Brazil Trip 2.0 - Week 2

Our time in Brazil is flying by! It is hard to believe that we are over half-way done with our trip. We settled in very easily because it is the same neighborhood and church ward as last time. In fact, when we went to church, everyone remembered us and came to greet us. That made us feel pretty loved. We have quickly established a daily routine of cleaning, gym, beach, family game nights, etc. 

I love being here because it is a break from the crazy busyness of home. For the last few years, I have felt like I am constantly overwhelmed and running from one thing to another. Working at the school, being the YW president, taking care of my family, cleaning the house, etc. is a lot, and I rarely feel like I have any time to relax and do things that I love. That explains why I was 2 years behind on my scrapbook and have blogged so infrequently over the last few years. Brazil has become a place of peace and relaxation for me. The pace of life is so much slower, and there are much fewer distractions that keep me away from spending time with my family. We play games every day, watch movies together, go for walks on the beach, and venture out to various places whenever possible. Oh how I love these tender moments with my boys. I will treasure them always. 

All that being said, my place of relaxation is Jonathon's place of extra work and stress. He loves it too, but he is working so hard. He has his class and research here on top of trying to keep up with his two other jobs at home. It is a lot for him, and he is doing the best he can to manage all of that and still spend time with us. His class has been a success so far. He only had room for about 25 students to attend his class and then work with him to sequence their genomes. When the class registration opened up, it was so popular that it filled immediately with a long waitlist. In order to accomodate as many as possible, Jonathon opened up the lectures to some of the others who wanted to attend. He has had 46 people regulalry at his lectures and observing the processes in the lab. He wished he could help everyone, but there just isn't time, but at least they are getting some exposure to Nanopore and genomic sequencing. By the end of the class, they are hoping to have many good genomes of Brazilian bacteria, plants, and animals. What a worthwhile and important work Jonathon is helping to move forward!

Before we came, we made a bucket list of things we wanted to do before we left Brazil. One of my hopes was to attend a Brazilian soccer game (football here). I missed out on the opportunity last time and wanted to experience that piece of Brazilian culture. Emilio is such a great friend and made it happen this week. He drove us there, attended with us, and helped us work through all the logistics. Trying to buy tickets through the Brazilian system was such a pain. We downloaded two different apps, made accounts, set up face id, etc, but when we tried to enter the game, we still had issues. It took a bit of finagling, but they finally let us in. 

The game was held at beautiful Fonte Nova stadium, which hosted some of the World Cup games in 2014. It was Bahia against Minas Gerais. We arrived very early to beat traffic and to make sure we could get in ok. I am glad we did because of our ticket issues. After we got through the gates, we chose our seats, bought some coxinhas for dinner, and enjoyed watching the pre-game warmups. 

When the game started, the energy escalated and the fans were all in. They stood the entire game, participated in coordinated cheers, yelled at the refs on seemingly every play, and went crazy when Bahia scored about 50 minutes into the match.

The experience was exactly what I expected, and I loved it for that reason. The fans were insane, the game was close and low scoring, the players were flopping all over the field, and the atmosphere was electric... The perfect cultural experience! And for once in my life, I was so glad that I don't speak Portuguese. Haha! I am positive the swear words were flying all around me by the diehard fans. I just got to laugh and enjoy the game. 

The match was 1-0 with just seconds left when MG scored a goal. That sent the match into stoppage time tied at 1. Finally, with less than a minute left, Bahia scored a beautiful goal, and the stadium erupted. Fans all around me were cheering, giving high fives, and going wild. The man behind me patted my shoulders enthusiastically and cheered with me. Suddenly, the whole stadium was full of best friends cheering on their team! That goal essentially ended the game and completed a perfect experience. So fun!

Another fun thing we got to do this week was visit the Salvador zoo. It is a small zoo with a limited number of animals, but they are very different animals than we generally see in the U.S. They are mostly native animals to Brazil and included lots of wild cats, tons of birds, many types of monkeys, huge alligagtors/crocodiles, and the chunkiest hippopotomus you ever did see. We enjoyed walking around, watching the interesting animals, seeing the beautiful native plants and flowers, and interacting with the monkeys and birds. The cute little monkeys that live at the zoo (not part of the zoo) are always our favorites. They run and play everywhere. Hyrum always gets a kick out of them!

The other thing that we have really been enjoying is the Brazilian food! We do miss a lot of American food when we are here because the grocery stores are definitely lacking variety, but they have some things that are just so delicious that we can't find back home. One night we went to the orla (boardwalk by the ocean) and got tapiocas. We each got a savory tapioca and a dessert one. They were so good! Another night we ordered Dominos pizza and got the most amazing dessert pizza with the order. It was a pizza crust, vanilla pudding mixture, brigadeiro chocolate topping, and m and m's. Yum! Not sure why that hasn't caught on in the U.S. We also live across the street from The Best Acai... that is the name of the place, but it is also amazing! You can serve yourself as much acai or ice cream as you want and then add whatever toppings you desire. We have been twice now. Acai is just so much better here. And of course, coxinhas (like a chicken dumpling) and pao de queijo (cheese bread) are always favorites, and we have them for lunch several times a week. I'm glad we have a gym so we don't gain too much weight while we are here. :)

Brazil Trip 2.0 - Week 1

Life was so busy at the end of May and beginning of June that I kept delaying preparing for Brazil until after everything else was done. When Girl's Camp was finally over, I really had to get my rear in gear and take care of everything. This time we needed Visas to get into Brazil, even as tourists. They were only supposed to take a day or two, so I wasn't terribly worried, but it ended up being a lot harder than planned. Mine went through very quickly, but the boys had a lot of problems. Due to potential for child trafficking, we had to fill out papers and have them notarized stating that we were their parents. This took a few days to get done. Then after we submitted the paperwork, the government rejected them 2 or 3 days later saying that the name on their birth certificates did not match my name because it showed my maiden name. I had to upload my marriage license and submit again. A few days later, they were rejected AGAIN because they said the picture of their passports wasn't complete enough. Grrr... By the time their visas came through, we only had about a week until the trip. It was definitely more stressful than it should have been.

With 2 days left to go, we started getting packed up and making sure the house was clean. Since we are only going to be gone a month this time, no one is staying at our house, which made it a lot less stressful. We have a neighbor boy taking care of the house and the cat, so we also spent some time making sure he knew what to do. We worked really hard to get everything ready to go and were able to leave feeling pretty prepared. 

Packing was easier this time because we knew a little more about what to expect. We packed about 8 changes of clothes for each of us, along with swim stuff and regular toiletry items. Then we packed lots of things to do while we were hanging out in the apartment (watercolors, drawing sets, our foldable keyboard and piano books, tons of board games and card games, and a beach football. We also packed a bunch of things for Christian that we can mail him when we get there (customs makes it nearly impossible to get packages through), some of our favorite foods that we miss while in Brazil (peanut butter and mac and cheese), several canvas grocery bags, and of course, all of our technology (computers, ipads, phones, Jonathon's sequencing machine, and a bunch of lab equipment). We each had a backpack, a carry-on, and a checked suitcase. It seemed like a lot of luggage, but I was happy with what we brought and the space we used.

Mom Hill was nice enough to take us to the airport on Monday morning. The line to check our bags was insanely long, but once we got that done, we cruised through security and were ready to take off. The flight was good, but after we landed in Houston, we sat on the tarmac for over an hour waiting for a gate to open up. There were some major storms in the Houston area, so everything was backed up and running late. We were supposed to have a 2 hour layover, but because of the storms, our redeye flight to São Paulo was delayed significantly. We finally took off over 2 hours late and knew we would miss our connecting flight to Salvador. Before we got on the flight, Jonathon called United and got us a different flight for later in the day. 

Red-eye flights are never fun because it is so hard to sleep, but we did have awesome seat locations. Since we were at the very back of the plane, there wasn't enough room for a third seat in the row, so it was just a big empty space. That allowed us to put our bags on the side so we had more room for our legs. Super nice!

As we expected, we missed our original flight from São Paulo to Salvador. That meant that we had a couple extra hours to kill in São Paulo. By the time we made it to Salvador, we were so exhausted! Thankfully, Jonathon's two colleagues, Emilio and Luzimar, picked us up at the airport so we didn't have to find an Uber big enough for our family and our luggage. They took us to our apartment to drop off our luggage. It officially took 29 hours from the time we left our house to the time we arrived at our Airbnb. Then we went with them to dinner at Camarada Camarão in Shopping Barra. We had an amazing meal (crispy lobster pastries, sesame breaded shrimp, and parmesan chicken), and it felt so good to eat real food after all that airplane food.

 

After dinner, we went back to our Airbnb and went to bed. The next morning, we tried to get settled in. We put all of our luggage away and explored the apartment and building. We spent a little more money this time so that we could be closer to the beach and have a good view. I had no idea how much I would love it! The location is top notch. I spend too many hours a day looking out at the ocean. It's actually quite distracting! The views are amazing from every room, but particularly stunning from the enclosed porch area off of the living room. The whole wall is made of glass windows, so you can see everything. I eat breakfast here every morning, and I don't think I would ever tire of it.

 

The view is incredible to begin with, but over the last week, we have now started to see whales from our windows. July is the very beginning of the humpback migration season. We have seen tons already, but I can only imagine what it will be like in August and September. There is something quite magical about seeing whales breaching out in the waves from the comfort of your apartment. Beyond amazing!

Another reason that this apartment cost a little more was because it has a swimming pool and gym. Last time the boys and I spent a lot of time in the apartment when Jonathon was at work, so we thought this would be a great way to pass the time. We have loved going to the gym every day. Andrew is particularly enthused about working out right now, so it has been really good for him. Hyrum has even gotten quite into it and has decreased his mile time on the treadmill significantly.

Since the beach is only steps away, we have gone several times already. We mostly just like to walk in the waves and look for shells. I love that the water temperature is perfect all year around. We usually just go to praia de farol da Barra because it is closer, but when Jonathon got home from work early one day, we ventured over to praia do porto da Barra. That beach is sheltered and much safer to actually swim in. The boys brought the football and played in the water. 

On Saturday, Luzimar insisted on taking us out to tour somewhere in Salvador. We had never made it out to the famous church, Nosso Senhor do Bonfim, so we decided to head there. It features an interesting combination of religions, Catholic and Candomblé, an afro-Brazilian religion. The main church area is fairly typical of old Catholic churches with lovely woodworking and gold gilding. Then when you go to some of the outside rooms you see things like plastic legs and hands hanging from the ceiling. It can be a bit disturbing if you aren't prepared for it. In Candomblé, people pray and ask for miracles for speedy recovery from illnesses by hanging replicas of legs, hands, arms, and heads. Baby dolls are even hung by some worried parents. Along the walls are photos that show the miracles that Bonfim church has allegedly bestowed upon people. 

The church is also famous for the colored ribbons that people tie to the gates and fence outside. Tradition holds that if you tie three knots in the ribbon, you will be granted 3 wishes. People from all over the world add their bonfim ribbon when they visit Salvador. 

After we finished looking around the church, Luzimar took us to several other attractions in that part of the city. We had never been to the Northeast part, so it was all new. We went to an old fort with a lighthouse where they used to station the canons. It had a lovely lookout where you can see the entire Bay of All Saints. The third stop was the most famous ice cream place in Salvador, Ribeiras. The store was gigantic with tons of tables. They had at least 40 different flavors of ice cream to choose from with tons of strange or interesting flavors like milho verde (green corn), plum, chestnut, cream with raisins, cupuaçu, biribiri, and acerola (Brazilian fruits). We got a variety of flavors. My favorites were pineapple, brigadeiro, doce de leite, and the best one, toasted coconut. Yum!

One of the really fun things about being in Brazil is feeling a little more connected to our Christian. Since we are now in the same time zone, it made talking to him on Facebook Messenger much easier. He is struggling with confidence and self-doubt right now because he has been out so long and still not had a baptism. It is so hard to watch your kids struggle without really being able to help them. He will be okay though because he will just keep going and doing his best. That's just the kind of kid he is. He was so excited to be a missionary when he first left, and I hope he finds some joy again in doing the work. There are lots of prayers being said for him, so I hope he is uplifted and feels them. Love that boy and love being able to talk to him! It was a wonderful first week in Brazil!

Young Women Camp 2025

What an amazing week we had at Young Women Camp! It was 5 months in the making, with tons of planning and preparation involved, but in the end, it was such a great experience for all involved. I am so grateful for a group of girls that gets along well, that treat each other with respect and love, and that are open to having both fun and spiritual experiences. There was no drama, and nothing but love and kindness all week long.  

A lot of the credit for the success goes to our awesome camp director, Emily Ashford, who spent so much time making everything special and working with the YCL's to create a wonderful experience. She always goes the extra mile to make sure that all of the little details are just perfect. I love our leaders and girls and am grateful I got to spend a week with them at Camp Mia Shalom.

The week actually started out pretty rough, despite the glowing remarks above. At about 5 o'clock the night before camp started, we received word that the water at the camp wasn't potable. Apparently, it had tested positive for e-coli and could not be drunk. The Stake leaders recommended that we bring up 5 gallons of water for each person (1 gallon per person, per day). That meant we needed to bring up 100 gallons of water the next morning! I quickly texted all our leaders and the Bishop trying to figure out what to do. We decided to collect some 5 gallon jugs from ward members and then buy some 2.5 gallon jugs and water bottles. The Bishop sent out a quick email, and soon the ward members were delivering water jugs to our doors. It was really beautiful to see so many people come to our rescue so quickly. I told the girls how loved they were because so many people had stepped up to help. Transporting all that water took almost an entire pick-up bed, but we were able to fit it all in.

Early the next morning, as I was getting ready to go, I got a text from Kari Wilkins, our camp cook. She had been dealing with a terrible migraine the whole night and was too sick to go up that day. The food had all been purchased, but it hadn't been packed, so Jonathon, Hyrum, Emily, and I went over to her house at 8 am and started packing everything up. It definitely wasn't what I wanted to be doing right then, but I had a very peaceful feeling that everything was going to be ok. I knew we just needed to get it done and get up to camp. I was surprisingly calm. If Satan was trying so hard to mess up our camp, there must be a lot of wonderful experiences in store for us! I told the girls this when we met to carpool up a few hours later. We said a prayer and were on our way!

We camped at Mia Shalom in the Wilderness area in the 2 cabins (#4 and #5) that we stayed in last year. We were thrilled because we felt like we had the best cabins in the whole camp. They backed up to an amazing little glen, and we felt like we had our own little area away from the rest of the stake. When we arrived, Emily had it beautifully decorated with sunflowers and special touches that she and the YCL's had put up the day before. It was really exciting for the girls to come up and see it all set up and ready to go. She also had gift bags on each of the cots with our sweatshirts, pens, washi tape, journals, chapstick, hand sanitizer, etc. 

One of the first activities we did was the Stake "Spiritual Repair" Activity. During flag ceremony the YCL's held up a bag with each ward's terracotta pot that we had written our names on and smashed it on the ground. Then we went to the pavilion and had to put the pots back together in the form of kintsugi. The idea was to glue the pot back together and paint the cracks using gold paint. The rebuilt pot is a different kind of beautiful afterward, which has so many parallels to life. It was such a great idea, but at the altitude of camp, the glue that they brought didn't actually work. We tried and tried to glue the pieces together, but the glue wouldn't hold. The girls finally got some packing tape and tried to tape it back together. It was kind of a disaster! The girls got super frustrated and the pots looked terrible. One of the wards had different superglue and somehow got their pot back together, which was even more frustrating to see how good theirs looked. Then I realized this was a lesson all on its own. Sometimes we are broken (by sin, by circumstances, by physical ailments, etc.) and we try and try to put ourselves back together. If we are using the wrong tools, we may never be able to put the pieces back together. The tools of prayer, fasting, repentance, the sacrament, listening to the Spirit, etc. can help us to put ourselves back together better. And maybe sometimes, we cannot put ourselves back together by ourselves. Sometimes only the grace of Jesus Christ can make us whole again. One of our ward's pots got put together (quite terribly), and one of them we had to give up on entirely because it just wasn't working. We saved the broken pot to symbolize our reliance on Jesus Christ. I'm sad that the activity didn't work as planned, but we were taught something different and maybe equally important.

Later that afternoon, we had our first DEAR time devotional (Drop Everything and Read) by Jelise and Kynlee. It was a great devotional. The thing I will take from it is when Jelise talked about seeing the hand of God in her life. She mentioned that one day she was just really craving bagels, and while she was shopping with her mom, someone had left a package of bagels in the wrong spot in the store. It was God's little message to her that she was seen and known by Him. She told us to "Look for the bagels in our lives." She was so cute and passed out hand drawn bagel puns to everyone. Each one was individual. I got the one that said, "Why did the bagel go to the gym? To get a well-rounded physique!" Haha!

One of my favorite new things that we did was a bead exchange. Each girl brought a bead that represented her for each of the other girls/leaders there. We collected everyone's beads in a little bag. It was honestly so fun to see all the different beads and remember what the girls had said about them. My beads were little earths because my true loves are geography and traveling, so it seemed perfect! I came up with the idea and couldn't get it out of my head, despite not being able to find any earth beads at the store or online. I loved the idea so much that I ended up painting my own little earths for each person. Completely crazy, but I loved how they turned out. The next day, I strung up all the different beads on a keychain, and I put it on my church bag when I got home. Each one is so unique, and it really makes me happy when I see the completed keychain.

After the stake provided pizza for dinner, we got to go axe throwing. I have never done it before, so my throws were pretty pathetic, though I did manage to hit the board on my 2nd turn. Despite not being very good, we all had a fun time.

We finished up the night with our daily recap and family prayer. This is something that I came up with last year and asked to keep again this year. Basically, we just talk about some of the things we learned that day and where we saw the hand of God. Then we have a prayer together before going to bed. I really love that part of each day.

The next morning we got up early to go for a morning hike with the stake. It was originally supposed to be a sunrise hike at 5 am, but they were kind enough to push back the time and let us sleep a little longer. That was merciful since I don't know that anyone slept particularly well. We took a very short hike (more like a walk) to a hillside half a mile away. I was not sad about the short, easy hike. Usually, I am huffing and puffing my way to the top, so this was a nice change. When we got there, we had a little devotional about Joseph Smith's sacred grove experience, and then we separated to go find our own spot to read our scriptures and have our own experience. The girls spread out all over the hillside, and we read scriptures for 20-30 minutes. When the time was up, Amy asked me to sing "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" with her as we called everyone back together. My voice was not great, but I loved the idea of being called together through song.

The rest of the day, we did a lot of crafts. We did a lot of bracelets, macrame, beading, and whittling. I spent most of my time whittling. I had never done it before, but it was actually pretty relaxing. I made a gnome and a penguin. They were actually decent for not having any experience. I was worried about people getting hurt beforehand, and sure enough, one of our girls sliced open her hand. Gah! Thankfully, the nurse was in her cabin, and we were able to get her all bandaged up. I used my special cut resistant gloves the rest of the week. 

After dinner and flag ceremony, we prepared for our Jesus Walk. It was the first time we had ever done it. I found the basic idea on Facebook, and then Emily expanded it and really made it amazing. First, we had all the girls think about a struggle or burden that they were dealing with. Then they took a paper bag and punched holes in it representing being torn apart or not whole from their burdens. Then we put lights in each of the bags. The girls carried their bags along a path to different stops where there was a leader that told an experience about when they had to rely on Jesus Christ. They also showed their favorite picture of Jesus. The path was lit by more bags with candles in them. 

Each of the leaders told a very poignant and powerful story of a hard time they went through and how they had to turn to the Savior. There were many tears shed as we all bore testimony of needing Jesus. I shared the story of when I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and was uncertain if I would live or die. I showed them the picture of Jesus' hand reaching through the water to rescue the drowning person. I have always liked that painting because I felt exactly like that at the time. 

When all the groups and been to all the different spots, we all met back together and Diana and Emily gave the last two stories. Emily showed the girls a giant picture of Jesus that she had painted (she is uber talented), and asked the girls to take their bags (their burdens) and lay them at the feet of the Savior. It was such a powerful image. I think it will forever be burned into my mind. The lights glowed in the dark and illuminated the Savior's face and drove home the point in a way that nothing else could. We had family prayer at the end, and there were tears and hugs and stillness. Nobody wanted to leave because the Spirit was so strong, and we didn't want to go back to regular life after feeling like that. It was the most powerful experience I have ever been a part of at Girl's Camp.

The next morning was our lake day. We rode and swam and had a good time. Amelia and I went out in a canoe for a few minutes. The lake and surrounding mountains is one of the most beautiful places at camp. The stake provided us lunch, and we did a brief service project before heading back to camp. It was very hot that day, so we were all dehydrated and tired when we got back. We took a rest and did some more crafting. I think our girls could craft the whole day if we would let them :)

Then I did a treasure hunt/escape room with the girls. Jonathon and I spent a long time coming up with clues and puzzles that went along with the theme of the ten virgins. Basically, each clue led to a stop around camp that was associated with a way that we could add oil to our lamps like reading scriptures, praying, attending the temple, etc. At each stop, the girls had to solve a puzzle to open a lock where their next riddle was. We had chatgpt help us with clues, and they were pretty darn clever. Here is an example:

Like any activity, some of the girls really enjoyed it and were good at it, and some of the girls probably could not have cared less. They all participated though, and they were able to solve the clues and get to the end. When everyone was done, we talked about the various things that we can all do to add oil to our lamps. Then I gave them each a biblical-style lamp and a vial of oil that I got from Amazon. I had hoped that we could all light our lamps for our testimony meeting to symbolize sharing our lights with others, but the wind kept blowing it out, so I just lit mine and took pictures with all the girls and their lamps. It didn't turn our quite as planned, which was sad, but I hope they will see the lamps and their oil and remember what we talked about. I had really wanted to make a handout to give them with a quote, but I ran out of time. Through the new satellite connection on my phone, I asked Jonathon if he could make me some and send them up with the Bishopric. He did an amazing job. It was exactly what I wanted!

When it got dark that night, we went to Singing Trees. We all gathered in a clearing and sang songs that we had been practicing for the last few months. Our song was called "Daughter of Light" from the 2025 Youth Album. It was really beautiful. We also all sang the stake song together, which was "My Own Sacred Grove." 

The next day was our last full day at camp. In the morning we had DEAR time again and got our letters from our families. I always love reading those letters because my boys are forced to take the time to write something nice, and they always do such a good job. Hyrum sent a picture that he drew, and it was adorable. I had to show everyone around me because I loved it so much. I even got a letter from Christian, which made my heart happy! I also got letters from a few of the women I work with. They really made me feel good. I love that tradition. I also love having lots of dedicated time to read my scriptures out in nature. It is one of my favorite parts of going to girl's camp. 

After lunch, we had a Leader Appreciation meeting with drinks, cookies, and a discussion. The stake leaders asked questions about the things we liked and things we didn't like or wanted to change etc. I brought up a few simple things, but then the discussion took a wild u-turn and some of the leaders started talking about completely revamping camp... new place, not having stake camp, camping by years instead of by wards, and on and on and on. The conversation even got a bit heated at the end. I was a bit frustrated because we had such a powerful, perfect camp that I was sad that some of the loud voices were trying to dismantle it. Afterward, I approached the leaders and let them know that our voices might be quieter, but that we loved what they had done this year and that we were grateful.

Later we did our Secret Sister reveal. I had Kim Bennett. Each day we were given an idea of what to give. Tuesday was socks, Wednesday was a treat, Thursday was a note, and Friday was a handmade gift. The first 3 were easy, but Kim is ultra crafty and a great artist, so I was nervous for the last one. She loves to read, so I decided to watercolor paint her favorite flowers (poppies and peonies) on bookmarks. I am not a painter, but after watching some tutorials, I actually was quite proud of my bookmarks. They were not perfect, by any means, but I thought they were pretty.

Kari was my Secret Sister. I knew it was her from the start because she was sick the first day and wasn't able to come up with the rest of us. That meant that I got 2 gifts on the second day. She was so nice and gave me a whole box of Harry Potter socks. She definitely knows me! For the last day, she embroidered a little sign that said "Kindred Spirits" from Anne of Green Gables. She also got me a cute little Avonlea bag. It was perfect.

In the afternoon, Bishop Busker came up for the Super Hero Pageant put on by the Stake. The girls had to dress up their bishops like Super Heroes, and then they competed in different events. Bishop Busker was all-in from the start. The girls dressed him up like a crazy woman, which totally gave me second hand embarrassment. Most of the other bishops had characters that were masculine and buff, but ours was like a southern cross-dresser named Lady Liberty Sparkle Pants. Haha! Bishop Busker didn't care though, and he totally rocked it! From the very start, it was obvious that he was going to win. He was hysterical and didn't hesitate to act silly. I would have been mortified, but the girls loved it. I am so grateful that he was willing to go all out for our girls. He won in a landslide, and our ward took home the trophy for the second year in a row. 

The final big activity of camp was our testimony meeting. We gathered around the fire and each girl that wanted to got to speak about how they had come to know Jesus better during the week or other aspects of their testimony. It was really a lovely evening, full of the Spirit. I got to speak first and told them about a special scripture that I had found during my reading that week. It was D&C 67, parts of verses 1, 2, 4, and 9. I likened the scripture to myself and read it like this, "Sarah, whose prayers I have heard, and whose heart I know, and whose desires have come up before me. Behold and lo, mine eyes are upon you, and the heavens and the earth are in mine hands, and the riches of eternity are mine to give. And now I, the Lord, give unto you a testimony of the truth of these commandments... and that which is righteous cometh down from above, from the Father of lights."

 It really spoke to me and let me know that Jesus and Heavenly Father were aware of me and my struggles. They know my heart and my desires. To add to the beauty of the scripture, it referred to Christ as the "Father of Lights." Since our theme for camp was "Seek His Light" and the whole week had been about different lights and how they relate to the gospel (sunflowers, lighthouses, ten virgin lamps, etc.) and how to share our light, it seemed more than just a coincidence. Christ is the father of all the beautiful, light things in this world, and he can drive away the darkness. I am grateful that the Spirit led me to that scripture and that I had a chance to deeply ponder it. I was so proud of our girls and how they had grown and the insights they shared. At the end, I challenged them to not let it just be a camp thing. They needed to continue to grow their testimonies each day and become closer to the Savior throughout their lives.

The next day we packed up and headed home. Everything went very smoothly, and unlike last year, we didn't have anyone throw up (though it was touch and go for a few minutes). What a wonderful week it was! I know it wasn't perfect, but it sure felt perfect as I looked back on it. After our testimony meeting, Bishop put his hand on my shoulder and said, "For the mom of all boys who was scared to be the Young Women president, I think you are sure doing a good job with these girls." I replied that "they are like the daughters I never had." I love them and am so grateful to spend time with those amazing young women. This week just solidified that! Until next year...  

I made a movie from our camp experience that can be found here:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sbWPNuaSJdwiH50bY55_eEsr9Qb2gjtN/view?usp=sharing