Ward Camp ~ Day 2

I had to get a picture of this little one-man pup tent that Sis. H set up in the middle of the night. She's our nurse during camp, and one of our YW is diabetic. The YW has the pump in her arm, and it sends alerts to her cell phone. Even though the leaders tent was close to this tent, it wasn't close enough b/c the alarm on the phone kept going off. So, Sis. H got up in the middle of the night and set up this tent close to the other one so she could keep close tabs on the diabetic YW. Talk about selfless service!

 

 For breakfast this morning we had breakfast burritos. Some of the YW helped to cook eggs, sausage, and bacon.

 

 While we ate breakfast, Sis. M (in the black & white striped dress) gave us a morning devotional. She shared some great thoughts & insights on the Holy Ghost. A lot of what she said echoed was Sis. L shared w/ us last night. The Spirit was really strong as Sis. M spoke to us.

  

 At 10:00 Sis. L came and did some cool trust games w/ us. She had me buy 30 mouse traps, and while she set them up I played a game w/ the girls. Then she had them pair up and she had one girl in each pair get blindfolded.

 The point was that the unblindfolded partner had to direct the blindfolded person to put their hand straight down on top of the mouse trap, and then pull their hand off quickly to set it off w/out getting hurt. Here's a video of how it works (caution: they take the Lord's name in vain). After that, Sis. L had the partners switch. Then we talked about what happened, how we felt, and what we learned. It was really insightful.

 

 Then we went back to our circle of chairs and I played another game w/ the YW while she and the other leaders set up the 30 mousetraps in the driveway to be like a minefield.

 

 In this trust exercise she had one YW blindfolded, and one YW had to guide the blindfolded girl through the minefield of mousetraps just using words.

 

 The rest of us tried to psych her out or misdirect her. One of the YW was super trusting and did it barefoot! This YW got super close to a mousetrap and we were all freaking out & telling her to be careful where she stepped. After a few brave YW tried it, we went back to our circle of chairs to talk about what was learned and Sis. L applied it to church doctrines. It was awesome and something I'm sure the YW will NEVER forget.

 

 For lunch I did a shrimp boil, which was a lot of fun for the YW since most of them had never done one before. They loved getting to eat w/ their fingers and squirt the condiments right onto the table.

 After lunch we had a few hours of free time, and most of the YW went swimming for a bit. It was really hot, so we went in the house to cool down and started watching "The Parent Trap" (Lindsay Lohan version) b/c it starts when they're at camp. We had to stop the movie before it was over so we could get cleaned up and loaded into cars. We drove down to downtown Dallas. These GORGEOUS flowers that I had never seen before were growing on the fence in the parking lot where we parked. I wonder what kind of flower they are???

 

 We went to the Salvation Army to help feed dinner to the homeless. We got there at 4:00, b/c we weren't sure how bad traffic would be and we didn't want to be late for our 4:30 assigned time.

 

 The Beehives joined us for this service project. I think it was really eye-opening for these YW when a Mom, Dad, and 5 little kids that all looked to be about 1 year apart came walking into the center to find lodging for the night! There was another lady that came in carrying ALL of her earthly possessions in 2 big sheets tied into bags.

 

 We were supposed to get a tour of the center at 4:30 and have our questions answered, but for some reason that didn't happen. So, we just sat and waited until 5:00 when they took us back to the kitchen to help serve dinner. Here the girls are receiving instructions on what to do.

 

 We were all given hairnets and gloves. Some girls were asked to go upstairs to serve dinner to the Mom & kids. They keep the men separate downstairs. For dinner they were having sloppy joe meat, French fries, coleslaw, and 2 slices of bread. 4 girls stood behind the line and served up the food while the rest of them took out 2 trays at a time and served the men sitting at tables the food. The men would raise their hand if they hadn't been served yet, so we knew who to take the food to.

 

In-between waiting for groups of men to serve, we asked if there was anything else we could do to help. We were able to use the brown paper sacks that Kaitlyn had collected from the Service Saturday a few weeks ago to make lunch meals for the people staying in the shelter to take out w/ them tomorrow when they leave. We had a good assembly line going.

 

 Kaitlyn was so excited to know that the lunch sacks she had brought that very day would be helpful & useful as soon as tomorrow! What a great feeling to have such a direct impact.

 

 The girls that had gone upstairs to serve the women & children dinner got done faster than we did downstairs, so they came down and we put them to work helping w/ the dishes.

 

 The cute lady all in black on the right hand side of the picture was in charge and was telling us what to do. She is such a fun and happy soul, and she's also feisty. We all LOVED her and had such a great time serving w/ her. She was a sweetheart and even made a batch of French fries just for our YW! It was an honor to go and serve and make a difference. It has for sure been my favorite part of YW camp.

 We left at 6:30, and I called in an order to Costco for 4 pizzas and 20 churros! We ran into some bad traffic, but made it there 30 minutes before they closed to pick up our order.

 

 All the YW were SUPER EXCITED to have churros for dessert!

 

 After dinner, we all gathered in our circle of chairs to have our testimony meeting. A few of the girls were still hungry enough to do some s'mores. It was an incredibly spiritual & sacred experience. The YW really opened up and shared some really deep & personal things. The tears flowed freely and everyone left the meeting feeling uplifted.

 

After testimony meeting everyone needed to decompress from such a spiritually draining experience, so we went back in the house and finished watching The Parent Trap. It's a cute movie and the YW really seemed to enjoy it. By this time it was midnight, so I told them they had to be quiet when they went out to the tents so we didn't disturb the neighbors. Everyone was exhausted and went to sleep pretty quickly.