Girls Camp!!!

It's been a very busy past couple weeks since Girls Camp, but I finally have time to write and post pictures. I had such a blast! Because of a mix-up with our site last year (at our stake owned property) we were able to get reservations at the Heber Valley Girls Camp, thanks to a little help from the First Presidency. We stayed at the Eliza R. Snow campground. It is so beautiful up there. When President Hinckley dedicated it he said it was a "temple on the mountain", and it really is. Gorgeous doesn't even begin to describe it. There are senior missionaries that serve up there doing all sorts of things, and I would absolutely LOVE to serve a mission up there some day. The cabins are great. They have 8 bunks, so each cabin sleeps up to 16. We had 11 girls in ours (8 1st years and 3 YCL's) and then there were 2 other adult leaders. The Stake leaders were absolutely inspired to do things the way they did this year splitting up the girls by age instead of by wards. I was not happy with this decision at first, but I tried to be supportive. But by the middle of the first day I KNEW it was for the best. Everyone quickly bonded with the girls in their cabin and we as leaders all got to know so many girls we'd never known before....and it was fun getting to know some of the other leaders. I was a little nervous about being over a cabin of 1st years, but it was great. Gotta love the 1st years! I loved them all, but there was one in particular that I just fell in love with that I could just gobble up! Her name is Harmoni and she's a cute little Tongan girl. We pretty much adopted her into our ward. It was funny to see how many ward shots she showed up in! I also loved the other two leaders in my cabin and really clicked with one of them right off the bat. (Love ya Tabitha! Miss ya!!) The food was wonderful, and the ability to have a shower was great. I only ended up having one, but I could've had more...there just wasn't time, we were too busy having fun. And last but not least, the spirit was just amazing up there! I've always felt the spirit so stronly at Girls Camp, but this one topped them all. It was just incredible! It'll be hard to sum up all the wonderful experiences and good times, but here goes:

Monday: We got to go canoeing. It was my first time and it was a lot of fun. A few of the girls fell in....one of them was a girl in my ward. She actually fell in twice.

Here's Tenisha's boat after they fell in and had to drag it to the side.

The highlight of the day was having Moave Pryor (sp?) come and speak to us that night. She is the woman who plays the mother of the love interest in "The Testaments". She's a convert and has been a member for about 10 years, joining when she was 40. Through her amazing storytelling, she took us on her journey of seeking for "the true church". She literally spent her entire life looking for the gospel. She had researched probably close to 40 other churches, but when she found the LDS church she knew she had found what she was looking for. She was supposed to speak and then we were going to watch The Testaments after. Lights out was supposed to be at 10.....well, she didn't even finish speaking until about 9:30. Nobody even noticed how long she'd been speaking because she just sucked us all in with her amazing story. When she finally finished, they decided to go ahead and do the movie even though it was so late. But when they went to start it it wouldn't work. They tried and tried for about 20 minutes and nothing was working. Finally they had someone pray and within about 30 seconds of the prayer ending, they got it to work. I don't think there was a dry eye in the place! I've seen the movie before, but somehow seeing it up there and especially right after Sis. Pryor had finished telling her story, it just made it that much better. Needless to say we didn't end up getting to bed until about midnight....but I didn't mind.

Me and Sis. Pryor - look how excited and giddy I look!

Tuesday: For a craft we made little journals which I am very proud to say that I actually wrote in mine. I'm terrible at writing in my journal even though I really try, so I was very proud. I now have all of my camp memories from this year written down. Plus, I guess I have this whole post in my blog. I guess that's really what blogging is right? So I guess I do write in a journal!

I love this picture.....notice Sister Shumway poking out of the top of my shoulder. She looks like she's the little angel on my shoulder...and she is! Hmmm....who should I photoshop in as the devil on the other side? ;)

Anyway, the highlight of this day was participating in a ropes course. O.k. I actually didn't get to "participate". I actually got trained the day before to be a facilitator (the person in charge) of one of the events. Marye Eby and I were a team. It was a lot of fun. There were a couple rotations where we didn't have a group so we got to walk around and see what the other groups were doing. One of the stations had a big rope that you attached to a harness that you put around your waist and then they pull you up really high (like a gazillion feet or so) and then YOU are the one that releases the rope holding you up there and once you let go you swing back and forth and back and forth. Some of the girls were being chicken and I was telling them, "Oh, you have to do it. I wish I could do it." So I was talking all tough and then they said that they had enough time that I could do it if I wanted to. Suddenly my big-time talking was a little more tough than I was. But I did it!! It was terrifying and wonderful. I have it all on video. The experience was incredible! It helped solidify my new favorite motto: "I can do hard things."

Don't I look so calm, cool, and collected?! LOL :)

Kaya at the challenge course activity that I was in charge of.

Here's Harmoni taking her turn trying to figure out the challenge course station I was at.

For free time in Christie's cabin (who was next to ours) they had a "Spa Night". They had everything you could think of, complete with hot towels (that were heated in a crock pot)! They did a makeover on Christie and ooh-la-la her mohawk and heavy makeup was hot!

Christie sporting her new look!

This is Kaya, one of the 1st years in Christie's cabin that I fell in love with thanks to her sharing a name with my daughter. She is tiny, but don't let her size fool ya....she's one feisty girl, as you can see here in this picture.

One of the girls gave Tabitha a pedicure, but she had forgotten to wear flip-flops to get back to our cabin, so she stepped on top of her shoes and tied them around her feet. Now that's creative!

Wednesday: Our cabin finally won the on-time trophy this day! It took having all of us take our breakfast up to the amphitheater and eating up there, but we did it! We obtained the trophy....with the girl affectionately named "Clarice Jade Heber" (Dani named her :) ). The first time the award was given out Sister Shumway mentioned that she was immodest and needed to be properly clothed. The first cabin dressed her, the second winners added to it, the third ones redressed her, and then we got it and redressed her. Our outfit was the best and stuck the rest of the time!

Me & Marye Eby, one of the other leaders in my cabin. :)

Our cabin with Clarice! Go Cabin 2C!! :)

We had a lot of free time this day so we spent most of it together as a ward working on our skit that we were supposed to do that night. Other wards had been working on theirs for weeks, even months, and we had only started BRAINSTORMING ideas 6 days before leaving! I thought we were going to make fools of ourselves. But with all the free time we had to practice and last minute ideas we had, it actually turned out all right. We used an olympic theme (since the olympics are happening in a little over a month) and Allie was our final runner in the torch relay who was supposed to get the torch (which stood for the light of Christ) "to the end". We used the benches in the amphitheater to our advantage. Natalie was the person who handed the torch off to Allie at the back/top of the amphitheater and she explained to her as she pointed down the row in between the benches that this was the path she was supposed to take....down the straight and narrow...and a little to the right (this is where the fire pit was where she was taking the torch). Along the way we had distractions. Dani played a drunk girl who tried to get Allie to come to a party. Tenisha tried to tell her about a "short-cut"....that led her through the benches. And then Natalie and Shanna played missionaries who gave her a map (a BOM) that would help lead her in the RIGHT direction. Then at the very end Christie and I jumped out and yelled "DISTRACTION"....to which Allie ignored us and made it to the end.....to the fire pit where we had Sister Shumway in on it and had her there to greet her and give her a hug. So there you have it.....our cheesy, but pretty cute....all things considered....skit! It was hard doing it with such few people, but we pulled it off and only had to have one person play two characters.

Our ward, minus Tenisha, after our skit.

That night we did our "snipe hunt". It turned out to be a snipe hunt gone awry! It started out innocently enough. The 1st year girls were being told all sorts of things by the older girls that we as leaders had to carefully sort out for them....."wipe toothpaste under your eyes, it'll ATTRACT them"..."wipe toothpaste under your eyes, it'll REPEL them", etc... In the end, all of the girls in our cabin did indeed wipe toothpaste under their eyes, complaining that it was making their eyes burn! They all gathered outside the Stake's cabin. When they came out they gave a brief explanation about how it was going to work and we were off. The girls started out a little nervous and scared, and as soon as the Stake leaders started "catching" the snipes, they started getting a little more nervous....but excited. Some were claiming that they saw their "brown eyes" while others were claming that they saw their "glowing red eyes". Oh dear! :) Everything was going all right.....until they had a Bishop from one of the wards decide that he was going to jump out of the woods and scare everyone. It was all planned ahead of time, but when he didn't jump out when he was supposed to.....somehow the whole incident turned into people screaming that there was a bear. Long story short, some of the girls (including Allie and Natalie) were freaking out and bawling their eyes out. They were scared to death. When they found out that the whole thing was fake....the snipes, the bear, etc......their emotions changed from fear to anger! At one point Allie was saying that she was never coming to camp again! In the end the Stake had to have a little pow-wow in their cabin with all of the girls that were scared, to apologize and pray with them to make sure that they were all right. Let's just say that next year there are going to be a few changes to the snipe hunt....IF there's a snipe hunt!

Dani, Natalie, Harmoni, and Allie preparing for the snipe hunt. Don't you love the toothpaste under the eyes???

Thursday: We were supposed to wake up, eat breakfast, have flag ceremony, and go on our hike. Well, Allie woke up feeling extremely sick to her stomach. She was shaking so badly that she couldn't even drink the 7-up we'd gotten her to help settle her stomach. She asked for a priesthood blessing. In it she was told that she would be able to go on the hike. Long story short....within an hour of her blessing she was completely fine and getting ready for the hike. She was ultimately one of the most "cheerful" hikers. It was just one of many priesthood blessing miracles that we had that week! Another miracle happened on the hike....which was basically the fact that Christie was able to go on it. She has some herniated discs in her back among other things, and was unsure she'd even be able to make it to camp. I told her that if she came she'd be blessed just like I was the year before. I was 7 1/2 months pregnant during camp last year. I had already had a HORRIBLE pregnancy. I was on the drug Zofran all the way up to the end of the pregnancy. But Matthew had given me a blessing before I left and told me that I'd be fine.....and I was. I felt amazing while I was up there! So anyway, I told Christie she'd be fine, but the day before leaving she could hardly walk. So she asked her husband for a blessing and in it he said she'd be just fine and would be able to participate in all the activities. Well, she was and she did, and this included the hike. And not only did she go on the hike, but she was actually chosen as the hike leader and as hike leader she had to make a big choice mid-hike. I won't go into all the details, but she felt strongly about the decision she had made and despite the grumblings of some leaders, we listened to her and in the end we all realized that it had turned out to be a very inspired choice. What an amazing experience it was, and what an amazing experience to be at the top of the mountain we had climbed with two people who should not have been there had it not been for the Lord's hand. I don't think most people in the group knew much about either Christie's or Allie's situations so I'm sure that this experience wasn't as big of a deal to them, but it was to me.

Me on the hike. I look a little tired!

That afternoon the bishopric, Fredia, Debbie, Nicole, and Alicia came up. It was soooo good to see them! We had an amazing fireside that night where President Gurney spoke and was amazing as usual. Then we did "singing trees" where each ward took turns singing a song that they had picked out months earlier. We had chosen Jenny Phillips "I Will Never Move". It went really well and the spirit was so strong. After we went to the area our ward had been assigned to for our testimony meeting, we sang it again and I just started bawling halfway through and could hardly get through the song. Dani was just hugging me. The words of the song spoke so deeply to my heart in that moment. We then had a beautiful testimony meeting. The spirit was there so strongly. I, as usual, didn't say near everything that I wanted to.....but I got an "opportunity" to speak the following Sunday and have a little bit more time to prepare some of the stuff that I had originally wanted to say. Craziness kind of ensued later that night of which details I will not go into because it will just frustrate me. :) But then Christie and I stayed up til about 2 am just talking about all sorts of things. It was so much fun! I love my late night talks with Christie. She is such an amazing person and friend and I was so grateful that she was able to come to camp. When I was originally looking for a Camp Director I thought of her because she had joked with me a few weeks earlier that she would love to go. It's been kind of hard finding anyone who WANTS to go to camp, let alone be ABLE to.....so the fact that she had already told me she had wanted to, helped set things in motion. I felt good about calling her but I felt a little guilty because I felt like I had called her more because of her desire to come more than the fact that I felt inspired. But at the time I decided that hey, sometimes the desire to come is a good enough reason. By the end of Girls Camp I KNEW that whether I realized it months earlier or not, it HAD been an inspired decision. Whether it was for the girls or for her, it was the right choice. Oops, I just got rambling.....and this whole post is getting very long. I better move along....

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this pic! I was trying to get a cute picture of Jake & Debbie and Nicole came along and popped into the picture doing one of her silly faces. It made me laugh so hard!

Here's our cute little ward later that night after our testimony meeting.

Friday: Not much to tell here.....we woke up, ate breakfast, cleaned out the cabins and waited for the buses. Arriving at the church was bittersweet. I was so excited to be home and see my family, but I didn't want this wonderful adventure I'd just been on to end. The girls in my ward wanted me to take them out for ice-cream so I told them I'd go home and get my car and come back and pick them up. But when I got home and saw my family, I started bawling and decided that I just couldn't leave them. So I had to go back and disappoint them by telling them we weren't going. It was an awesome week, but it was good to be home!!! :)

Every year I've been to Girls Camp has only gotten better and better, and this year was no exception. My testimony of Girls Camp and my testimony in general was strengthened so much. It was sad to be away from my family, but it was worth it for the spirit I brought back to our home. I love my calling (most days!) and I just hope I'm in YW's for at least one more year so that I can go to Girls Camp at least one more time! I LOVE GIRLS CAMP!!! So rise and shine and give God his glory, glory......... ;) Gotta love camp songs!