I was the Stake Girl's Camp Director again this year. We all knew going in that I would be more preoccupied with Victoria's graduation party and Nationals, but I told them since it would be planned for the same location as last year that it would make a big difference. I knew what to expect with a lot of things, however, there's always unexpected things that come up, and they did, but I would say it was another successful Girl's Camp.
I had 10 YCLS this year (Youth Camp Leaders) and Kai was happy to be one of them. I had them do most of the planning with me, as we're encouraged to do now. That made it easier and harder at the same time. Easier because they got to lead the activities and make most of the announcements, but harder because they're teenagers and still learning about timing in schedules for big groups and making backup plans. Our Stake YW leader had a baby about 1 1/2 months ago, so she wasn't able to help as much, but she did what she could. Victoria was one of my adult leaders. It was so fun to have her there another year and she even brought her non-member friend, Susie, who I think really enjoyed her time at camp.
Monday morning, we met up at Walled Lake Outdoor Education Center. We had the same cubbies as last year for secret sisters.
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| I had the shirts ready to go beforehand and the YCLs got little color-coded lists of their groups. |
This year we encouraged them to give 1 gift, do 1 act of service, and have at least one moment of getting to know their secret sister. I really liked the friendships that formed because of that.
Our camp theme was S.T.A.R. (Strength Through And in the Redeemer) to go along with Philippians 4:13 which is the entire church youth theme of the year: I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. So we had a space theme. The 1st years were yellow stars, 2nd years were blue moons, 3rd years were purple planets, and 4th years were orange suns. The YCLs wanted to be aliens, (mostly so they could plan an alien invasion) and the adult leaders were the Milky Way.
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| Suns |
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| Planets |
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| Stars |
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| Moons |
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| Kai designed the shirts. |
They got to know their groups after setting up their beds and went on to decorate their camp journals and group banners together after that. We had some YCLs perform do's and don't skits to help with the rules, lead them in some camp songs, and I introduced the theme with a little talk about stars before we went outside for large group games.
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| Decorating journals |
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| Group posters |
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| Group posters |
We broke into groups of two after that and I led one group to trim back some hedges of Walled Lake trails, while the other group made cat toys for the Humane Society for our service portion of camp. The other two groups learned how to make fires with flint and steel and then we switched.
Our cooks were amazing and cooked all of our dinners on camp griddles outside so we didn't have to pay the facility to feed us very small and unsatisfactory dinners like they did last year. We can't use their kitchen facilities, but our cooks knew that and volunteered to cook the ol' camping way- and did so very successfully! That first night we had pasta with sauce and meatballs, salad, and garlic bread. It was Bishop's night, so they came up after some skit practice and brought fixings for ice cream sundaes that we ate after our hour of time with our bishops. We talked about the Plan of Salvation in the Plymouth Ward and colored in little visuals for that so the girls can teach it to their families.
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| I only got one cook pictured (I have a ton more pictures from other people, but I'm only including the ones I took on my blog) |
The first 2 YCLs to give the devotional that night thought they each had 30 minutes, as opposed to 15 minutes total (?!) but their lesson on being children of God and individual personalities/qualities was so amazing! So we got majorly off schedule and didn't have much time by the campfire that night, but it was fine.
When the lights were to be out by 11, we had a new plan for this year where girls would be allowed to go to the game room off the main hall in the building across from the barracks. The rule was, they all had to be ready for bed and no one could go in there past 11, so they wouldn't wake up anyone that could be sleeping when they left the barracks, and once they left the game room, they couldn't go back in. Everyone was to leave by midnight to quietly go to bed. I gave Victoria the job of being in charge of that late group since she loves to stay up, as do so many girls, which is why we did that. It went ok. The second night some girls let their friends in after 11, even though Victoria and the other young adult said no, so I had to get really strict the third night and they did better then.
We had wake-up time at 7, meeting at the flagpole at 7:30, so some could really just roll out of bed if they didn't need much time before going out. After the Pledge, 2 more YCLs gave a much shorter devotional. We went to the parking lot for a 30 min Zumba class taught by one of the counselors in the Stake YW Presidency. Breakfast was breakfast burritos.
Our classes that morning were rock painting and a self-confidence class taught by 2 YCLs. I oversaw the rock painting and I hear the self-confidence class was amazing!
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| Rock decorating |
Lunch was sandwiches, chips, and fruit before we got ready for our hike. The YCLs were to hide the rocks the girls painted and the girls were to find them on the hike. The timing was a little off for hiding them and some of the groups got behind, but in the end, most people found their rocks and enjoyed the just under 4-mile hike. The rocks that weren't found will probably be found by some other lucky kids who go on that trail.
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| Leading the hike. |
We didn't have as much time as we had thought for swimming at the dam, so only about half the girls wanted to hike back down a 1/2 mile to swim there, the other half had extra free time. When we returned and cleaned up, Kai taught an art class and we made alien ufos and another YCLs taught a watercolor class. We had a delicious dinner of walking tacos and then learned from our two Stake YW Counselors about testimonies.
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| Swim time! |
The groups performed some hilarious skits and then we went down to the fire pit to eat churros and have a sing-along.
Two more YCLs gave devotionals and then we had a dance! It took forever to get the music to connect and work, and when we did, it was the wrong playlist, so the dance started off kind of slowly. It started picking up and most girls had a great time. The YCLs planned their alien invasion to be toward the end, so they snuck away and when I got the signal text, we paused the music and they stormed in with their laser guns, alien headbands, glasses, and glow-in-the-dark shirts. Unfortunately, one of the girls banged her gun on the window of the door which caused a crack and spider-web effect. Needless to say, Walled Lake wasn't very happy about that, but we have church insurance, so everything will be just fine.
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| Aliens! |
The next day we had no workout planned since I knew from last year that there was no time for that on the day we do the high ropes and climbing tower. We still did the Pledge and spiritual feast for 30 minutes which I forgot to include that we did on Tuesday after breakfast and Zumba.
Walled Lake employees took it from there. I had already preassigned our four groups into 3 for the rotation of high ropes, climbing tower, and lantern making. My group got to go to the climbing tower first. Not all the girls wanted to try, but those who did, improved from last year. I ended up having time to climb a few times. They could tell Kai and I are related and looked forward to Victoria coming to show us up! (she goes to a climbing wall facility fairly often in Detroit, so she's pretty legit)
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| Is this Kai?? |
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| Or is this Kai?? (Hint: one of them is me) |
After a pizza lunch, my group was at lantern making. We just painted jars with glow-in-the-dark paint and acrylic paint. They all were very creative! We had tea lights to put in them.
Our final rotation was the high ropes. I didn't get to do them last year because I was in a very large group and some of the girls who were more hesitant went first and took a lot longer. This year, most of the girls in my group knew they wanted to just climb up the net and zipline down, as opposed to walking around on the high ropes, so I planned to go up. It worked out really well because we had a girl from the Detroit River Branch who has recently moved here from Ukraine. She had been in the care of some of the YCLs who were able to use their phones for translation, though she pretty much was able to communicate through English most of the time. For the high ripes, though, I was a little nervous she wouldn't catch all the voice commands, so she and I went up almost at the same time. I crossed the first rope and then waited for her to come across so I could help her yell down the voice commands to the high ropes attendants. While she was crossing, she was so nervous being up that high that she was shaking like I'd never seen and speaking Ukrainian very quickly and non-stop! Probably praying and asking why she decided to do the high ropes! To tell you the truth, I was a little afraid too. The way the ropes were in the trees, out in the open with no other apparatus above or below, made it feel higher and more scary. The last time I did something like that it was layered. The other scary part was that it was crunch time to beat the looming storm that was coming. I ended up telling Kira to go back rather than cross two more ropes to complete the triangle to return. Since we were the last 2, they had to emergency lower us to get down directly underneath the main platform, rather than zipline down to the other side. I think that made Kira nervous too, but the lowering wasn't fast or scary. It turned out that in the end, she had thought she had ruined the event and couldn't zipline down because of that, not due to the thunderstorm that literally hit us right after we got in the main hall.
The love for Kira was so sweet. So many girls were hugging and comforting her so she could feel safe and happy again. A couple girls went with her to wash her face and finish calming her down. When we had to change our afternoon plans from water gun wars and water balloon fights to watching The Best Two Years in one room and Once I Was a Beehive in the other (with Ukrainian subtitles), Kira was all smiles.
Dinner was bbq hamburgers, corn on the cob, and chips. Luckily the grill was in a covered pavilion since it was still raining. The YCLs changed their minds a few times about the Faith Walk. It had finally stopped raining and they decided to go ahead and do it outside, but as soon as we started out, leading a long line of blindfolded girls, interspersed with YCLs who could see, it started raining again and the thunder and lightning weren't far behind. We had put the lanterns that the girls made in the pavilion by the firepit, but then had to bring them back up to the game room, which is where we ended the faith walk. They read the love letters from their parents and we had the lights dim and the lanterns on the coffee table, so we rolled right into our testimony meeting, even though our timing was way off and President Montierth was supposed to give a little message first. I just knew it was the right time to hold the testimony meeting. It went on for about an hour and a half and was beautiful! The girls learned from what they learned in the testimony class and applied it to the meeting. Kira bore her testimony in Ukrainian and after my girls bore their heartfelt testimonies, Susie got up. At the end, she told me she wasn't sure if she should get up, but that she really felt a pull on her heart. I told her that is the Holy Ghost/Holy Spirit. Some of the girls wanted to meet in their small groups, but I knew others were done, so we let President Monteirth have a few minutes before we went to eat s'mores that had been on the grill in foil to melt the chocolate. We had the best cooks!
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| Faith walk, before the lightning. |
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| You can't see the lights in them, but they were lit and so cozy! |
After the girls got ready for bed and a few threats about the late group, we turned in. Even us older adult leaders stayed up way too late. In the morning, there was one more time at the flag and a spiritual feast, followed by some yoga and a pancake and sausage breakfast. The girls cleaned up following their designated jobs, revealed their secret sisters, and signed journals.
Even though we had a few hiccups, the way that testimony meeting went tells me that we accomplished what we needed to at Girl's Camp.
Love this!!! What a fun and spiritual theme. I loved reading that the YCLs wanted to do an alien invasion! Good job rolling with the hiccups and for planning a camp where the girls could feel the Spirit and grow together!
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