Third Year of Girls Camp

I remember spending a lot of time at the bathroom during my third year of girls camp. Notice I didn't say I spent a lot of time in the bathroom – just a lot of time at the bathroom. I spent a lot of time there because of the weather and the layout of our camp.

The first day of camp it was really hot. Then it started to rain on the second day and the camp never really dried out. I don't like to be inside soggy tents so I usually was down at the picnic tables underneath the canopies.

The layout of the campsite at the Jordan Pines campground up Big Cottonwood Canyon was very unique. There was one large circular gathering area with a fire pit, barbeque stands, and picnic tables. Every ward was assigned a section of the circle and one or two picnic tables. This area was where the wards cooked meals, ate meals, did crafts, hung out, and sat during activities with the rest of the stake. Around the edge of the gathering area was a rock ledge. There was a trail on the other side of the ledge that led into the trees. Our tents were a short way up the trail. The other wards were scattered in other locations surrounding the gathering area.

This layout led to some interesting developments regarding helping with meals. Girls could stay in their tents rather than hang out down at the gathering area. When it was time to start preparing meals the leaders wouldn't want to climb over the wall and walk up the trail to get the girls. Instead they would send someone who happened to be around (usually me) to go and try to get the other girls to come help. It was really easy for the other girls to not come help with the meals. That meant that the leaders and whoever happened to be around (usually me) would have to make the meals. I ended up helping out with a lot of things when no one else was even lifting a finger and it started to get on my nerves. I got in the habit of saying, “I'm heading to the bathroom.” Whenever a leader asked me if I was busy. So that is why I remember hanging out at the bathroom a lot during my third year.

Other than feeling like I was doing a disproportionate amount of work I really enjoyed my third year of camp. My sister Lindsey turned 12 during the week, so she was able to come for her first year. I'd anxiously waited for her to be old enough to come to camp with me. We had always been close so I was excited to share this part of my life with her. There were lots of girls her age so we had a large group of first year girls. Some of them I already knew like Carmen C and Leslie A. Others of them were new to me like Brittany T. They were all fun to get to know.

We had a new stake camp director which made a huge difference in the feeling of the camp. The prior director, Susan J, had an almost militant style of running the camp. During my first two years she had been in charge and flag ceremony had been held at 7:30 am on the dot. This year the new camp director was Deeann G. She was much more laid back than Susan. There were days were didn't have flag ceremony until 10:30.

There were other changes as well. We didn't have a Biffy Queen contest. Instead the stake had asked us all to submit a design for the camp T-shirt that went with the theme “We are daughters of our Heavenly Father.” The winner, Brittany T, was the camp queen. We still had skit night but instead of doing funny skits we did skits based on scripture stories. I think our ward did the 10 Virgins but I'm not sure.

We also had a new ward camp director (there would be a new one every year). Michelle A was in charge this year. She'd done a good job getting us all certified during the weeks before camp so we didn't have to worry much about that during camp. The other leaders I remember were Lessie K, Christine D, and Brenda T. Every night they would sing to us to put us to sleep. Christine started the tradition of singing us Dolly Parton's “Andy Song” every night.

All the girls in the stake who were in their 5^th, 6^th, or 7^th year of camp were Jr Counselors (JCs). They had their own camp area complete with decorations. They were all really fun and would stay up late. I remember falling asleep while hearing Hope A, Jill W, and the other JCs laughing. Who knows what they were up to.

When it started raining I discovered that my tent had a small leak – above my bed! I went out and found Candace T who was from my ward but was a stake leader. She helped me take tarps from our camping shower and put them up over my tent and another tent. It was the first time I really got to know Candace. I thought she was amazing and basically wanted to be her for the next several years.

(Funny story about my first memory of Candace. All the parents of teenagers in my ward were invited to a Sunday school meeting one Sunday. The young men and young women were in charge of helping out in the primary so the parents in those callings could go to the meeting. Candace was the only adult primary worker without teenagers so she ended up in charge of at least 30 kids and 15 teenagers. She was not happy that day. I came away with the impression that she was a very ornery lady. My sister Hillary was in primary and knew Candace was usually a very nice person. She suggested that we take Candace cookies. When she got the cookies Candace asked, “Hillary, how did you know I needed these?”)

One day we went on a hike to Doughnut Falls. The whole way there me and Carmen talked about every character in the “Work and the Glory” series. It was a very fun and pretty hike. After the hike my ward was involved in a giant prank against the 4th ward. I think they were the ward right next to us. I don't remember the specifics, but it involved them stealing our flag and us retaliating by stealing their supply tent. (It might have been the other way around.) At first it was a really fun prank but it got a little bit out of control and a lot of people overreacted emotionally. At subsequent camps the 4th ward never was near our campsite again.

For some reason it seems like we had more visitors than usual this year. Some of our young women leaders, Ileane A and Susan G, came up to visit one night. Their work schedules hadn't allowed them to camp overnight, but they wanted to see us. It was really nice to see them because they were perky and fun (the leaders that were camping with us were wearing down) I'll always remember Susan doing a sun dance around the fire. We were also visited by the bishopric and the stake presidency. Scott W was in the stake presidency and he brought his wife Debbie. It was their wedding anniversary. My parents came up because my dad was the bishop. For some reason I can not remember anything I did with my parents other than they were there.

The most memorable part of camp was Lindsey's birthday. All week long we had received mystery presents from someone. People who were coming up to camp to visit were left these presents on their doorsteps with instructions to take them to us girls. The presents started out small. At first they were Barbie themed invitations to a birthday party. Then they were Barbie noisemakers and other party favor type things. One day we were given t-shirts and puff paint to decorate them. The final present was a birthday cake with a tiny Barbie figurine on top (she ended up getting hung from the canopy) We sang happy birthday and ate the cake. Hope and Harmony S ended up having a huge cake war. It was very funny. I still don't know who was in charge of these presents, but I thought they were great. So if you are reading this – Thank you!

And thank you to all the people who worked so hard to put together girls camp. My third year is when I really started to feel like a valuable part of the ward. There were a lot of girls younger than me so I began to understand how important my example was. I guess all that extra work I did was good too because I learned that I could be depended on to get things done - when I got back from the bathroom of course.