Daughter of a King

Thanks to some amazing ladies, a very supportive and involved Bishopric, and 16 beautiful Young Women, we had a FANTASTIC Girls Camp this year.

Several months ago, I asked for a volunteer from our Young Women's organization to help organize, plan, and prepare for Girls Camp. Let's be honest, Girls Camp just overwhelms me. I am more than happy to work hard and put in the time, but I am not a creative genius. I just don't know where to even start with creating a Girls Camp experience that is both functional and memorable and achieves the desired purpose of building testimonies, developing friendships, building leadership skills, and bringing unity to the Young Women's group in our ward. Put simply, my brain just does not work that way. BUT, I am smart enough to surround myself with creative and inspired people.

Tiffany not only agreed to take on this project, but she willingly volunteered and was excited and happy about it and proceeded to "run with it." She spent countless hours organizing, planning, preparing, crafting, laminating, gathering, shopping, creating, etc., and I could not have been more happy with the process or the end result. She absolutely did the lion's share of the work, and I am personally so grateful to her. She shared of her time and talents and gave so much of herself to make camp a success for our beautiful Young Women, and she remained EXCITED and HAPPY through the whole process. The woman simply amazes me. It was a pleasure to work along side her and see it all come together in such a beautiful way.

I am so grateful to my counselors, Marion and Michelle, and my secretary, Jeni (pictured beautifully in the above photo). I can't imagine my calling or my life without them. They do everything I ask and more. They do it before I even ask, and they do it better than I could ever have hoped for. I feel so supported and sustained by them, and I'm grateful to have them by my side. They love the Young Women and they love our Savior, and it shows.

We went to Heber Valley Camp this year, and it was a different experience than I've EVER had camping. We had a pavillion that included a sink with running hot/cold water and a storage room complete with fridge and shelves for food and supplies. It was so much easier to stay organized with places to put everything. And we stayed in yurts instead of tents. Fun stuff.

Tiff and I drug our poor bishop up there bright and early Monday morning so we could have everything ready when when the girls arrived. For as much crap as we gave him, I have to admit he did not disappoint with his MacGyver/crafting/decorating skills. And yes that is a knife in his mouth. Knife, string, copy of the YW theme. Yep.

Brother Monsen and Bishop outside their lovely headquarters ... a tent with no floor. They were VERY good sports about it. It beats the heck out of Brother Cline's sleeping quarters ... complete with lots of food and a fridge for air conditioning. :)

We did not mess around with food at camp. Our menu basically ROCKED. The leaders brought flavored popcorn to share for one of our snacks. YUMMMMM.


Love these gals.

Apparently supervising 300+ teenage girls and their leaders is EXHAUSTING for Pres. Johnson.

We had a quiet time every afternoon called PJ's (prayer, journal, scriptures).

And Tiffany was NOT sleeping during PJ's. Just ask her ... she'll tell ya.

Our cute flag that Tiffany and our four AMAZING YCL's made showcasing our theme "Daughter of a King." It was a message we wanted the girls to hear, and it was one that I needed to be reminded of as well. We focused on understanding what it means to be the Daughter of a King and how to live our lives accordingly

Our YCL's had mentioned that they wanted more responsibility at camp, and you know what? It just so happens they said that to just the RIGHT people .... we made it happen. Let's just say, they worked hard all week, and they did a GREAT JOB. All of them. They displayed leadership skills, confidence, and patience, and it's going to be fun to see them as Young Women leaders themselves in not too many years.

This was our mailbox for secret sister letters and our Snickers box where we wrote down the funny things we saw every day and picked a winner and awarded them a big Snickers candy bar.

Our gathering area was called "Princess in Progress Area." So cute. I'm telling ya, if I had 10 years, I would have never come up with that. It was all Tiffany.

Turns out Bishop and Brother Monsen have some mad crafting skills. We had to remind them to share the glue and glitter with the girls.

The end result of the fancy glitter crown. I'd say it did not disappoint ... at least until those big globs of glue/glitter started sliding down onto his head ... since he only let it dry for 30 seconds before putting it on. That was a little disappointing ...

The pavillion and shade canopies were all decorated with white lights and tulle. It was AWESOME ... especially at night.



We call this one "The Bishop receiving revelation." He REALLY likes to receive revelation.

On our way to the Challenge Course. We leaders each had different stations to be responsible for. Mine was a swinging horizontal log that was attached by wire between two trees. They had to figure out how to get their whole group on it and stay for five seconds. The adults took like 25 minutes to get it. I had three different groups of young women try it, and they all figured it out in less than 2 minutes. What does that tell ya?

The zip line was a memorable experience. Some of the girls really struggled with it. Some of the adult leaders did as well (like yours truly). It's intimidating scaling a log high into the air and inching your way across a wire to even get to the zip line launch. And then there's the whole jumping off a perfectly good solid platform high up there in the trees and trusting the zip line. Wow. I know ... doesn't sound like something I'd try. I am somewhat susceptible to peer pressure though. I was worried about my dang foot with my recent toenail removal and my ankle that refuses to completely heal ... probably because I keep doing things like THIS! Who knows??? And of course there is the whole being up high walking across a wire thing and the aforementioned jumping off and trusting a wire. Yeah. It was scary for me.







We all survived. And I spared you from the pictures where I look terrified. These ones were taken when I was towards the end of the line. I was probably like 8 feet off the ground. Haha

Yep ... she was this happy and excited for nearly FIVE DAYS. We had a TON of fun.

Shhh .... don't tell.
Oh great ... like the two of us can keep ANYTHING quiet.

At the ampitheater for roll call/flag ceremony. Bro. Monsen worked out an awesome cheer for us that he added onto and switched up every day. Our ward ROCKED at roll call. It was definitely the BEST ONE. And that's saying a lot ... considering there were FOURTEEN WARDS with us.

I am not even asking.
Yep. Still not asking.
On our hike. It was beautiful.


I LOVE our bishopric. Honestly, I could not ask for a more supportive and helpful bishop, and the same goes for his counselors. They worked, played, crafted, hiked, laughed, sang, danced (?), taught, etc. right alongside the girls and Young Women leaders all week.

Before we even left, we had a bit of trouble finding the key to our ward trailer so we could load up the girls' stuff. Upon "sensing" my level of frustration, Bishop and Brother Cline simply walked over to the front of the trailer, picked up the front of it, and pulled it two streets away to Tiffany's house where the girls were bringing their stuff. It was pretty funny, and I REALLY wish I had a picture. But their level of dedication in getting that trailer where I needed it was just a sign of what I could expect for the whole week. On our hike, Brother Monsen took off my sunglasses to look into my eyes when he didn't believe my answer after asking "How is your ankle?" and of course I had said, "It's okay." He then lended me a hand throughout our entire hike and hiked extra slow so I could hold onto his arm/backpack since our trail was full of roots and rocks ... not good for an already weak ankle on an extra clumsy ME! Our last night, we kept all three of them up til nearly 2:00 in the morning taking down Christmas lights and tulle and had them back up at 6:30 to load up the trailer to go home.

They were ALL incredible. I am so glad they were there and were "present" and involved. They had such a positive impact on the Young Women in our ward just by being there and caring enough to not stand back and watch but to jump in and be a part. I am glad they did not waste that opportunity. They love the young women, they love the Young Women leaders, and they love their Savior, and it shows. I am so grateful to all of them.

I was supposed to be soaking my stupid toenail-free toe a couple times a day, and that was especially the case after I removed the new skin/callous that was growing while climbing up the log to get to the zipline. WHATEVER. So, they made me my very own "toe bowl" complete with a very clear label. Nasty, right? Well, just look at Bishop's face. Honestly he's got a bit of a weak stomach, but I admit the whole thing was just ... yuck. Still, I've never had my very own "toe bowl' before, so that was new for me ... and there's not too many injury-related things I haven't experienced, so I'm up for anything as exciting as a "toe bowl."



We invited a couple of our favorite stake leaders up for dinner one night. And this is how many tries it took to get a descent picture of all of us:



And THANKS a BUNCH to Bishop Hunt for clicking away on that camera during that whole process.
TA-DA. Beautiful ... and everyone is behaving themselves.... even Tiff and Paula.
So it's possible I was a little grouchy at the skit night. Apparently people were VERY confused by "skits MUST be 3 to 5 minutes" and APPROPRIATE. I know it's all VERY confusing. I got a little grouchy and thankfully Michelle captured it on film. Yeah ... that's awesome. I'm over it. Haha

These two were ROCK STARS as well. Diana and Mandy are my Mia Maid and Beehive advisors. They came up mid way through the week and were AWESOME with the girls. They jumped right in an helped out and had a great attitude. The girls adore them, and I'm so glad they were able to join us.
Bishop was having trouble finding a life jacket that fit. His argument was that this life jacket said "Under 50" on it. Hmmm ... should I be worried about him???

I made sure to get an action shot of Bishop's "one finger" contribution to the log splitting service project. That lever had to go back and forth, and it took exactly one finger to do it. Brother Cline had to lift the logs, place them, remove them, and hand them to the girls to stack after being split and he got dirty and sweaty ... but let's not minimize the contribution of the one-finger lever pushing/pulling. It's a very important role. Of course, maybe we wore Bishop out with all our demands for decorating the first day. We might be at fault here.

Mandy and Brother Cline graciously volunteered to join the service project. Nice job guys.


Loved this saying we had hanging at our pavillion. Again ... all Tiffany. But I did take this picture, so maybe Michelle's photography skills are rubbing off on me? Michelle was an awesome photographer. She got approximately 1 million pictures and made a really nice slideshow of our week at camp.

Marion spoiled us ROTTEN by cooking an AMAZING dinner for Thursday night. Cafe Rio pork salad. This girl ROCKS!!!

LOVE this girl. Marion is pregnant (YEAH!!!!) so she couldn't be up there with us all week (BOOO!!!!), but she came up for Thursday night, and we were SO happy to have her there. It's just not the same without her.

Brother and Sister Allinson (our high counselor and his wife) came up and joined us for Thursday night as well. They even got roped into decorating for our special dinner that night, and they were GREAT sports about it. Sister Allinson was a huge help on my crepe paper portion of the project and Brother Allinson didn't even flinch when we asked him to tie balloons to logs and make our cute little signs all stand up in a line. We sent the girls off on a faith walk with our bishopric and hustled to get their feast fit for a "Daughter of a King" all ready ... complete with a balloon walkway and perfectly coordinated in the green and black color scheme. It was PERFECT.

Not sure what those sunbeams shining down from heaven are all about ...

Isn't is PERFECT?!?! We had so much fun putting it together, and the girls felt special when they got back and saw what we had done for our "princesses."



Check out that crepe paper!







Love LOVE all these people. I could not have been more happy with how camp went this year. With this group surrounding me, I feel like I could do just about anything. I'm grateful for their help, their prayers, their trust and confidence in me, and their love for the young women of our ward and for our Savior. I am grateful for their testimonies and for the example they are to me and the young women. Love them all.