Girls Camp - Pine Lake! My favorite part of serving in the Young Women's!!! The theme was the Ultimate Hero - the Savior being the Ultimate Hero and in turn each YW learning that they too can be a hero in their own right. We had such a great year this year! The first thing was our hero skit to kick off camp. The Stake Leaders made a parody of Studio C's skit called the Flirting Academy. Ours was the Hero Academy. We were determined to learn how to be a hero when we were terrified of being one!
Later that day enjoyed all the ward skits! It was wonderful having Kimber up at camp for her first year!
The second day we put the YW through a boot camp. They were taught proper formation and drills by the Army Corp. Then after their drills were mastered the YW put their skills to work by a challenging rock wall! Kimber really didn't want to do it. In fact when the sergeant asked if there were any questions Kimber asked "Do we really have to do this?" Her mother replied "Yes! You can do hard things!" Kimber isn't a fan of rock walls and heights, but she proved she could master the challenge and reached the top to ring the bell!
During the later part of the day we kidnapped one leader from each ward and held them in a holding pen. We sent a ransom note to each ward telling them the Stake Leaders had been brainwashed and would hold their beloved camp leader until each ward would give up a YW's value in return. One by one, each ward showed up to get their leader. We only had one ward that offered a value of Good Works to retrieve their leader. The rest refused and we were humbled and impressed by their offerings. One ward marched up arm in arm and with tears rolling down their cheeks, recited the YW's theme. My ward sprayed silly string all over the jailers and were turned away. They came back and sang a song. We had made swords earlier in the day and one ward offered up their swords in exchange for their leader. Later in the afternoon they sang The National Anthem in exchange to get their swords back.
But by far the ward that impressed me the most was one from Circleville. They had been too busy to come and retrieve their leader so we kept stealing another leader until we had 5! They came over at the end and told us how precious their values were so instead of giving up a value they were prepared to share them with us. For each leader they shared one value. For Faith one girl bore her testimony, for Divine nature they recited the YW theme, for Individual Worth they sang I Am A Child Of God, for Knowledge one recited a scripture, and for Good Works they cleaned up all the silly string my ward had sprayed all over! By the time they got all their leaders back there were tears all over the place!
However, the most incredible experience at camp was the faith walk. During the rotations, each group was able to walk up the road a ways and go through a faith walk constructed by a few individuals from Beaver. They had us follow a string about knee high from the road up the side of the hills a ways. When it ended we were met by a sign that said "Reverently, Quietly". We waited there until our escorts met us, gave us each a blindfold and led us up blindfolded in groups of 5 even further up the hill. At one point they took us one by one, placed a hand on a rope chest high and in the other hand placed an egg. They told us that this egg represented what was most precious to us. I immediately valued it as my family. They told us to hold to the rope, not let go and definately not to give up what was so precious to us. They told us we would know when we came to the end by feeling a dangling rope with a knot tied in it and then told us to just let go and keep walking. I made it through the rope course ok, and felt the rope going up higher and higher where I could hardly reach it so I turned back, still blindfolded and worked my way through all the ropes again; over logs, around trees, and over ditches. Along the way voices tried to take my egg, tried to help me by wanting me to let go, etc. I eventually ended back up at the same place with the rope gradually slipping from my grasp because it was so high! But I felt a rope soon and felt the knot and walked as far as a could holding on to that knot. It was so hard to let go! As soon as I did, one of my couselors, Stacie Gass was there hugging me! I sobbed! It was such an incredible feeling as she whispered I had made it and how much she loved me!
When Kimber's group went they let me know, but it was too late to get her off the ropes. She was already done and through and I just held her! I apologized for not being there and felt terrible! I promised her that next time - I would be. I would be waiting for her at the end of her earthly journey to welcome her in Heaven.
So many of our YW testified that this was their most spiritual experience at camp. They shared their experiences of it with their bishops later that night at testimony meeting and they shared it at fast and testimony meeting the next month. Nothing better than helping YW to build their testimonies and seeing their resolve to live the Gosple strengthened!
And of course the last morning we were treated to breakfast by the Stake Presidency. They always do such a wonderful job of feeding all those dirty, happy, wonderful YW and their leaders!
My last year as Stake YW President turned out to be one of the best at camp. I know I always feel that way about camp by the time it's over and done, but it was so wonderful to share it with Kimber this year and McKenna who was able to show up for Bishop's night. A great way to end our last year!
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