{Girl on Fire}

It's probably high time I give a little synopsis of the wonderful week I got to spend with my Moanalua ward girls at Girl's Camp!

I don't think I can adequately put into words my experience as a youth with girls camp.  A common doctrine of our church is that a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel is built "line upon line, precept by precept."  The experiences that we have in this life as we exercise our faith is what gives us a testimony.  If someone asked me when I was converted to the church, or the moment I knew it was all true, I would say, "I couldn't tell you an exact moment.  But my first year at girls camp testimony meeting I knew it was something that I wanted in my life forever."

This year our theme was "Girl on Fire" - a kind of spin off of Hunger Games.  Each day as the girls got together to work on camp certification, or personal progress, or just go to the beach to hang out - I could feel the Spirit strongly and was so inspired by the youth of today.  

I also got to know/work with some women who are definitely the cream of the crop!  I love all these ladies very much - nothing brings people together more than the spirit (also camping). 

Here are two of our sweet girls cooking us a delicious meal!  

Heading out on our nature walk to pass off some wilderness survival skills for the girls.

Look at all those awesome ladies!

One of our youth actually turned 12 at camp, so we had some birthday festivities for her.  Her family brought up cake and ice cream and we had a dance party!  Also, her Dad played Samoan folk songs for us on the ukelele, loved every single minute!

Everyday we got to spend a few hours at the beach playing in the water.  Despite a few jellyfish stings, all went well.

The leaders put on a skit based off the hunger games - "The Capital knows best"  We had a little song written by Rachel, and wore outrageous costume jewelry.   It was quite the production. 

Rachel and Bryce up to no good here... we took oreos and replaced the frosting with toothpaste, to feed to the youth that evening.  It was a success.  Reactions started out as "mmm the minty kind!"  and then morphed into horrified gagging and screaming as they realized what they were eating.  muhahah!

Meet our friend, the lobster!  In response to a prank pulled on us leaders, we invited a little friend to camp to visit the tent of one of the perps.  It was wonderful!

My in-laws were heading to serve their mission in Apia, Samoa and got to spend a day in Honolulu.  It coincided with girls camp, so they were able to come up to Bellows and spend some time.  The girls all loved them (but who wouldn't??) and I was really grateful for the chance to see them before they left to go serve the Lord on their mission!

Campfire/talent show/skit/smores was a nightly tradition at camp!

Anais and I always took out the trash (okay not always, but a lot).  We became buddies!

Getting ready for some swim time!

A beautiful view of the area around where we were staying.

One day, when Rachel & I went to go shower, the girls snuck into our tent and hid our stuff.  They replaced it all with barbie clothes, and put up signs that said, "You have been barbied!"  It was quite the prank.. needless to say, I was very proud of them!

It was a great year and I feel so blessed to have been able to spend time at camp with these wonderful people!