We had stake girls camp this week! It has finally come and gone. Back in February (ish?) I was called to be on the stake camp committee. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I accepted. I ended up taking on the assignment of overseeing the food. When our camp director asked if someone wanted to be in charge of food, I figured that would be a good spot for me. Keep me behind the scenes where I don’t have to entertain children or manage behavior. Let me just feed them.
So feed them I did, and I loved every second of it.
There is a lot I want to write down about camp, but I don’t know how to organize my thoughts and memories, so for now, I’m just going to ramble a bit, and at some point, I’ll probably write some additional posts with food info that I can rely on later and that might be helpful to others who end up in this boat.
For now, here’s a little about our camp…
The Location
We had the privilege of going to Heber Valley Camp. It’s the place you always hear about… the one with the ravest of reviews… and let me tell you, it’s a great place! I’m glad we got to go there, and if you’re cooking nine meals for 150 people, that’s the place to do it! I loved the industrial kitchen and walk-in cooler. As Camp Chef, I appreciated the amenities!
However, with that said, I have also loved all of the other Church-owned camps I’ve been to. Each one has unique offerings, so I’m not a “HVC Always” person. But I’m glad I got to have that experience.
The Theme
The theme for our camp was chosen by the YCLs (Youth Camp Leaders). We gave them the guidance of aligning with the Church’s youth theme for 2024: I am a Disciple of Jesus Christ. They decided they wanted to focus on the temple and covenants since we recently became part of the new Taylorsville Temple district. They wanted hoodies (who doesn’t love a good camp hoodie?) and came up with the theme Happiest Place on Earth with the Taylorsville Temple at the center (we had someone look into copyright stuff for good measure… because… you know…).
The Committee
We had six of us on the camp committee, and then I asked a couple of additional friends to help with food.
A confession: I’m not great at committees. I’m not a team player. I’m more of a “let me do it myself” person in most cases, but this committee was the best, most positive team effort I have ever experienced in my life. We worked so well together, and we had the perfect balance of talents and abilities. We fell into our roles naturally, and we knew how to rely on each other. It was really quite special.
We are missing two of our sweet friends who had to leave early
On the way home, my friend and fellow committee member was telling me how, leading up to camp, she felt like she wasn’t contributing and that there was really no point in her even being on the committee. It was a bit of a wrestle for her. But when we were actually at camp, her role became obvious. She was busy and very needed, and she was able to use her strengths fully. I saw that in all of her efforts, and it was just really cool to know that we each found our place. Some of us had to do more work PRIOR to camp, and some of us had to go in to beast mode AT camp. Me? I did both. Because food.
The Campers
It was hard to keep track of numbers, but last I heard, we ended up with just shy of 150 people at camp - about 145. Someone said we had 104 young women there. The numbers fluctuated with girls and leaders coming and going, but in my head, I’m going with 150.
The Activities
One nice thing about HVC is that they have so many built-in activities. We didn’t have to plan a lot. The girls went conoeing & hiking, did a challenge course, threw axes, and had multiple presentations on spiritual themes by the camp missionaries. There was volleyball and nine square.
One of our committee members brought a craft - cute keychains with the camp theme:
We also had supplies for bracelets and the YCLs did a game night.
The schedule was jam-packed, so everyone stayed pretty busy, but I think we all could have done with a little more downtime. There is just so much to do at HVC that we didn’t want to miss out on anything.
One really fun thing we were able to have at camp was a set up of nacho machines! We have a lady in our stake who offered them up for our use, so Tuesday night the girls went on a sunset hike, and when they got back, we had a late night nacho bar.
We just had to be creative about where we kept the machines plugged in when they weren’t in use (as not to trip the breakers in the kitchen).
Pardon our mannequin head. I’ll talk about her later (also, this isn’t the bathroom. Haha! It’s just a room with sinks, so no fecal matter flew onto the nacho machine during flushes).
The Emergency
We were required to have a medical person at our camp, and wow! Was she ever busy! We asked an RN to be our medical rep, and she was running around all of camp. I asked her if she felt like we were having a “normal” amount of medical needs for a stake camp because it seemed to me like there was a lot going on! She confirmed that we were having more medical issues than she had ever seen at a previous camp. We had cuts and stings. Puke. Bloody noses. Kind of mild stuff, but it was just ongoing. Every time I turned round, I swear someone needed the nurse.
But then we had a doozy. One of our sweet gals, Whitney, had a series of grand mal seizures and had to be taken by ambulance on the last night of camp. It was heartbreaking, but there were so many tender things happening during the scare. At one point, I was going in and out of the medical area on the phone with her dad (fortunately her mom was at camp with her and right there by her side), and when I went through the door out into the pavilion, everyone was gathered in a circle praying. The paramedics were able to get her stabilized in the ambulance, and she went to the hospital for a while for monitoring and got discharged later that night. She is doing okay now. Her epilepsy is quite severe, so her mom was prepared for the possibility that it could happen, but she wanted her to get to come to camp. Whitney had a really good time at camp; it was just sad to have her experience end the way it did.
Whitney ran right outside to see me the next morning at her house. I was in shock to see her up and going like her normal self. I thought she’d sleep for a week straight!
While I was packing for camp, I repeatedly felt like I needed to take a stack of blank paper. On the last morning of camp, I was able to put out paper for everyone to send notes home for Whitney. There were so many little blessings like that all throughout camp - little occurrences where some small insight ended up providing us with something we needed and didn’t even realize!
When I started in this calling, I thought I’d get through it and move on with life, happy it was over. I am happy that it’s over, but not in the way I expected. What makes me “happy it’s over” is the wonderful feeling of fulfillment I’m experiencing. It’s not “oh thank heavens it’s over,” like I expected. It’s more of a “Wow! We did it, and it was worth it!”
I have been in a mega spiritual slump for a long time. I don’t really feel the Spirit much. I fight the battle of not wanting to go to church on Sundays. I’ve been super numb and honestly, kind of disinterested. But I saw so many tiny miracles and wonderful things in this camp experience that I am renewed. I’m not sure to what degree I am renewed, but I feel like I can start fresh spiritually. It was so, so good for me to participate in camp. There were so many tiny experiences throughout it that showed me the hand of the Lord, and I had experience after experience that made me feel like I was exactly where the Lord needed me to be in all this.
Now that I’m home, I’ve hit my wall and need to sleep for a week, but it was all worth it.
