Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

The Girls Camp post is FINALLY here!

 It has only taken me two months to create it (yeah, yeah, I know what you are thinking). The only down fall to taking this long to post is that all the fresh juicy details are a little...well...not as juicy as they once were. =( 

So the whole camp experience for me this year was, as mentioned in earlier, was a little scary but so worth it! We spent most of Monday, July 26th, shopping for food and other misc. items and packing up all the gear.  Starting from early that morning and not getting home and finishing up till well after 11 just to be up and to the church by 8. The girls were really good about getting getting all their gear to the bishops house on time (unlike their camp director).

The morning of was horrible. Monica(my assistant camp director) and I had to ride the bus to camp as the stake had assigned our ward to provide a leader to ride. No problem right? Well they were to have  two buses but then they decided that since they don't have that many girls going, they only needed one. The bus was PACKED! and riding it was not that fun at all. We were like sardines in a can.  Needless to say both Monica and I were relieved to see that we had arrived at Camp Cumorah.

The first night was our scarfing ceremony and unlike last year, we had four first years. They had us write a little something about each of our girls (we were kinda silly about it) and the stake girls read them out loud as they called them down from the audience. Then they were presented with their scarf and a headband (native American style) and given a stick to throw into the friendship fire as is tradition. It was a great experience for the girls and for the rest of our camp to see how even as silly as we made it, held some sacredness to it. 

Despite the rain, thunder and lightening,  the girls did enjoy themselves with swimming and mud fights, games, pranks, crafts and taking care of the YW president when she broke her finger swinging off the rope swing at the lake. One activity that the stake did was a scripture scavenger hunt. The girls had to go around in groups figuring out clues that led different campsites where the girls then learned about that camps Book of Mormon hero (our ward was Alma the Younger) then when they completed the last clue they ended up back to the stake lodge where they received a pendent that had the GPS coordinates to their home, the church building and the temple that they lived the closest too.  It was their "personal compass" for when they ever lose their way.

Another activity that the stake had us do was write our testimonies onto brass plates which at the end of the devotional (which leads into individual ward testimonies) the stake leaders presented the comprised plates to the stake presidency. It was a neat idea and touching. 

As always, the best part of camp is the testimony meeting. This is where we all gather around the camp fire as a ward and share our testimonies. Some of us even gave it two or three times. It was amazing to watch each and everyone grow just over that week. Hopefully the experiences they had will stay with them their whole life.

***TO VIEW THE MOVIE OF PICTURES FROM CAMP, BE SURE TO PAUSE THE MUSIC PLAYER AT THE BOTTOM OF MY BLOG SO THAT YOU CAN HEAR THE MUSIC THAT THE PICTURE SHOW IS SET TO!!!!***