M Stake Girls Camp 2007

I'm back from Girl's Camp!!! OMG! I had so much fun!!! It was from the 12-15, a 3 night 4 day camp. This year's theme was "Daughter of a King", so in other words all the YW are princesses! There are 9 wards in our stake.

(above: these giant pine trees in the 4th year camp. Look closely and compare it to the person standing in front of the tree)

On the 12th, just the 4th years met up at the M family's house at 7 am. There are only three 4th-year girls in our ward, including me. We drove about 1 hour and a half to Beaver Canyon. When we got there, we set up the ward tents, and got ready for our 4th-year hike. There were about 40 4th-year girls in our stake! At 10 am, we went on a 4 mile hike. But we stopped about every 5 minutes, and untied the little bags that were tied to the trees. In those bags were little jewels! I was prepared for that freaky 10 kilo hike we had last year. But this hike was over in about 1 hour, including all those stops.

(above: the 4th year camp, with all of our tents set up)

We ate our lunches, put up our tents, and I thought we were have tons of activities planned, but we didn't. So we hung out in our tents or went exploring. We each got a little key-chain mirror, and we put on the jewels that we got from the bags. Rachae started making a raft, and me and Alina said we were totally going to laugh at her when it didn't work, but it did! We felt sheepish. Then Danielle said that she wanted to get on. Rachae came back, and right when Danielle had one leg on the raft, Rachae pushed off, so Danielle lost her balance, and fell into the lake. I don't have a picture of Danielle, because she didn't want pictures taken, but I have one of Rachae.

(above: Rachae)

There was a girl there that everyone was calling Alex, so I thought her name was Alexandra or something. But it ends up her name was the same as me! So they had to call her Alex, and call me Lexi. There were no bathrooms. So you had to go faraway and dig a hole. Yummy! We had dead cow for dinner. They just cooked it in a pit underneath the ground. That night, around the campfire, we heard a lot of good stories. Like this one true story:

At the beginning of WWII, when the Nazis were coming into power, a man sent his wife and daughter on the last train leaving Germany. It was headed for France, but his wife and daughter couldn't understand French. So the man asked the train conductor to tell them when to get off. The train conductor agreed. The train left, and stopped at the first stop. An old man sitting next to the wife and daughter told them this was their stop and that they needed to get off. They got off, and the train left again. It came to the second stop. The train conductor came to tell the wife and daughter to get off because this was their real stop. When the train conductor realized the terrible mistake that was made, they turned back and went back to the first station. Now this first train station was just a place to get water. It was the dead of winter, and this station didn't have a shelter. By the time the train had arrived back at the first stop, the wife and daughter had frozen to death. The point of the story is, the old man told them to get off with good intentions, he thought that he would help them. But they should have listened to the train conductor. We should also listen more to the pro of all advice, our Heavenly Father, instead of the people around us.

We wrapped bananas, chocolate, and marshmallows in tin foil and put it in the fire. So yummy! It was weird because all of these girls I'll go to school with this August. The drill team gave me a makeover. I told them some scary stories from Japan, and they asked me a whole bunch of questions about Japan. Like, "What do they do on Friday nights? Let's sumo! Let's eat sushi! Is it like that?" They had me rolling on the floor laughing, but they didn't know why I was laughing. And of course we all had to tell a million blond jokes each.

(above: Macey and Kember put the jewels from the mirrors on their foreheads)

That night, 4 people slept in a 3-man tent (I was one of them), and I slept on the edge. Water started to come through the tent, and I thought I was going to freeze!

(above: Kember and Lexi)

On the morning of the 13th, the 4th years woke up, ate breakfast, and packed up. Then we had an activity where through team work, we had to climing over a 6 foot high rope without touching it. Or climbing through a spider web made out of rope without touching it. Then we had an activity where each 4th year girl received a notebook with her name written on the cover, and we all sat down in a circlce. We passed the notebooks around clockwise, and you had to write something positive about the girl. We had cup noodles for lunch.

(above: I found a chippymunk! It's so cute!)
Then we hiked back. We only stopped once this time. They read us a book called "Daughter of a King". I really recommend it. Then we sang our 4th year song as loud as we could while going down the hill. At the bottom of the hill, all of our leaders and YW were there to greet us! They took everything we were carrying, and put crowns on our heads. When we got back to our ward camps, they gave us pedicures! Yay! Then we went canoeing on the lake. There were rumors of a man-eating beaver. We all got so addicted to friendship bracelets. I made 3. We had to put our secret sister's gift on their pillow. That was very hard.

(above: Kelsey and Lexi)

We had navajo tacos for dinner. Then we gathered as a stake, and we heard some really good talks from some guest speakers. The talks were about how we are daughters of a king. So we're all princesses, but our father temprorarily sent us to go live in the village with temporary parents to prove that we are real princesses and we're worthy to live in the palace. And if we prove that we're worthy princesses, and marry a worthy prince. The king's oldest son made a staright and narrow path up through the mountains, and that's the only road that will take us back to the palace. And we heard President Hinckley's talk from the General YW broadcast. This time I put a rock in the fire, wrapped it in newspaper, and put it in the bottom of my sleeping bag. I slept very well that night.

(above: 4th years getting pedicures)
The morning of the 14th, we went on a commitment trail. And it was so spiritual, I can't even describe it to you! After that we wrote letters to the men that are serving in Iraq from our stake. One of those men was my mom's younger brother's wife's dad....

One of the leaders brought a whoopee cushion. It was so fun, we got carried away and pulled one on the stake president...oops....

After that all the bishoprics came and ours brought a snow come machine and syrup! I love them! They made dinner for us too. If we did it as a stake, there'd be too many people, so we had testimony meeting as a ward. That tissue box was passed around I don't know how many times. Oh, and we had a slideshow of all the pictures at camp!

The morning of the 15th, we immediately took down our tents and packed up. We gathered as a stake once, ate breakfast, and went home! We left at 9:30 am, and got home at 11 am. I didn't have a shower the whole time that I was there. Some girls washed their hair under a tap, but I didn't wimp out! I got really sunburned though. We all got a sweat shirt that said "virtue" with a crown on it.

And every morning and night, we had flag ceremony. Each ward had to have a cheer at each of these flag ceremonies. Soem wards just changed the words to Avril Lavigne and Fergie songs. At the flag ceremony on the 15th, me and Tashi did the YW theme in Japanese

Everytime we had to gather as a stake, they played "Unwritten" by Natasha Beddingfield really loud. It's the song that's on my blog right now.