Young Women's Camp 2018

Summers are always so busy for me so I always get really behind in blogging once summer hits. This summer was no exception. We did a lot of fun things and now that it is August and school is starting back up, I will finally have some time to get caught up on all the fun things we did over the summer.

First big thing that Danielle, Avery and I did in June was Young Women's Camp. I've been going every year for the past 3 years and also got to go a few times about 10 years ago when I was on the Stake Camp Committee. I love going, especially since the young women in our ward are so awesome.

Our ward has always gone to Camp Mia Shalom. It is up in the mountains, has no cell service, no electricity, very basic cabins, and strict rules. I went to this camp as well when I was a young woman. (I did go to a different camp for my first 2 years of young women's when I lived in Minnesota.) This is the only camp that our young women have ever known or gone to. (Except for Danielle. She has been to a bunch of different young women camps.) This year the powers that be decided that each ward would have a camp with just their ward instead of with the whole stake, which meant that we had to find a different place to camp. Someone in our ward has some family that owns a house west of Cedar City that is great for large groups of people and said that we could use it for camp. She moved out of our ward before camp started, but said we could still use it. So we had a very different camp than we were used to.

We stayed in a house, had electricity, got to swim in a pond, went to the temple, hung out indoors, and just had an overall low-key camp. It was a lot of fun! Some of the girls were bummed before camp that we weren't going to Shalom, but by the end of the week, everyone was loving the new camp structure.

My friend who's relative's house it was also came with her family.

I didn't take very many pictures, but we all had a great time and now the young women are looking forward to having ward camp every-other year.

Youth Conference 2017

Have I mentioned how much I love my current calling? Once again I got to go do some fun stuff with the youth. Back in July we had Youth Conference and our ward did a ropes course in Provo. The first day we did canoeing. That was fun. Everyone had 3 people in a canoe and the person in the front was blindfolded, the person in the back wasn't allowed to speak and the person in the middle had to help guide everyone, but wasn't rowing. It was a little difficult to get down the river and a little dangerous at times because there were low hanging trees all along the sides so if my guide (a young woman named Rachel) didn't tell me to duck, I would get smacked in the face by a tree because the person in the back of our boat (another leader named Ben) couldn't speak. Rachel wasn't the most attentive guide so I got smacked a few times and other times, luckily some people in the other boats would tell me to duck.

That night we went to our campsite, set up our tents, ate dinner, had a little devotional and then got ready for bed. I was in a tent with the two other female leaders that stayed the night and we stayed up kinda late talking. Once we decided to go to sleep, the squawking started. At first we didn't know if a bird was dying or mating, but it was the loudest, most annoying sound. Unfortunately for us, this sound happened every 30 minutes ALL NIGHT LONG! The squawking would last for about 15 minutes at a time, we'd get about a 30 minute break and then it would start up again. So I got to sleep for only 30 minute intervals because I would wake up every time that stupid thing started squawking again. Finally at 5am I decided I'd had enough and I went and slept for about 2 hours in my car where the squawking was muffled enough that I could sleep.

That morning we made breakfast and then headed back over to do the ropes course. I love this kind of thing because I'm not afraid of heights; in fact I like heights. But there were a lot of people that were afraid of some of the stuff we were doing. Danielle and Jr. were there too and they did everything without fear so I was proud of them for that. We got split into groups and they were both in the other group so I would run over to where they were every now and then so I could get pictures of them doing the course.

Danielle on the giant swing.

Me climbing up to the zip line.

Me going down the zip line.

Jr. on the giant swing.

Danielle going down the zip line.

Me doing a flip on the giant swing.

Danielle about to jump off that platform and hit that red ball.

Me jumping to hit the red ball.

Youth conference was a lot of fun!

Girl's Camp 2017

I have really been enjoying being in the Young Women's program in our ward. About 2 weeks after we got back from Norway it was time for girl's camp. Anthon has been super busy with work lately (have I mentioned that before?) so I knew I needed to find people to watch the kids during the day while Danielle, Avery and I were gone for 5 days. Anthon Jr. was home still so he was able to help out, but I also made sure there was an adult there each day from the morning until Sophie took her nap at 1:30pm. My mom helped one of the days and I had 2 other friends help on 3 other days.

We left at 6am on the first Tuesday in June. I had a really hard time leaving because there is no cell reception up at camp and there aren't any phones that we can use to call home. Since I had different people watching my kids and didn't know when Anthon would be getting home each night and I had just been away from them for 10 day two weeks prior, I had a really hard time leaving. One of my good friend's was also going to camp and she could tell something was wrong with me. When she asked if I was ok I just started crying. I'm not a crier. At least not in front of people. But it was just really hard for me, as was the whole week. If I could have at least talked to my family and checked in each day then it wouldn't have been nearly as difficult, but that wasn't an option.

Luckily girl's camp is really fun. We have a great group of girls in our ward and for the most part we didn't have any issues with them. They all got along well and had a good week together. We aren't allowed to have phones up there so I didn't take any pictures of my own, but my friend Brooke was taking pictures the whole time. Here are some highlights of our week:

Goofing around:

Hiking:

Skits:

Waterfront:

Our group:

My best girl:

Confidence Course:

Avery

Danielle

 Games:

We had a great week and everything went smoothly with the kids while I was gone.

Luminaria

Have I mentioned before that I love serving in the Young Women's program? Well, I do. Every Wednesday night we have an activity with the Young Women. Usually we just do something fun at the church or at someone's house, but every now and then we get to go somewhere. At the beginning of the month we went to Thanksgiving Point to see their new Luminaria exhibit. They decked out the gardens with thousands of lights. It was a COLD night...20 degrees...so we all made sure we were bundled up. We had hand warmers, but we were still pretty cold the whole time. But it was still fun.

Brooke and I both hate being cold so we placed ourselves at the front of the group to keep people moving.

They featured a brand new exhibit of sculptures of Jesus' ministry.

I wore my husband's heated coat, but my hands and feet and legs were frozen by the end of the mile walk. But it was a really fun night!

Girls Camp

*Update on my last post: I am feeling better now. I lost a total of 6 lbs., which is awesome, but I still don't have all my energy back.

Last December I was called to be the Young Women's secretary in my ward. I have really enjoyed being a part of the Young Women's program! We get to do fun activities every week and I get to join the girls at camp during the summer. This year camp was in June. (I'm a little behind in my posting.) There is a lot of preparation leading up to camp and we, as leaders, work very hard to make sure it is a positive, fun, and spiritual experience for the girls.

This is us right before we left. All clean and showered.

The younger girls all go up to camp Mia Shalom on a bus. The leaders and the older girls drive cars. We have a lot of stuff to bring up with us so we had a trailer and three cars fully loaded with supplies.

It takes about an hour and a half to drive to camp. When we got there, we found our cabins and started unloading. I have heard about the kind of set up they have at boys camps because Anthon served in the Young Men's program for a few years. Girls camp is very different than the way the boys camp. We have table cloths, canopies, a designated kitchen area for preparing and cooking amazing meals, crafts, games, and much more. We are ruffing it, but in style.

Each day we have various things on the schedule to keep the girls entertained, learning spiritually, and having fun. Confidence course, lake time, hikes, certification, devotionals, daily flag ceremonies, personal scripture study, faith walk, to name a few. I would have loved a little more nap time, but we kept pretty busy.

This is part of the confidence course. My eyes are closed and the girls help guide me across logs of different heights and distances. They only almost let me fall once.


Brooke and I volunteered to go on the 5 mile hike with the girls. It was a difficult hike, but it help solidify a new friendship. Brooke and I are BFFs now.

Our ward!

Apparently this is a highly anticipated game every year. Mrs. Nezbit.

One of the leaders from our ward, Valorie, did my hair really cool one day.

Lake time was a lot of fun! Each boat had 11 rubber ducks they had to find in the lake. My boat won!

Victory trophies!

A huge part of the spiritual experience for camp is the faith walk. We leaders spent a lot of time setting up and preparing for it. It was a really special part of camp for everyone. Well, almost everyone. I was the last person to follow the path and it was really late and dark and there was SOMETHING IN THE WOODS! I ended up running through most of the walk because there was a large animal of some kind near me in the woods and it freaked me out!

This is the Young Women leaders, camp leaders and Relief Society leaders.
This is how the young women view us.

This is how we view ourselves.

Camp was such a fun experience! I became much better friends with my fellow leaders and I think the girls had fun too.