*This is all for my own journaling purposes so feel free to skip.
I have so many mixed emotions about how girls camp and how it all went down. I found out in November of last year that I was being called to Ward girls camp director. I was terrified and so excited at the same time. I worked on girls camp stuff constantly, went to meetings and started dreaming in our themed color of orange. By mid February the ball was really rolling with added meetings from the stake. I knew that this was going to be challenging, but Utah gives girls camp a whole other meaning. I spent months praying about our spiritual night and how to really get through to our young women. Prayer after prayer, fasting and months of study and...nothing. It wasn't until I decided to go back and reread my notes one day. As I was flipping through my notes this flood of thought came to me. I grabbed a pen and paper and I struggled to write down everything I was thinking fast enough. After I was done I knew this was the exact plan we needed to do. I felt the spirit and I knew that it was inspired. I prayed that the young womens leader would accept the divine inspiration I had been given.
Note: Up until this point we had a hard time agreeing on almost everything. I had talked with her about 3 previous ideas that she was not fond of. I resolved to tell her this last time that if she couldn't accept this idea then she was going to be on her own because I felt so strongly inspired that this is what we were supposed to do.
I know the Lords hand is in all things. She accepted the idea with caution but not contention. And, not only that, the rest of our time went really smooth and we had to rely a lot upon each other. She was a great great strength to me. I truly feel like I couldn't have done it with anyone else.
Days went on and so much time was spent on schedules and crafts and organizing and cleaning out the storage unit and devotionals and ahhhhh so much. The time, oh the amount of time. The last week before I probably stayed up until 3 am every night just to get everything done. So, it was done. We were ready. We went the Saturday before and set up our tents and canopy's and cut fire wood etc. We were set to leave at 6:30am on June 17th.
The night before at about 4:30pm I got a all from our Young Women's President that camp up at Aspen Lakes was cancelled. Apparently a General Authority had gone up to the camp to check it out. He had heard that a large group called the Rainbow People were slowly moving into our camp and by the end of the week there was said to be 10-17 thousand people in that area. Although they were supposed to be a peace loving people, they were known for free love, nudity and drugs. There actually ended up being 2 murders up in the area at that time. The Stake Camp staff was already up there the day before and they were told to pack up and get out as soon as possible. We were not allowed to go back up to camp to get our stuff and were told only the priesthood we be allowed up. They were already moving into our camps and we were afraid that all of our stuff would have been stolen. Luckily, it was not. The crazy thing about it, is that the night we were supposed to go up it snowed 6 inches. We would have frozen and been miserable. I feel so grateful for the priesthood on the earth and the men who listen when they are being prompted by the spirit.
The night before we met with the stake leaders to try and figure out what to do. They decided to make the very next day a day at the stake center. We did all the activities that the stake was going to have us do. We did a breakfast, devotionals, outdoor activities and a great service project. At this time we were the only ward who didn't have any idea of what we were going to do the rest of the week. All the wards had cabins or houses that they were already going to. We had a few irons in the fire but no commitments. It wasn't until we were sitting in the chapel waiting for a speaker that my young womens president leans over and hands me her phone to read a text that said we had a cabin and we knew exactly what we were going to do. I walked strait out of the chapel and burst into tears. I knew that my prayers would be answered, but I had no idea when or how. I knew the Lord was with me helping me in every decision that needed made. I know he loves his daughters. I felt a perfect love in that moment. My heart was really softened that week and I think I cried more then I care to admit.
The next day we left for the cabin. One of the young women's leader had a brother in law that let us use his cabin up in Spanish Fork. It was awesome. It had a pool table, air hockey and Foosball. We set up a volley ball net on the grass and it had a really cool fire pit.The leaders slept on the top floor, priesthood on the middle and the girls on the bottom. It was very very tight quarters but we made it work and the girls loved it. We were able to do our spiritual night, hike, testimony night, crafts and every thing we originally planned. The girls ended up liking it even better because we had time to hang out, get to know each other and bond. One of my favorite time was when the 6th years trapped me in their room and wouldn't let me out until I told them about my first kiss, first kiss with my husband and how Randy purposed. It was so cute to see them all giggle.
Although it was one of the most stressful things I have ever gone through, it was amazing. I gained so many good friendships with my camp assistant and all of the young women leaders. I felt so blessed to be apart of it all.
