Girls' Camp was
amazing. The theme was "Anchored in Christ," so it was nautical and everyone was organized into "Crews" with a Captain, First Mate, and Sailors. I was asked to be a Captain, which was basically preparing a devotional for one night, keeping track of my Crew, and making sure my Crew had a good time. Here is what we did during the three days or Girls' Camp that I was gone. (WARNING: This will be a fairly long post. Feel free to turn back now if you wish. Otherwise, "dive" right in. ;))
Thursday
I got up early and we met at the church at 8am where everyone started socializing and eating Einstein Bros bagels. We left just before 9am and drove for almost three hours (including one stop) to our bishop's cabin in Wyoming near Bear Lake. Then we unpacked and such, ate lunch, played some games, and said a prayer before we went on our hike. While on the hike, we met a herd of cows grazing just to the sides of us, not ten yards away, and some of the girls got a little fidgety. They happily grazed on, however, with an occasional "Moooo!" following after us.
Later on we met a baby rattlesnake. Some of the girls thought it was a garter snake and were about to pick it up but noticed an itty bitty rattle on the end of its tale and backed away, a little startled. We later learned from one of our leaders how to tell between baby rattlesnakes and garter snakes and also that baby rattlesnakes are more poisonous because they haven't learned to control the amount of poison they inject when they bite yet. I think we were all a little shaken at that. For some of us, including me, it was the first rattlesnake we had ever seen while hiking.
We stopped at a little pond–our destination. We read on a little wooden sign that there were fish there so some of the girls decided that they would try to catch one. A few of them looked around and found a good stick, some leftover fishing line, and an actual fishing hook. What are the odds? They put them together and decided to tie a rock above the hook, then went out onto the short and skinny old wooden dock and commenced waiting for a fish to bite. After about ten minutes of dunking and re-dunking the fish hook into the water while having a nice, loud conversation and girls tromping on and off the dock, they decided they needed something better for the hook and so asked if anyone had a dead bug or a pice of gum to share. Of course nobody had a dead bug (or wanted to go find, kill, and pick up a dead bug to give to them, for that matter) but someone did have a pice of gum so they passed it down the line and someone chewed it, then handed it to the person with the "pole" to put it on the hook. Yuck... Dunking once again ensued without luck and then we were out of time. Everyone was to line up on the dock for a fun picture. Wait... fun? You mean standing precariously over the water on an old wooden dock with thirty other people is supposed to be fun? I protested politely (then pleaded) but ended up consenting to stand on the
end. I've never liked docks. Or ponds or lakes, for that matter. They scare me. You know, just a little.
The cows had gathered for a drink during the picture and that fidgeting started again. It was later told that one of the girls saw one of the calves and said, "That baby is so cute, I just want to go over there and scoop him up!" Her wish wasn't granted, though, because now it was time for a "welcome to camp" devotional. Our leaders explained that we would now be organized into "Crews" with a Captain, First Mate, and Sailors. I had been told ahead of time that I would be a Captain, so when they called my name I was ready. As names were called for my Sailors to come up, I clapped with everyone else and then I gave each girl a high-five before we sat down. The four camp leaders gave a mini-talk about Crews, Captains, First Mates, and Sailors. Crews were unified and worked together; Captains knowledgeably and safely directed their ships; First Mates always made sure the Captains had the help they needed; First Mates and Sailors knew their Captains, and were always willing to share their special talent and help to balance out the Crew so everything ran smoothly. At the end of that devotional, Captains gathered and handed out their Crews' colored lanyards with their name tags on them; then they handed out little washer charms which were pounded with the letters "SOS," which stood for "Serve Our Sisters." The charm was meant to be like a little life-saving tube, the kind with red and white stripes that you always see on a ship. We put those on our lanyards and then commenced our shorter hike back to the cabin.
Once home, we gathered in front of the wide porch to have a snack while we listened to some camp rules. One of the girls dressed up as a lady pirate and did a great job reading off the pirate-style rules in an awesome, authentic-sounding pirate accent. They were the six "Be's" from President Hinckley's famous conference talk: be grateful (thank your leaders), be smart, be clean (clean up after yourself), be true, be humble, be prayerful. Our camp leader, Ashlee, gave us little journals for us to write in during camp that were called "Captain's Log," "1st Mate's Log," or "Sailor's Log." Each log had a schedule for each day, a place for writing down what you did, and some pages for writing down your thoughts as you pondered certain things. Ashlee explained that during camp little tokens would be awarded for good deeds. She said the first token would be given right then to Amory McKay. I was surprised to hear my name called. It was for "being the last one to help unload all the equipment," she said. When I sat back down, my Crew congratulated me. :)
After that, it was time for activities in rotations. My group played a game outside first, then went downstairs indoors to do a challenge. We had fifteen minutes to do five math problems (order of operations stuff), use the answers to unlock a bike lock that was holding a box closed, and then use the three mirrors and one laser pointer that we found inside to hit the red laser dot on a target and keep it there for five seconds (while standing at different locations in the room with the objects). I kinda took over while we were doing the math problems. I went as fast as I could, got the first four right on the first try, then forgot one step on the last problem but quickly recovered. Everyone thought I was a math genius afterwards. Haha! Even Tyler (Ashlee's husband and our priesthood leader, who was helping with that challenge) was impressed. We used the white board he gave us to line up number combinations for the bike lock and try them as quickly as possible. We thought we had gone through all of them but the bike lock still wouldn't open. So I yelled out a random new combination and, to my surprise, it opened the lock. Then we lined up super fast, mirrors all pointing the right ways, and did our best to make the little red dot hit the target. It took us seven minutes to get the laser to hit the target for up to four seconds once, but then our timer went off. So close! Tyler said that the last group got it to hit to the target for five seconds only barely before the timer went off. We were a little disappointed but we recovered quickly. That was one reason I really liked my Crew: we were good sports.
The next activity was a craft. There were green pear-shaped bottles all lined up on the counter when we walked upstairs. On the table next to that were hot glue guns, plenty of fake green moss/seaweed stuff, some twine, and a bunch of seashells. We quickly learned that we were to put some glue around the bottle, stick on the fake moss, stick on/tie the twine to the bottle with our name tag on it, glue on some seashells for decoration, and clip a couple of clothespins to our twine. I did all that, barely gluing on my one cute little seashell before the rotation ended. Message-in-a-bottle––what a great idea! Then we hung them on a tree near the other bottle-filled trees for others to write notes to stick inside them or clip to the twine. After that craft, we got tiny corked bottles with a fake messages inside to put on our lanyards.
Next we made our Crew posters. While we waited for the last Crew to finish theirs up, we thought of a group mascot and saying. Since my family mascot is a lion, I immediately thought, "Lioness, since we have all girls." The others latched onto the idea. Lions symbolize purity and strength. Did you know that the lionesses do all the hunting for their pride? Some of my Crew didn't know that and thought it was cool. So we collectively came up with the saying, "Courage and bravery equal pride of the lioness" (since, you know, lions live in
prides. ;)). Then we made our poster. Across the top it read, "Courage and bravery [equal sign] pride of the," and then there was a brown lion's paw, in which was written "lioness." There were little brown paws around the outside of that paw and those had our names in them. The poster was attached to cardboard that was attached to some metal sticks and one of the leaders stuck it in the ground by our tree. Tyler kept teasing us that it looked like a cougar paw, even after we told him, "No, Tyler! It's a lioness!" Silly Tyler. :)
We played a couple more games and then it was time for a devotional before dinner preparations began. We had chicken on rice with some toppings. After cleanup, all of the Captains got an award coin for doing a good job being... well, Captains. Then it was time for personal quiet time, during which I wrote in my Captain's Log, read the suggested scriptures inside, and wrote notes to people for the message bottles. (I made a goal to write a note for every person's bottle, but I didn't quite get there. :P)
After that, we had another devotional and then it was time to get ready for bed. I did so quickly, then got my scriptures for some personal scripture study without the Captain's Log and went downstairs. I also wrote some more notes and while I was writing, everyone else decided to play games. The first one they played involved having one group upstairs and one group downstairs. The group upstairs would call up one person at a time from downstairs to come up so they could scare them somehow (not really my type of game). The girls downstairs got pretty apprehensive. A couple of them really had to use the restroom, to the point that they were going crazy with jumping jacks, dancing, and standing by the door while hopping up and down continuously. One of the other girls wanted everyone to get back from the door, so she said, "I'll turn the light off if you won't back up!" At this point it was night, so the basement got really dark when the lights were off. When the girls at the door wouldn't move, the other girl turned that light off, producing plenty of screams. A few of them ran over to me, just because I was there, I guess, and kept saying, "We're staying by you, Amory. You're so nice! Amory will stay with us!" It was super sweet.
When the game was finally over, and the poor girls got to use the restroom, I went upstairs again. I made sure my bed was set up in the loft and all my things were put away. By that time it was one or one-thirty in the morning, so I just decided to try and fall asleep in spite of all of the noise ensuing as yet another game began. I didn't actually fall asleep for probably about an hour but I counted that hour as rest. One of my last thoughts before really dozing off was, "How much sleep am I getting again?... Oh, that's right, less than six hours."
Friday
"Because I'm happy!" we heard playing loudly by the time our ears understood––the wake-up call. Groans sounded and girls slowly rolled out of bed, noses picking up the smell of breakfast. There were pancakes with delicious toppings. There was milk. There was lemonade. Lemonade? Well, whatever the reason, it was there. And despite that oddball looming near during the meal, the food was enjoyable.
Once everything was cleaned up and the girls ready for the day, we packed up and went to the beach. Bear Lake wasn't really bigger than I expected. What did surprise me was that the beaches were so nice and the water was so clear. Energy escaped as activities commenced: swimming, kayaking, canoeing, having sand fights, and making sand castles. Some of us couldn't get in the water for lack of life jackets but since it was allowed to let the water wash the tops of your feet without one, some of us enjoyed doing that. There were tons of tiny clam shells and itty bitty water snail shells that filled the sand in various layers of whole, partially broken, shattered, and crushed to dust, depending on where the water sent them. I found that fascinating. My feet didn't; they got pretty tired of walking on those painful little shells.
While we waited for the boat (and Tyler) to arrive, I settled in to write some more notes. When it finally arrived from the other side of the lake, lunch was unloaded. Then we got out some lifejackets to put on before going out to the boat. Nine of us went out, including one leader, because ten were allowed at once. I thought they would bring the boat in a little closer. I also thought that I was tall enough that my pants wouldn't get wet if I rolled them up as far as I could but I was wrong. My jeans got wet to the tops of my thighs. Oh well. I climbed on and waited for my legs to dry while we listened to some boating rules, then rolled down my pant legs to commence drying. I don't know what I was thinking. "Oh, yeah, when it's time to leave the boat, you'll just magically fly over the water to the shore where you'll land without a drop of it on you. It's not like you'll have to dry your pants again." Whatever my intentions were, however, after an hour of watching and laughing as the girls on the tubes made expressions of terror when their tubes bounced a little higher than they thought they would, I climbed out of the boat and hopped down to the water where my pants were soaked to even higher than before! I sighed inwardly but didn't really regret it. It was worth going on a boat for the second time in my life.
I had eaten lunch and was just about done drying off in my camp chair when one of our leaders, Natalie, the bishop's wife, paddled over in her kayak and said, "Amory, come kayaking with me!"
"No," I said. "I'm almost done drying off!" She kept beckoning me until I finally said, "Well, alright."
"I won't dunk you!" she reassured me.
"Good," I joked, "because otherwise I'd have to kill you!"
"Aww, you're not capable of that," she laughed.
As I awkwardly climbed in, I felt the boat rock. I've never been good at climbing into little boats and they always kind of freak me out. When the boat tipped as I was getting in, I fell over! "Ah!" I yelled. I managed to save myself from getting wet higher than my waist, since we were right by the shore.
Natalie said, "Oh, I'm so sorry! Now you
are going to kill me!"
I laughed somewhat pitifully, then said, "No, it's okay, I won't kill you." I climbed in the boat, almost falling in again but steadying myself just enough. Natalie tried to hand me the paddle and I tried to accept it and start rowing but almost fell in a third time! She said, "Do you want me to paddle?"
"Yes!" I answered. "I'm afraid I'll fall in again!"
The boat had flipped when I fell in and water filled it halfway to the brim so as we set sail, I used my hands to scoop the water out. It probably didn't make much difference at all but it did make me feel better and gave me something to do with my hands. We talked for a while and when we came back, Natalie apologized again. "No it's okay!" I reassured her. I really wasn't that offended. Now I was just wishing I had worn my swimsuit instead of a whole outfit. I sat down in my chair and grabbed my sweater to drape over the front of me to let my jeans dry and get a warm. Natalie must have felt pretty bad because she brought over an old blanket that had been packed and wrapped it around me, rubbing my shoulders and saying, "I'm so sorry!" I reassured her once more that everything was fine. She is so sweet.
On the way home around 6pm, everyone stopped for some planned raspberry shakes. Only not everyone got raspberry, just a few people did. I got peanut butter, my favorite. We chatted while we ate our shakes and the conversation got to some pretty interesting topics (it's one of those Girls' Camp things...). I actually managed to get just about all of the sand off my legs so when we got to the house I went in and changed, then commenced chatting again while we waited for dinner. I would have helped get it ready but apparently each group got a turn to help with a meal and the kitchen was already crowded, so I stayed out of it. It's good to learn when you'll do good by volunteering and when you'll just make a mess of things if you ask to help.
After delicious taco salad, we had another devotional. This one I remember. It was about how captains use the north star as their guide to navigate and how, for us, the north star is the Savior. We each got a glow-in-the-dark star to put on our ceilings. After the devotional was quiet time again. As that time was ending, the bishopric showed up for testimony meeting. We set up a fire in the big pit out front and put all the camp chairs around it. Then we paused so everyone could get ready for bed and the Captains could give a devotional to their girls before the meeting. Mine was about being anchored in Christ and I gave them each a necklace with an anchor charm (those things were hard to find!).
Testimony meeting was wonderful. I felt so loved in that circle. Everything felt right. I knew I was supposed to be there and I was so glad that I had gone. Many of us bore our testimonies and were strengthened by what was said. We gained even more love for each other in that meeting, which was amazing. I saw this quote on Ironfist's status:
"Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden where the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness that nothing else can bring.” ~Oscar Wilde. That's what it felt like in that circle. You could feel that warmth and richness. It was strong.
Afterwards, we got to roast marshmallows and eat cookies. I was getting ready for bed when one of the girls my age came upstairs. "Amory, are you going to play Mofia with us?" I hesitated. Girls' Camp games aren't really my favorite, not even Mofia. But I knew she wanted me to so I said, "Okay, I'll be down in just a minute!" I played two rounds. Unfortunately, I was one of the Mofia in the second round and even less fortunately, they guessed that I was and killed me. Meh. So I just laughed and smiled and went upstairs. It was around 1am by that time so I crawled into my sleeping bag and went to sleep.
We woke up to "Happy" again the next morning and had omelets for breakfast, then packed and cleaned as fast as we could. With forty people helping, cleaning the house took probably about an hour and then we had a prayer before we hit the road. I fell asleep on the way back, for which I was grateful. The same girl that was my age walked me home with my stuff since the Ashlee's house, where we unloaded, was literally three doors away.
I'm so glad I was able to go to camp. It was a great experience and helped me to feel much closer to the girls there. It even gets me excited for Trek and the girls that will be there too!
Amory
