Fan the Flame of Your Faith

   I got to go to Girl's Camp! Leanne and Audrey came up and stayed with the kids for the 5 days so that I was able to go.  Dexter was super excited for them to spend a WHOLE WEEK with them and couldn't wait to kick me out the door.  Ellie on the other hand...well she got over it quickly.

   Our ward went as just the ward to girl's camp (new experience for me, always did it stake) and went up to the Heber Valley Young Women's Camp.  Oh my.  They called it the "Hilton" of camping and it sure is.  Cabins with bunk beds. Each cabin had 16 young women bunk beds and then 4 leader beds.

My cabin!

16 bunk beds, room for a table and all our group.  The leaders' beds are behind the wall with control to the lights.

   There was also a pavillion.  The pavillion had flushing toilets and showers on one side.  Two prep and storage areas (with fridges) and a large area with picnic tables.  There were couple missionaries every where and who gave us devotions a lot.  They were amazing to always show love towards everyone, the camp and Heavenly Father.

The camp director gave us our first devotional on "I Feel My Savior's Love"

   We shared the campsite with another ward.  They got two cabins and one side of the pavillion, we got the other two cabins and pavillion side.  It was definitely interesting.  Especially when they had a loud music party with a disco ball, and even held movie nights.  

Our campground was in Hinckley so the missionaries talked about all that Pres. and Sis. Hinckley did for the camp.  Having all the amenities was specifically Pres. Hickley's wishes so that the temporal needs were filled so that the spiritual needs could be focused on.  That came true that even with all the fun and stuff we did, we were able to help the girls' spirits listen and grow.

Beautiful forest all around

   I already knew our Young Women's group was awesome, but spending the week with them helped me to get to know them better.  I was a little nervous, but it turned out well.  The girls already knew I was weird and were very accepting of me.

Our theme for the week

  We got to do a challenge course. The high-line portion had a cargo net climb to a plank bridge and from there we connected to a zipline.  I was only afraid when climbing, but the rest I breezed across.

The high line (not me going across)

Me climbing up the ladder

I didn't get a chance to see the girls doing the high line because I was facilitating a low course challenge called opposites.  There were other ones like blind-tag, something with slackline walking, shark island and a spider web.  There were a few more but I didn't get to see or find out about them. They all are team games and then we try to relate it to the gospel aftwerwards real quick.

Our ward playing opposites (I'm the one in the hat)

Elder Pulsipher doing the most intense game of Simon Says...seriously really hard

We also got some lake time. There were paddleboats and canoes.  They warned that paddleboats are boring so I went with canoes.  We had fun racing other leaders and finding each boat of girl's to take pictures of. I had been warned about my camera before embarking because that morning someone tipped their canoe and lost their DSLR.  Good thing mine was a really old one borrowed from my mom.  With the races and having a hundred or so people canoeing on the lake (there were other wards) there were times of the boat almost tipping.  I was quick though at doing the move to steady the boat.  The other leaders tease me of how fast I am at that. 

Leader boat races...we got bottle necked out this time

Some of the paddleboaters

The lake

Me and my rowing companion, Angie R.

We had bunches of crafts: metal stamping, wood carving, bead painting, and mason jar lanterns.

Our cool roasting sticks that we wood carved the handles

Bead necklaces...everyone painted the same design on 30+ beads then shared with the rest of the group

We had a great speaker, Sis. Pennington.  She was the Relief Society president to our Young Women's president a long time ago.  The girls were able to talk and discuss with her and she listened so well to them.  Her talking with them was a great example for how I wish my lessons with the girls would go.  Along with her the other leaders that I work with are amazing examples to me.  They were so fun to be with up there.

Sis. Pennington talking to the young women

We saw these cute deer twins a few times.

There were a few miracles and blessings during the trip. One many could say isn't really a blessing, but I felt like I was helped through it.  During the night one of the girls in my cabin threw up.  I was still awake (as my air mattress squeaked so loud it kept me up).  Well I heard her ask for help and got to be the first responder.  I helped clean her up and rinse out her sleeping bag at midnight.  I didn't wait til morning because dried puke is worse than wet puke.  Plus I didn't know if it attracted bears which we were warned about a lot up there with them having a lot of sightings that summer. The blessing was that somehow I cleaned it all up in pitch black at our sink without throwing up myself.

One of the times we goot to ponder and write

I think that was the only damper, and even then it was over quickly and was the only incident.  It was a great girl's camp, and was a great time.