For those of you that don't know, I am the Young Women's president in our ward. And I am pleased to announce that we had 100% attendance at our girls camp this year! That's right ladies and gents, ALL 5 GIRLS! Only having 5 girls in our entire YW organization definitely has its upsides and its down sides. I would say that one of the upsides is that it is slightly easier to plan camp. Especially, when it is a stake camp. All we do is stake camp. You see, there are only 60 girls in the ENTIRE STAKE! Very different from how I grew up in Utah suburbia. So without further ado...PICTURES!
Here are all my girls with their TMNT shirts. The theme this year was something on preparedness and so we all chose a super hero. Ours was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Did I mention that I have 5 girls and they are all different nationalities? We have a girl that came over from the Philippines a few years ago, a girl that came from Peru about 7 years ago, a girl that is half Maori, a girl that is half Mexican, and then one caucasian.
Me and my WONDERFUL counselor/friend, Jess. She was without a doubt my saving grace during this week. She and I would stay up talking and giggling worse than the girls most nights. LOVE HER!!!
Yeah, we ate well!
Hiking glamour shots! Gotta love 'em!
Maritza, Milagros and Hannah helping to prepare dinner. I had never cooked in a dutch oven on my own until this week. 3 nights straight of dutch oven cooking. I think I did pretty well. Here they are preparing dutch oven Lasagna. YUM!
I have never been a big fan of girls camp crafts. They were usually something cheesy that sat on a shelf for a couple years and collected dust until you finally threw them away. So I was determined to come up with a fun, useful, non-cheesy craft. Enter...MAGNETS! My wonderful counselor Jess (a.k.a. saving grace) made me some of these for my birthday in May so I put her in charge of the craft. Easy, cheap, and useful! Perfect camp craft! They turned out so cute and I was extremely impressed with the girls' creativity.
Everyone getting ready for our "5 mile hike". Yeah, didn't end up that way. About 1/4 of a mile straight up the mountain we realized that the trail was not what they had expected. So we turned around and came back.
I love this picture!!! I love it so much it almost brings me to tears. This is our bishop, Raymund Goekeritz (sp?). Bishop emigrated to the US in 1957 when he was 20 years old. He grew up behind the iron curtain in East Germany. He remembers the war, but mostly he remembers having to beg for food after the war. He is now fighting brain cancer and is completely useless on Tuesdays due to chemo. Our last night up there he told us story after story of his life. Many of the stories brought tears to his eyes. After his emigration story, our two girls who were born in other countries shared their emigration/family conversion stories. It was definitely a great night. I think it was that night that I really realized how much I love these girls. Later that night while Jess and I laid in our tent we started talking about how just a few months ago we didn't even know these girls. Now we worry about them and wonder what their futures hold. As happy as I was to get home to my own bed, my husband and my shower I really did enjoy my time getting to know these girls. Now only 11 months until the next camp...
