Rise Up

In February I was called to be a stake assistant Girls Camp director.

Luckily I was one of 3 called, on top of the head camp director.

This was new for me as I have never been part of

planning any girls camps, so I felt like a fish out of water.

It did not help that we were in uncharted territory as we were combining 

girls camp AND boys camp together.
One BIG camp. 

This has never been done before in our stake. 

The point was to help families with multiple youth not have to plan numerous

weeks in the summer for their children to be gone.

 I  was excited to be with the boys!

I don't think they shared the same feelings.

Planning girls camp alone is a feat in itself.

Try adding 100 extra youth who are the opposite gender, and all of their activities 

that draw to them, plus the equipment needed for said activities, and the man power

to pull it off.  Yikes. 

The meetings. Oh the meetings.

SO.MANY.MEETINGS.

Loooonnggg meetings.

Are you catching on that I have meeting PTSD?

I wanted to cry at times.

We were dry camping.

No ramadas, bathrooms, bunkhouses, kitchens.

All up to us to create.
Logistics and lists of to-do's was beyond daunting. 

Trying to dwindle down options and opinions from the boys and girls sides

were down right frustrating, yet comical at the same time!
"Boys don't need matching shirts" (as the girls have 2 different styles).
FYI, the boys ended up with matching shirts, lol!

Right when you thought everything was squared away, a new

problem arose.
 Or there were parent/leader pushback.

Somehow, someway plan G was in play,
and we were on our way up 

the mountain with MAJOR prayers that everything

would work out just how they needed to go. 

The stake went up the day before as we had a brutal amount of set up to be had.

I made Casey go up early with me.

 He even hitched our trailer on the back of his truck for us to stay in.

What a gentleman:)

We worked long and hard.

Casey whipped up his famous smash burgers for us to eat that night.

I think we were all dreading what was to come the next day.

 But ready to get er' done at the same time!

Bring on the kids!!

Last minute preparations before the cars full of happy campers started to roll in!

The girl crew!

Carly Reynolds, me, and Heather Hinze (assistant directors).

Angie Houston is our Stake YW president and Tiffany Watkins was our camp director.

I loved each of these ladies so much already, but we
now have even a closer bond.
Camp sistas for life!

Side note:

Notice our ADORABLE bags?

Each girl got a cross body bag.

After each class or activity they got a button pin to put
 on their bag to collect throughout camp.
These had girls camp written all over it!

Great idea until it was time to make the buttons.

Which was one of my assignments.

Silly me thought I could buy a button press machine and

crank out 1500 buttons on my own.

100 buttons in I said to heck with that stupid idea, and frantically searched for 

a company that could magically get them made for us in time for camp.

By some miracle I found the only company in AZ that did them in-house 

without having to ship out.
I begged and told them I would pay anything, ha!

They were the nicest people and said they could make them.

BLESSSSSS!!

I will never look at button pins the same way!

I thought Windsor ward had the best decorations.

Definitely not biased:)

In the planning process our theme changed about 10 different times.
We were more than happy to introduce our official theme, RISE UP!
Which worked out so well for both boys and girls. 

The girls kept it as girls camp-y as possible.
Each ward was a National Park and color.
The stake were the Park Rangers.
The YCL's were the Jr. Park Rangers.
We encouraged the girls to "choose your own adventure" while at camp.
Whether that meant strengthening your testimony, making goals,
building relationships, or going outside of your comfort zone.

We had the stake camp in the middle with boys on

one side, and the girls on the other.

We had a general location for free time games, and food.
Plus our makeshift amphitheater 
and stage for devotionals and our night activities. 

Opening ceremonies. 

The first night we had a combined night with the boys
where we had a guest speaker.
I can't remember his name, but he owns a surf camp in CA
where he focuses on teens and building their relationship with 
Heavenly Father while also learning to surf.

He shared his story on how he fell away from the church and what brought 
him back, and how this surf camp came to be.

It was really good and the kids seemed to relate to him.
 I think it helped that he wasn't some old geezer of a guy.
I think the girls particularly were very intrigued with him:)

The next day were a mix of rotations and classes. 

If you were in a class it was with your age group and gender.

If you were at an activity it was with your ward.

We tried really hard to have a mix of just girls, like typical girls camp.
 But to be practical we needed to keep wards together for activities. 

It ended up being a perfect balance!

Casey and I were in charge of teaching a class for the girls.

It was called Be Real.
Our main focus was to emphasis how much social media can pressure them

to act and be someone they are not.

We gave them tips and advice on how to be true to who they are. 

It ended up being really amazing.

I started out by playing a game with the girls.
We split them in half.

The first team had one girl go to the front.

We had 5 different names come on the tv screen 1 at a time.
The other girls gave her verbal clues to who that person was.
 We timed them to see which team could guess the fasted. 

We did 4 celebrity names like Taylor Swift, Beyonce, then 1 scriptural name like 

Sarah, Abrahams wife and Emma Smith.

We emphasized that the clues shifted significantly from temporal and superficial 

(big butt, famous singer, rich, lots of makeup) to genuine and well... real (faithful, compassionate,

prayerful, served God and her husband) when describing the different women. 
How would you want someone to describe you?

 I then had a slide show of pictures of women with their "instagram" full hair and

makeup vs them being "real"  and no make up. 

An example.

They did not believe me when I said this is the same person!

We discussed that even when you look perfect, it does not make or change who you are.

That picture perfect girl still struggles with insecurities and doubts.

Looking and acting a certain way does not take away your struggles, or make your

life easier. Be who Heavenly Father created you to be.  

Casey broke down REAL into an acronym. 

R- Remember who you are.
E- Eternal consequences. 
A- Appreciate what you have.
L- Look Up (in order to Rise Up), not around at others.

His part was amazing. 

It tied in everything spiritually so well.

I then had a surprise video to show.

I had each mom send me a picture of their daughter.

One that was true and genuine of them being happy.

Not all gussied up perfect, but being the real them. 

They were definitely surprised!

And a perfect way to end. 

We got to teach it 3 times.

Bummed I forgot to get a picture with one of the classes. 

Archery, gun shooting, fire building, axe throwing were some of the highlights!

Kids were always playing 9 square.

Miche is my favorite. 

Did I miss a spot?

They had an AMAZING obstacle course that tied in physical

and spiritual. It was so detailed it took 2 hours for each ward to complete.

Part of it was hoisting the whole group over this wall. 

My FAVORITE night was skit night!

The stake ended it with a bang with a 3 minute Taylor Swift Era performance!

Leave it to Heather to choreograph it to the nines and deal with us non-coordinated fools.

We gave the girls glow in the dark bracelets before we started to really set the mood.

When the music started they went WILD!!

The men stake leaders ended the performance
strutting in to "I knew you were trouble when I walked in".

You would have thought we were at her actual concert.

They went bonkers, lol!

THEN was the dance party of my DREAMS!

The boys came over and it was like I was in high school again.

I was moshing like I was 18, who cares if I am supposed to be the grown-up, lol.

I'm surprised Lane put up with me during that.

 The only bad part was that it was a dirt dance floor and with 200 kids stomping 

around we were all in the middle of a giant dust pit!

At the end of the night I had racoon dirt eyes like I had just been riding a motorcycle!

Lots of controversy going into testimony night.

While planning, this was the most heated topic amongst youth and leaders...

combining the boys and girls or to not.

The decision ended up being the bishops. 

We were the only ward to combine.

And let me tell you, it was a powerful night. 

Every time I look at this picture I get tears in my eyes. 

For many reasons.

The youth sitting there, so much love for them. 

It was the end to an exhausting, but very rewarding camp.
I am a little bias but this bishop, how I can almost see the size of his heart 

he has towards these kids.

Just about every single person in that circle has something significant going on in their lives.

Emotions were heavy, but the spirit strong and thick as

each one starting sharing their testimony.

I know Casey was lead and guided for this special night and the youth felt it, too.

We had pazookies afterwards at our trailer with homemade hot fudge.

Nothing but the best for these Windsor kiddos!

And nothing like celebrating the last night of camp with chugging 

hot fudge straight from the jar!

After tucking them into bed, us adults were about as slap happy as it gets!

Heather phasing out.

Until we rallied and stayed up talking past midnight!

We were crying laughing and pounding the M&M's and cookies.

Gotta counteract the sleeping pills half of them took prematurely, ha!

All in all, it was a success!

Just happy its ward camp next year:)