca for better opportunities. Now let's talk about how people dress in Morocco. I mentioned that some women choose to wear a headscarf. That's very common. Now times are changing. So you will see a lot of people just dressed casually with the jeans, sneakers, t-shirts, or some casual tops. But we do have a lot of beautiful traditional wear that is different from one region to the other. Casually men and women both wear a dress called jileba. So jileba is worn by both men and women. It's just a long dress that covers all of your body. It's very practical to be honest.  For special occasions like engagement parties, baby showers, weddings, women usually wear either a koftan or taksheta. And there are so many beautiful designs for how these takshetas and koftan look like and they change every single year. Men would usually wear either a regular suit or they would wear a jileba. And there is a different traditional wear in the southern Sahara which, by the way, if you might be asking if indeed there are camels in Morocco, yes, in the southern Sahara, it's very common to come across wild camels and if you visit Morocco as a tourist, you can take a tour in the Sahara desert and you can go for a camel ride which is really fun. Now, in the southern regions of the country, there are different types of wear. Women would wear something called mulhafa. So mulhafa is a piece of cloth that is very large and they use it to cover their body and then there is a gandora is what men would wear. It's usually blue. And then they also wear turbans to cover their face from the sand, especially if they are riding camels in the desert. If there's any sandstorm that might hit, they are protected from the wind and from the sandstorms. I have five questions that I'm going to try to go through and answer them to the best of my knowledge. The first question, could you explain some of the components of culture in Morocco, clothing, food, language, religion, customs? I think we touch on pretty much most of these. For the customs, I would like to share about weddings in Morocco. Weddings in Morocco are so much fun. Back in time, people would celebrate weddings for up to four days, if not a week, non-stop, one week of celebrations, but things are changing right now and people would celebrate for no more than two days. And usually there is a day called henna day. This is where the bride gathers with her friends and family and it's usually just for women, so she would put on a nice green outfit, accessories, makeup, and that's where she gets henna tattoos with her friends and family. And then there is the wedding day. And the fun part that I want to share with you about the wedding day is that the bride actually gets to change her outfit multiple times, sometimes up to five times, either different colors for the dresses she's wearing or different outfits representing different regions in Morocco. So she would wear a dress from a specific region in Morocco and then another dress and then towards the end there will be a white dress as well. And the bride gets carried in a table. We call it a maria. So a group of five to six men would carry her up on their shoulders and just walk her around the venue where the wedding is taking place. That's about weddings in Morocco. Okay, so the next question that I have here, could you explain the environment, geography of Morocco? I think we talked about climate, natural resources, animals. Okay, so I'm not very well versed when it comes to wildlife and animals in Morocco, but for the natural resources the key resources in Morocco is the phosphate minerals, zinc, manganese and as far as the economy, the main pillars for the economy in Morocco are agriculture, phosphate minerals as well as tourism. Tourism is a very important component of the economy in Morocco. What are some common hobbies or activities that people, kids participate in? I think it's different from one family to the other, depending on how well off they are, but for middle class it's very common for kids to play soccer. If you are visiting Morocco you will see that kids are playing soccer in the street all the time. It's very common, especially boys. You don't see much with girls, but if a family is well off they can put their kids in private clubs and pay some extra money. Martial arts are very common, so kids would practice karate or taekwondo. I took some taekwondo classes when I was a kid, so it's really just different from one family to the other, but I would say soccer is very common. Next question, what global issues affect Morocco? Even if Morocco is a beautiful country and I love Morocco it's still a third world country and there are so many problems in the country. Especially because agriculture is one of the main pillars of the economy in Morocco. Poverty, access to health care, access to education, especially in secluded communities. When I was talking earlier about the mountains or the high Atlas Mountains, communities living in those areas usually don't have access to education and if they do, kids have to walk miles and miles every single day, which becomes a big challenge, especially when it gets cold up in the mountain. They don't have access or easy access to health care, especially because the infrastructure does not support those secluded areas. There are even regions who don't have access to potable and drinkable water. There are a lot of people who don't have access to electricity, so let alone the internet. A lot of problems, unfortunately, that come to mind when I think about challenges that the country is facing. And the final question, what is your favorite part about Morocco? For me personally, I love the fact that even if Morocco is a small country compared to states here in the US or other countries in Europe, it's still very diverse, very, very diverse. Just a couple of hours drive from north all the way to south you go through mountains, lush forests, and then beautiful oceans that are perfect for surfing and nautic activities. And then you go all the way down south and it's the western Sahara. I love the diversity in the country. I also love food. Food is one of the things that I really miss about being home. I miss people, warmth, generosity and how accepting they are. I hope that you found this to be informative. And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. My email address is WeAreTrackingPals at gmail.com and I will be very happy to answer any questions that you might have. I very much enjoy sharing with you. Thank you for letting me share with you. And I hope that you can make it to Morocco one day. Visit, explore the country. And I wish you a beautiful day ahead of you. Take care.