Serving in Young Women's, I committed 3 1/2 days to be a "cabin Mom" at girls camp. That basically entails being in charge of 9 teenage girls. Making sure they get to all their activities, including meals, capers (another word for chores) and attending to any other need. I was assigned to 3rd year girls (which usually is the 14 year olds). I had a few girls from my old ward, and current ward and even one from Lake Pleasant ward, assigned to my cabin. I also had Erin's cousin. They were such a great group of girls! I didn't know my other cabin Mom, but met her a few weeks before camp. She was cool, too! Erin and Brooke also worked with the 3rd years, so I knew I would get to see them often !
My adventure to girls camp started at 5:15 Wed. morning. (Actually I should say before that if I considered all the time I spent preparing for everything). Anyway, we met at the church building at 6:00 and the buses left at 6:40. I drove up with Wendy Spooner and 4 other Young Women. It was a good drive up. Just a bunch of talking. We arrived at Camp Lomia ( A church owned camp site up by Payson, AZ) at 9:15. The campsite was much better than any place I ever stayed at as a Young Women. It was definitely built to serve as a Young Women's camp!
Anyway, once we arrived we got our cabins set up a little, and then went to the Ramada to pick up our girls. (They didn't' know what cabin they were going to be in until they got there.) After we brought the girls to the cabin, we spent time decorating our cabin with pictures and lights, picking our secret sisters, and making up a cabin cheer. Then we headed to craft time. For craft time the girls made socks with puff paint, and cute bookmarks. They didn't get to keep them, but instead were made as a service project. After craft time, they had some certification. Certification includes survival type skills, like CPR, building shelters, first aide, etc. They learned these skill throughout camp. During all the certification, the Young Women (and leaders) also spent time passing off memorized scriptures and quotes that went along with the YW values, to collect beads for a necklace. Since Erin and I had a lot of time on our hands, while the girls were being "certified", we had our beads by the middle of the day! A few of my girls did the same!
A little wildlife right outside our cabin!
The girls in the Ramada, getting ready for lunch!
After a few hours of certifications we went back to the cabin to make up a skit for that evening. All the skits were to be focused around the
Strength of Youth Pamphlet. Our group had modesty. Every cabin also got a few props and a "secret" line that was to be incorporated into the skit, on stage.
The girls getting ready for their skit!
All the skits were original and gave us a good laugh. It was fun to see the girls get creative and let go of their inhibitions!
Kayleen also let go of her inhibitions (
Ok she doesn't ever seem to have any) and lip-synced to a High School Musical 2 song, with a friend. She played Troy and her friend, Gabriella. The girls went crazy for that!
After the skits, the girls had companion scripture study (something they did every night) and then we had Singing Trees. That is where each ward gathers around a tree, and when it was their turn, turned their flashlights on and sang a song. We sang, "If the Savior Stood Beside Me". Some wards sang very long songs, and we only planned on the first verse of ours. At first I was worried, but it was nice that it was short, because we were the last ward to go. After singing trees, we went back for a mini devotional given by a few YCL's (Older Young Women who have already completed the 4 years of camp and have come back as leaders). After the devotional, I stayed up with the girls and played Catch Phrase and Mofia! We had a great time, and it was a great time getting to know my girls. We finally went to bed at Midnight.
Thursday we had an early morning (7:00) hike! It was a whole mile and a half! LOL
After lunch, we learned the camp dance, which I thought we would all perform at some other time, but I guess not. Anyway, we then had what they called P-Day activities. (The whole camp theme was centered around the
MTC). Anyway, the activities included baseball, where the bases where kiddie pools (I got soaked as I slid into first), eating gummy worms out of a bowl full of pudding (with no hands of course), watermelon seed spitting contest, water
balloon volley ball and soaking your leaders with sponges (trying anyway). Those were fun, and of course a lot of water fights and pudding fights resulted. President
Farely was in the middle of most of them! He deserved it, delaying the girls eating time by making them answer questions in the food lines, like; what is your favorite scripture, how many kids do you want to have, etc.
Later that day the girls participated in an activity which made them think about how they were living their lives to
prepare themselves as mothers.
The girls pointing to their favorite temple!
Here's mine, in case you were wondering!
Then we had dinner and a devotional by Brother Eastman, which again focused on the great role we have as wives and Mothers and the influence we have on men. It was good! Then it was time for the normal nightly devotionals, and game time. Around 11:00, I headed over to the
YCL cabin for some
Benadryl (I didn't sleep much the night before) and I ended up sticking around for some dancing and fun times! The
YCL's know how to party!LOL. Of course, they are my Laurels from both wards, so I am a little
attached. I finally went to bed around 12:30.
Friday started early (6:00) as we got ready for breakfast and our
canoeing trip. It was about a 45 minute drive to the place where we went. It was so beautiful!
I was in a canoe with Erin, Brook and Wendy
Powelson on the way to our stopping point. I didn't have to row on the way there, which I felt a little guilty about.
There was a little canoe tipping involved!!:)
We stopped at a cool place with some high rocks. Some were higher than others:) The highest one looked like nothing, compared to the one I jumped off at
Havasupai. I kept telling Erin to come with me, and kept saying how it wasn't very high. Then a funny thing happened. When I got up there and looked down, I panicked and turned back. The girls kept saying, "Come on Sister
Pribyl, you can do it, it's not that high". I kept reminding them how I had done a jump higher than this before, and I
couldn't' make out why I couldn't do it. I then decided to jump the smaller one. That was very easy, and once I was wet and in the
murky water, it wasn't hard to jump the bigger one. I guess it was the
murky unknown water that got to me, from such a high distance. Anyway, I did it! After lunch and
hanging around that spot for about an hour, we all headed back. This time I rowed, and actually enjoyed it! I had to work off all the candy I had been eating!
That rest of the day
included more certification, a
service project (which included hauling wood), and a great shower. I had taken a shower the day before, in the regular showers, not knowing about the "Leadership" showers. This one had hot water! Yeah! Washing my hair was pointless though, since a few of my girls decided it would be cool to rat my hair. It was a huge ratted ponytail (which took me FOREVER to wash when I got home).
That evening we had a "Faith Walk", which is where the girls read quotes on
poster boards and answered questions related to the quotes. Then we had a little Ward time. We handed out letters that their parents had written them, and afterward we talked about what we liked about our parents. It was very emotional. Then we took a few pictures of the girls. Notice them flashing their "WW" signs, for West Wing Ward! LOL
After ward time there was a d
evotional given by Lori Wagner. She spoke on "covenant" shoes. She started with blessing, baptism and temple shoes. She showed how big the gap was between baptism and the temple and then asked what shoes we should be wearing between those. The "shoes" they needed to be wearing correlated to the Strength of Youth
Pamphlet. She used girls as examples. She had picked up their shoes in advance, and at the
devotional pulled them out of a bag and had people guess whose they were. Then she would go on to tell about them. So, for example, one girl would be a girl who Keeps the Sabbath Day Holy. It was VERY good!
After dinner they had a program that honored the Bishops. They read funny stories about them and listed their "favorite" things. After that, we had our Ward time/ Testimony meeting with our Ward. Everyone ended up bearing their testimonies. The main theme of so many testimonies was "I was sad about the Ward split, but now I LOVE it! Heavenly Father knows us and what we need." It is true. It was a good change for me. Even though I miss my friends, and old Bishop TERRIBLY, I also am LOVING the new ward. Anyway, it was a great meeting! We then headed back to our cabins for fun and games. Around 10:00 we could hear music blaring from the YCL cabin. It turned into a huge dance party, where all were invited to show off their dance skills! Including my mother-in-law, who was at camp also. :) They ended it around 11:00 and then it was back to our cabins. My cabin and the one next to us wanted to play Mofia, so we let them play for another hour. We finally went to bed around 1:00. Well, I guess I should say, I went to bed. I told the girls they could hang out at the picnic table outside, as long as they were quite. They did a good job at being quiet. I was out in 15 minutes.
Saturday we woke up early and were out of camp by 9:00. We arrived back in town by Noon. I was soooo tired and not ready to face my normal "world" of kids and responsibilities. When I walked through our front door, and saw the kids, I actually started crying realizing how much I really missed them. Sophia latched on to me, something she never does, and it felt so great to have her in my arms! Once I got done hugging the kids, I realized that my house was spotless and vacuumed. Ben was so great to make sure everything was in order, and he even finished up some projects around the house. He then instructed me to go upstairs and take a nap, while he took the kids out. To top everything off, when I got upstairs there was a new copy of Breaking Dawn sitting on my bed. Ben had gone to Target, at Midnight, the night before to get me a copy. What a great guy! I seriously felt so relieved taking a nice shower and getting some rest. I ended up sleeping for 3 hours after ,literally, falling asleep with my book. I only got to page 9! When I woke up, Ben had a nice steak dinner waiting for me. I was still sooo tired, and went back to bed around 9:00. I only got about 50 pages in before I fell asleep.
Sunday morning came early! I finally rolled out of bed, realizing that Aubrie's performance group results would be posted. (I don't' know how I remembered that?) I quickly checked and saw that she made it. I went and woke her up with the news. She is very excited. I wasn't at first, since her classes will be Monday's and Friday's. I then realized that opened up the middle of the week for piano, achievement days, and any sports Ben might want to put her in. I know...over scheduling!! I'm not sure about the sports thing, but everyone says she is very athletic, so I might let her try out something this fall. We'll see how sane I am after 4 hours of dance a week, not including competitions!
Church was good. I actually bore my testimony in Sacrament meeting. I don't remember the last time I have done that. Raleigh, I think?! I'm so emotional that I gave up doing that a long time ago. Ha! I actually kept it together better than I thought, only requiring half of my tissue. LOL Sunday School I spent in the hall with Sophia. I did get to meet a new family who has 4 kids the same ages as mine. They came from Atalanta and know some of Holly's family. Small world! Young Women's was good, as always. I just LOVE my new girls! What great Youth we have in this area! I feel so fortunate to work with them. I hope we have the same caliber of youth when my kids are that age! The rest of the day I read my book and spent time with the kids.
Monday morning was full of reading and laundry and then there was the dreaded school supply shopping. Ugh! I wish I could just give the teachers 50 bucks and say "here, get whatever specific thing you want and see how easy it is to find it!" I remember when I was a kid we just showed up with our trapper keepers and we were good to go! Anyway, the kids had a fun time picking out their folders and such. Then Aubrie had her dance soon after our shop. My Mom watched the other kids so I could go and get her all signed up. She was beaming in her class, trying her hardest to do her very best. Dinner was mini-meatloaves and FHE was on the Word of Wisdom. I had the kids try to get a foil ball out of a shoe box, that had a small slit on the top. They could only get their hand out if they let go of the ball. The ball represented things that take away our free agency, like alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, not eating healthy. They liked that game. Then we role played. One kid would try all they could do to get the kids to break the Word of Wisdom, and other standards in the Strength of Youth. They had such great comebacks! They had a blast with the role playing! After we were done, we went to Sonic for slushies, and then they went to bed. I wanted to finish my book, but was so tired that I couldn't keep my eyes open. This morning I finally finished it! After I was done reading, I started getting ready for our trip. Tonight the kids were driving me crazy with the constant fighting. I hope they shape up for our trip. I think it's time for school, because they are starting to get on each others nerves, which is getting on mine! Besides the fighting, I will miss lazy summer day's by the pool with the kids. I LOVE summers!
