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.

Saved By Grace

I told you I'd post more pictures of Gracie, right? So here you go!My G'ma and G'pa have been in the MTC for a week! They've been really busy but they're loving it. They're coming home on Friday, and the whole family is getting together on Father's Day. Both sides of my family are getting together, and we're going to bless Gracie and say goodbye to G'ma and G'pa for the last before they leave for Guatemala.

above: Here's my G'pa L. holding Gracie

G'ma L. holding the baby!

Is Noah excited to be a big brother? Or is it just me?

I love this picture! She's glaring at me!

She's so cute undressed ♥

Please, no more photos at this time!

Larry's Drive-In

Okay. I'll tell you about my new job. I wanted to start working at Arby's (there are like no other options). But a girl in my ward named Kortney, who is exactly 1 year younger than me to the day, says that she was working there and it wasn't so good. The boss is Hispanic, and there's nothing wrong with that, but most of the staff are Hispanic too, and there's communication problems, etc...and the other few Caucasian girls just swore all day. Supposedly it wasn't a very good atmosphere. So she told me to work at Larry's, which is right next door to Arby's. So I put in my job application, and got a call the next day. Monday the 3rd was my 1st day. It was hard getting used to things, but now I'm doing okay. Lot's of weird people come in. We only get about 1/3 of the people compared to Arby's. Can't believe how many people pull in, then all of the sudden pull out again and drive over to Larry's. Or the guy who came up to the drive-in and I said, "Hi, welcome to Larry's! Order when you're ready!" and he goes, "I'm still thinking" and all of the sudden he drives off too!!!! What the heck?! Anyways, here are some funny stories from working there:

1. A guy comes up to the drive-in. He says, "I want 2 cheeseburgers with no pickles and 2 cheeseburgers with ......" We couldn't hear him. So we ask him to repeat what he said, and again we can't hear the last part. When we ask him again (and we have our ears pressed up against the intercom by now so we can hear), he yells NO ONIONS! It was so loud, we all jolted and fell back. haha it was one of those you had to be there stories.
2. A huge family comes in and they order about 15 cheeseburgers. And each cheeseburger they want something different. (This one no pickles, this one extra onions etc...). We give them their order, but they come back and tell us that they hadn't ordered that many burgers and that we charged them too much. And they kept going on and on about how we got some of the burgers wrong, and they go, "And there's cheese on this cheeseburger!" I almost started laughing my head off right there. And they had ordered that many burgers, I sware! Me and another girl both took the cash register so there's 2 witnesses! But how stupid do you have to be? Just get a plain hamburger!
3. And I don't know how many of you have watched the Freaky Friday with Lindsay Lohan in it, but on that show a woman comes in for therapy, and she's speaking incoherent jibberish so you can't understand her. Well, a guy came in that did just that. He kept talking to himself: "I don't know what I want...aihaibhgoabh m,bn xvm.jhaihg...he'll have to pay me back....alsjgbajlbhwmeyni..." and when I finally understood his order, I told him his total. But he just stood there doing nothing. He wasn't getting his wallet out or anything. So I repeated it, and he goes, "I KNOW!!!" Geez! I just thought he hadn't heard or something.

And I have plenty more stories to tell you. But I'll stop there. I wonder if this is just because it's Fillmore, or if it happens everywhere. And lots of people who come inhave to ask my age. Oh, and yesterday, Saturday, I was supposed to have the 4:30-9 pm shift, but a girl got fired in the morning shift. And Scott and Laura (2 people I work with) called me to come in because they like me! (Laura told me so. It made me happy). And I had only worked 3 days. But the people in the night shift were mean to me just because I'm new. But anyways, I was at Larry's from 12:40 PM to 10:10 PM last night. I almost passed out!!! A huge annoying family came in at 9pm,just at closing time. And they were being all apologetic and stuff, but they didn't do take-out!!!=mad Lexi! I had already started to clean, and I couldn't clean for the 30 stinking minutes they were there, and then when they left, I had to start all over again. Aaaaarrrrrggghhhh! Just letting off some stress here. So I almost died. Be glad that I'm still alive.

above: Love this pic. I took it while me and Tash were waiting at the hospital for Gracie to be born.

2 of my dad's sisters, Natalie and Emily, both got big burns on their arms from the oven. They were making Costco pizza together, and the oven caught on fire. This picture was actually taken 1 week after they got burned so Emily's burn looks good.

M Stake Youth Conference

Okay. I will tell you about my M stake Youth Conference. Every other year we go and stay over somewhere like BYU, and every other year we just have a 1-day conference close by. And this year was the 1-day conference. About one hundred 14-18 year olds came.

We met at 9 am at our church building, we all piled into cars, and drove to a tiny town about 15 miles away to go to Kessler Ranch. In the morning we just watched calves being roped, branded, and vaccinated. Ewwwwwwwwwww!

Then we ate lunch and split into groups of about 25. We rotated around. Our first place was a parable type thingy about how sometimes it's hard to trust what our leaders say. We jumped off of those giant stands, and kind fo bungy-jumped. I have a video of it in the post below. The first few people we so scared they were up there for 10 minutes at least, and I was totally making fun of them, but when I got up there I thought I was going to pass out. I am afraid of heights, but only if I don't have a railing to hold onto, or it's rickety and dangerous etc...So this leader gave me a prep talk by asking me if my youth leaders had ever asked me to do anything that would kill me. I didn't say it, but I was thinking, "Ummm...let me think...oh! right now!" And I had to be pushed off. But the second time I was able to jump off normally, and by the 3rd time, I ran and dived off. The two kids in that video are a YW and YM from my ward. Shelli and Courtney.

Then we had 2 activities on family and staying together, practiced shooting, and rode a fake bucking bull. Whoever stayed on the whole time got a popsicle. Yep, that's me! At the very end, we had a talk, and a testimony meeting. It was all over at 6:30 PM, so we all went home, showered off, and met up for a dance at the nearby park a 8:30 PM. It was supposed to be a tri-stake dance, but the other 2 stakes didn't show up. All the YM and YW are way more friendly with eachother than in Tokyo. They just kept teasing eachother the whole time. At the lady's choice dance I thought I was going to pass out. But after I danced once, I didn't feel so akward and shy anymore. I mean, I didn't really know these boys!!! The dance was so fun!!! We danced the cha cha slide and to the song "Everytime We Touch". You can listen to those songs HERE and HERE. We danced til about 11 pm. I was so tired I thought I was going to pass out again. But I had so much freaking fun! I just wish that I was able to take more pictures!!! And I got a nice sunburn aha