Before Christmas I had a call to come in for a meeting with a high councilor. I couldn’t imagine what he would want to talk to me about, and it turns out I never would have guessed. He told me that they wanted to call me to be over the service projects at girls camp.
I accepted the calling, but with tremendous reservations. For one thing, the last time I went to girls camp it ended in a hurricane. (True story.) For another thing, I’m not as young as I used to be and I wasn’t sure camping for a week was going to work for my body. And for one last thing, I really had no idea what he was talking about.
The short version of this story is that at our stake’s girls camp every day the girls rotate through 3 activities—certification, service, and a devotional aptly called “destiny.” I was to, with a committee of youth leaders, come up with and execute 4 days of service projects for 3 groups of 50 girls each day.
The actual doing of camp was both better and worse than I had thought/expected/dreaded. The service was great. Each day (x3) I taught for 5-15 minutes to set the stage for the specific project. Sometimes I forget how much I love teaching. The projects went off well—some of them much better than I had even imagined. I felt like I successfully completed year 1 of what is typically a 3 year calling.
The camp setting was lovely. For the first few days I didn’t go much past the cabin in which I was sleeping, but on Thursday our service activity involved a lot of walking around specific areas and I appreciated that my girls could come to a facility like this.
My concerns about camp proved to be well founded. I didn’t get enough protein some of the time (good thing I had my own stash of greek yogurt) and one day there was a shortage of food in general. I definitely didn’t get enough veggies and next year I think I will take salad jars and just keep them in a cooler in the walk in refrigerator in the lodge. At the last minute I told the camp director I couldn’t be a cabin mom because I was concerned about not being able to get enough sleep and I think this was a good call. As it was I had break-through pain one night and was awake from about 3am on rubbing my painful SIjoint/muscles. I switched that night from a bunk with a foam pad to an air mattress and did a lot better, so I think that will be my plan for next year.
On the last morning after I’d gotten my stuff all taken care of I walked around and took some pictures. And then I happily went home—back to civilization and my comfy bed and best of all…my own clean bathroom!
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