Girls Camp Cincinnati North Stake Style

As per special request from my bestest in Texas, I shall rehash some very tender special memories of Girls Camp. It's funny that she would ask me about it since I was just talking about it with my dearest husband. It has come to my attention there has been some contention in my old stake concerning Girls Camp. Currently the young women are staying in cabins instead of tents and some people think that the young women aren't learning important life skills by sleeping in cabins. Let me tell you why that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I went to girls camp 4 years (one of those years as a junior leader). 2 years I stayed in tents, and the other 2 years I stayed in cabins. While I hold some tender memories of those first 2 years that we stayed in tents, the memory that sticks out the most was the incessant rainfall. Yes, it was just our luck that three of the four years that I went to girls camp it rained pretty much all week. Now imagine the gloriousness of waking up in the morning with a soaking wet sleeping bag and your arm in a puddle of water. Oh it was lovely times. Also imagine staying in a teeny tiny tent with three other girls who decide that they want to "rough it", (whatever the heck that means!) and not shower all week. I on the other hand preferred the clean shower option and therefore had the privilege of enduring the stench of my 3 friends. (1 of them eventually broke and took a shower a couple days later-- that bestest in Texas). Let's not even begin to discuss the wet dirty clothes laying everywhere that were attracting bugs and who knows what kinds of creepy crawly things... the life skills i learned those years in tents were that I hated hated hated bugs and I had disgusting dirty people for friends. Okay let's look at the 2 years that I stayed in cabins. The memories that stick out to me the most is the pleasantness of being clean and how grateful I was for not having to smell wet filthiness in my sleeping quarters. Okay okay I know I sound like girls camp was pretty much a horrible experience for me and in some ways it was, but on the other hand I made memories there that I'll never forget. My best friend Holli and I were always kind of rebellious. We had a tendency to sleep through flag ceremony and maybe skip out on a few "chores" here and there. But it was our rebelliousness that created one of my favorite girls camp memories. It was one sunny afternoon (possibly the only one that week), when we wandered off exploring the camp grounds if you will, we happened upon a pretty large creek. It gets pretty hot and humid in southern Ohio so that river looked really really welcoming. We decided to follow the creek and see where it led. After following it upstream for a while we see this awesome waterfall. It wasn't more than 25-20 feet tall. In our excitement we ran back to tell the whole camp about our awesome find. Needless to say a large group of girls followed us back in their bathing suits. Girls would climb up the water fall and jump off the waterfall into the deeper pool below or they would just sit down on the slipper rocks and let the current push them off. I was too chicken so I sat in the shallow portions and let the current push me down stream. Trust me, it kept me entertained for hours. :) That day was an excellent day if I do say so myself, although Holli did get a leech on our way back. Yeah that's gross. No way in heck I was going to touch that thing. I think I started running away from her... sorry girl. I tell you it's those life skills I learned!

Another favorite memory of girls camp is Testimony Meeting, also known as Girls Camp Thankamony. oooohhh Girls Camp testimony meetings are a sight to see. They last about 5 hours, no exaggeration. Basically it's a series of girls getting up in at least groups of 3 and some as large as 10. They go down the line each girl, one by one and it goes a little something like this. "I'd like to bear my testimony-" and then the floodgates open! Tears and tears and hyperventilation and heaving and all sorts of emotion! Finally when the girl regains the bare minimum control, at least enough to somewhat understand what she is saying, she goes on to thank her friends by name for being the best friends in the world and then thank the new friends she made for being the best friends she's ever made in 4 days. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen. Yup. That's pretty much how it goes and I am just as guilty for this kind of show. HEY! When you put a large group of girls together, we tend to get emotional okay?! Sometimes when you're young and immature you don't always understand the important of bearing testimony of Christ and not thanking your friends so much. All in all I really did make a lot of wonderful friends. Truth be told I really wouldn't know how to start a fire unless i had some lighter fluid and a match. And I still can't figure up how to put up a tarp to avoid having a flood in the morning. If someone fell and broke a bone I wouldn't know what to do. Here's what I'm trying to say. I think it's very important that women be prepared and know how to take care of themselves in the event of such emergencies, but I think sleeping in a tent for 4 days once a year vs. sleeping in a cabin is not going to make the difference. Girls Camp is an opportunity for young women to develop themselves in many aspects. Learning some important life skills is definitely a part of it, but let's not try to make it so miserable that it's just not enjoyable and nobody wants to even go. One word of advice. If you decide to do the tent thing, for petesakes, get some of those rough tough outdoorsy men to at least show us girly girls how to properly put up a tent so it doesn't blow away and set up a tarp so us girls don't spend the week soaked. Those are just a few life skills I would've liked to have learned. Hmm... just food for thought.