We, the owners of LDS Happiness, would like to take this moment to share a little more about ourselves. Although we have a Pinterest Board that shares quite a bit about us, there is one aspect of this earth-life we particularly enjoy that isn't terribly prominent on our board. While do we enjoy finding new and simple ways of sharing the gospel, we also spend far more time than we like to admit playing board games, or tabletop games in general.

This obsession reached a new high this last weekend when we attended the annual Board Game Bash in Austin, Texas. It was a truly humbling experience. We thought we knew board gaming until we attended this gaming convention. We saw board games that we've never even thought could exist: Board games that take hours just to set up, games that take up 8 or 9 tables, games whose pieces are so delicate it makes you nervous just to watch, and everything in between. And, this isn't even a big convention, or so we're told.

However, amidst all this, there were two things that stuck out to us more than just the variety of games we witnessed. We saw a variety of people too. They all loved games, this we all held in common. And do you know what else? We never saw a single person tuned out from the world, distracted by the ever-present cell phone. This was amazing. Over 300 people, and everyone had better things to do than see what they had missed on social media. No one ever put a game on hold because something 'better' came up on his screen. Even when people seemingly had nothing to do, their phone was in their pocket!

The other thing that astonished us was how much mutual respect there was for everyone, and everything. For example, the convention had a library of games to choose from. Nobody was there, standing guard, to check games in or out. It was simply, 'if you take it, bring it back' - no questions asked. The same went for your individual games; if you left them on a table while you went to lunch...then they'd be there when you returned.

As we pondered what we had witnessed during our return trip home, we concluded we liked what we saw. We liked it very much. Nowadays you hear so much of how you must watch your back at all times and how everyone is growing more and more disconnected as a result of social media. We didn't see any of that in Austin at this convention. We saw social interaction and not social disconnect; we saw warm smiles instead of cold hearts. We saw games bring people together, and it was fantastic!

Here are some photos we took of the event.