Girls Camp, Epic Skit Night and a Celestial Hug

I really really love working with teenagers. I love their energy, I love their silliness, I love their enthusiasm for life and their general awesomeness overall :) So when I was asked to be a Stake assistant camp director for our church's Girl's Camp this year I didn't think twice about it. The answer was easy, "YES PLEASE!!!"

I arranged for my kids to be farmed out to different friends during the week while Taber was working and then at night he courageously took on single Dad duty. I'm so grateful for everyone who made it possible for me to be up there the whole week because it was one of the best weeks of my life :) 

Some of our rockstar stake leadership team. It was really awesome working with these fabulous ladies!

 The first day we had to pack our own lunch. Taber packed mine for me and when I opened it up I found Runts in my lunch. Isn't that the cutest thing? He put Runts in a zip-loc baggy for me. :) I rationed them out all week and every time I ate one it made me think of my sweet thoughtful hubby:)

 We had just over 100 girls at camp. Their shirts were color coordinated by what year of camp this was for them. I was in charge of all the cute little 1st years in the white shirts.

There was lots of singing

And lots of silliness :)

There were night time devotionals

And morning flag ceremonies.

We had hair parties...

And celebrating 100 years of girls camp parties!

We also had an epic night of skits. 

 I was in charge of the skit for the stake leaders so I busted out an old rap I made up back when I was at girls camp about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

We acted it out and the girls went nuts over it. 

 We also showed them our dancing skills. Those teenagers may think we're old, but we still got it... ;)

Also I think in an alternative universe I would've been a pretty good rapper...lol :)

 Jeana and Candee dancing around as flames in the furnace :) Love these ladies!

And Me and Merissa breaking it down one more time... :)

 The girls all had amazingly awesome skits too. They did them by year and I was so impressed by their creativity, fearless acting, and hilarious scripts. Such a fun fun night!

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The highlight of the week though for me was meeting Sister Elaine S. Dalton, General President of the Young Women organization for the entire LDS church. She had flown in from Salt Lake to be the keynote speaker at a regional young women's conference in Massachusetts but agreed to come up to our camp and speak to the girls the day before the conference.

From the moment she walked into the amphitheater I felt her spirit. She radiated light, joy, beauty and love.  None of us could stop staring at her. We had prepared a special song to sing for her and I was asked to sing a short solo at the beginning. I looked right into her eyes as I sang, and when the girls joined in with me, singing about living for what's right, strengthening others, and holding up our light, I smiled with all my heart because in that moment every single person there could feel God's love for us and we couldn't help but cry happy tears. 

When we finished she invited me to come up and share my feelings about the song we had just sung. She said some amazing things to me, about me, that I will treasure forever and never forget.  I love this picture because you can see how happy we both were in that moment. It was amazing!

Then she gave me a hug. I say it was a celestial hug because I felt so close to heaven in her embrace. :) She truly sees everyone around her as God sees them, and she radiates His love for us. I will never forget that experience. Listening to her speak that night and spending time in her company has inspired me so so much and changed me for the better.

On our last night we stayed up till almost 2am talking about all the fun things, the spiritual things, the crazy things, the hilarious things, and the wonderful things that had happened that week. I was exhausted, but invigorated at the same time. I learned so much in that week and was uplifted and inspired in so many ways. I know that was exactly where I needed to be and I just thank everyone again (especially Taber!) who made it possible for me to be there :)