YW Camp 2019

I was asked to be a nest leader at camp again this year. After having such a good experience last year, I was looking forward to it. But, as it got closer, I got more and more stressed out about it. This year, I was kind of the senior leader since my other next leader was 19. Also, I was called to be the Ward Camp Liason person, which meant that I sat on the camp council and had more assignments to do for that. So, it was kind of a lot to prepare and keep track of. 

Once again, once I made it up to camp--it was fantastic. We all had a great year. It was crazy to be back and see all the fire damage from last year. You can see the burned trees on the mountain:

It's still so amazing how untouched camp was.

The whole group:

Elizabeth's group:

She was with older girls since I was the leader of the girls her age but they try not to group girls with their moms.

Natalie's group:

My group:

We were actually called "houses" this year since it was a Harry Potter theme--Liahona School of Light and Learning. We all picked house colors, a YW value, and an animal to represent our house. My house chose virtue so our color was gold and we picked the lioness as our animal (since power is a definition of virtue too). Elizabeth's house picked divine nature (pegasus) and Natalie's house picked choice and accountability (raven). It was a fun theme.

We had a blast with all the usual camp activities: shooting BB guns, archery, crafts (whittling our own wands), Oasis, etc.

This game of 9-square was super fun, too:

The girls took charge of our skit and did a great job:

Our flag:

Our ward was in charge of one campfire and we decided to play Quidditch. It ended up being super fun! The girls got way into it and were all tired out by the end.

We hiked around Pinecrest Lake again and swam in the lake after:

One of my girls from China teaching me how to write hello in Chinese characters:

We also did a service project sanding and staining the new benches in the campfire area:

For Oasis this year, we talked a lot about the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet. We did this faith walk activity that ended up being really neat. Here is one of the stations:

We had backpacks and we would pick up a rock that reflected how well we were keeping this standard and put it in our backpack--the bigger the rock, the more of a burden it created for us. At the end, we talked about how to lay our burdens at the feet of the Savior.

We had another really powerful testimony meeting. I'm always impressed and inspired by all the girls who aren't even members who get up to share. Elizabeth and Natalie both did and I loved their testimonies.

Even though it was exhausting and we were so glad to get home and shower, it was another great year at camp!