I'm back...and alive!!

WHEW!!! It's hard to believe, but after months of planning, working, and sweating, girls camp is finally over! It really was an amazing experience. I don't want to bore you with all the details, but let me just tell you a few things:

1. It rained every single day. Hard. As in, wondering if we need to get out of our cabins/tents and into the storm shelters hard. Luckily, no one was hurt and there were only a few tents that were flooded.

2. When I went to girls camp, our stake young women's leader (the lady who was in charge of the young women's program for the area) was also the one who was front and center during girls camp. She was the one that told everyone what to do, where to go, when to do it, etc. That stake camp director was mostly there to help her do the things that she needed to do. That isn't the way that it is here. The stake camp director (me) was in charge of EVERYTHING! I was a little taken aback by how much I really would be in charge of things. Baptism by fire. Totally stressful. But I did it! Big thanks to all those who helped with the craziness that came along with me being in charge!! It'll be better next year, I promise...

3. The girls that came to the camp are absolutely amazing. I cannot tell you how incredible they are. I've said this before, but as you'll read in my previous post, I really thought that maybe the reason that I was put in charge of girls camp was so I could be an example to these girls. Turns out, that's not the way it went at all. They were the examples to me. Truly, I cannot say enough about the incredible young women in our stake. They are lights to the world.

4. This may be a little indulgent, but I just wanted to tell Kelli Ford (if she reads this blog) how much I thought about her at girls camp. She was my leader/example/wonderful friend while I was a girl at camp, and I often thought "How in the world did she do this??" She was the most energetic, fun-loving, spiritual giant, and by the end my week at camp I kept thinking "How did she keep her energy up?" What were your secrets? I need to know for next year (that is, if they keep me around).

And so, these are a few of my experiences at camp. The following are a few pictures of what we did. First is skit night. The theme for Girls Camp was "Walk in the Light" and our skit was a spoof of "These boots are made for walkin'" We changed some of the words to make them more applicable to the theme and just had a blast. We threw in a few Beyonce dance moves too. It was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

Example of how amazing these girls are: Instead of complaining about the horrible rain that kept us from going on our hike on time, the girls started doing the limbo instead. In their ponchos. It was beyond awesome.

When it wasn't raining it was SUPER hot, so we kept a lot of popsicles and fudgsicles on hand. Here are a couple of the silly girls.

All in all, it was an incredible experience. I am so grateful to all of the people who held me up when I didn't think that I could go on. I'm grateful to the Lord for giving me this incredible opportunity. I came to love these girls. They are wonderful. I loved it. And after crashing for two days straight, I finally feel like I can get out of bed and be a wife and mother again. Because, really, that is my favorite job of all.