Our stake girls camp theme was "Stand in Holy Places." Each ward was given a temple to represent. Our ward had Fiji. This was an appropriate theme for a camping trip, as the mountains have often been referred to as temples. Being out in God's creations is one of the most sure ways to feel His Spirit. Camp was only about 48 hours long (they are doing trek in August), but that was just about perfect for me :-). It was a really wonderful experience, though, and I'm so glad I was able to be part of it! I really, REALLY love serving in the YW.
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| A member of our ward painted this flag for us freehand. Amazing. |
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| We "roughed it" on air mattresses and cots. But boy, was it FREEZING at night! |
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| Our cute third years, Taylor and Felicia |
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| Cute YCL's, Kathrine and Xandra |
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| Our camp site! |
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| It's tradition to have sisters in the relief society be "secret sisters" to each of the girls in camp. One of the sweet sisters made a beautiful album for one of our girls to put her camp pictures in. It was incredible! |
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| Inside the girls' tent...not quite as posh, but they were doing fine :-). |
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| I told Taylor I wanted a picture with her and she told me she preferred to photo bomb. So this is what I got. |
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| She showed me how to use the sun to our advantage in a selfie. |
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| Our Xandra led camp songs each night. I missed all the camp songs I learned growing up, but it was fun to hear some new ones. |
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| We played a getting-to-know-you game, "pterodactyl" where you basically try to make each other laigh by acting like a pterodactyl. It was funny. |
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| Then we played "Never Have I Ever" and Taylor ended up in the middle. |
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| The YCL's put on a skit for us and sang a song at the end. |
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| Trudi was the camping QUEEN. We seriously don't know what we would have done without her. She could solve any crisis that came our way and knew everything. |
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| All the smoke went Kathrine's way so she did a little problem solving :-) |
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| It's hard to see, but these are square roaster marshmallows specific for s'mores! Sooooo good. |
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| Getting read to hike! |
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| Our stake YW president's baby daughter is Kathryn Elizabeth, too, spelled just like my name! |
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| The lake made me feel very "Parent Trap." |
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| I struggled on the zipline. I kept falling off right at the edge of the platform. So, I learned to scoot my way down to the edge and push off instead of running and jumping. There were lots of laughs at how silly I looked, but it made it a lot more fun for me! (See video below). |
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| We had the bishop and members of the stake over for foil dinners. Yum! |
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| Taylor was in love with the Pot Guts and kept feeding them whatever she could...this particular instance was goldfish. I wasn't real excited about keeping them so close to camp, but that was better than her original plan of catching one and keeping it as a camp pet. |
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| Our skit was "Good Example/Bad Example" about missionary work. It was very funny. Xandra and Felicia were the "good" missionaries and Taylor was the "bad" missionary (she started out with a companion in the first scene and then went rogue, saying she was going to preach the gospel by herself). The next few pictures are of our rehearsal. |
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| Our yellow camp sign was the door. |
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| "Service for an elderly investigator: BAD EXAMPLE" |
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| "Service for an elderly investigator: GOOD EXAMPLE" |
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| Our YW President dyed our shirts to look like the ocean for Fiji. We all decorated them at her house. They turned out so cute! |
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| Love this group of women! |
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| There were lots of funny skits from all the wards. This group had the Hong Kong temple. In their skit, they learned moves about how to protect themselves from the adversary! |
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| This group sang a camp version of "Party in the USA" |
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| Our final performance! |
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| Our skit ended with the conversion of the Fijian princess. Not that we even know if there is one. |
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| Each girl represented one of the YW values. |
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| This bishopric got quizzed on camp and YW topics and for every question they got wrong, they had to eat a big piece of bubblegum. |
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| Our stake leaders did a camp version of "You Don't Know You're Beautiful" |
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| Their number included a cameo by the stake singing, "Nah-nah-nah-nah!" It was so cute! |
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| Camp in the morning! |
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| We were in charge of breakfast on the morning we left. Trudi went all out with breakfast burritos! It was awesome. |
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| The girls did an amazing job preparing and serving. |
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| Our course Taylor decided to give leftover bacon and sausage to the animals. Not everyone was very excited about this plan (doesn't it seem just a little weird...?). We were a camp divided on this issue :-). |
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| Oh, funny Taylor! She pegged me with shaving cream just before we went down for closing exercises. |
The decision to move to a family ward wasn't one I made very easily. But I know now that for this moment in my life, I needed the experience of serving with these young women and learning how to be a leader. I am so grateful for the examples of the leaders I serve with. I feel like I have a long way to go in really understanding how to be an effective example, but I'm excited to learn. I am also grateful for the strong spirits of these sweet young women. They are amazing, especially in a world that truly has unique challenges never before faced by any other generation. I love them.
