going away...

Tomorrow at 4:45 a.m. (yes, a.m.-shoot me please) I leave with a big happy smile on my face to go to Girl's Camp. Ha. Fat chance on the smile. I hate camping. No, I hate camping in cabins where there are no showers, or at least no showers with hot water. I'm also terribly nervous this time because I'm a Stake Youth Camp Leader, meaning I'm in the oldest group of girls and I have to be in charge. Yipes. I'm not good at that; I get all tongue-tied and scared and say stupid things because my brain shuts down. Not good, especially since I have to teach and speak to twelve year old girls and girls of all ages at the lake.

My Jobs:
1. Participate in the nightly three-act skit, performed by the SYCLs
2. Head the waterfront activities taking place at Lake Hunt, including canoeing and water games, each of which has not been explained to me so I'm going into this blind and deaf
3. Head the First Year hike with Sister Siebach and Linnea, including explaining and teaching Get To Know You games, introducing the hike and it's purpose, handing out and demonstrating writing activities, sharing my own writing, and being responsible (don't know if I can actually do that last bit)
4. Conduct the Wednesday night Fireside, theme Always Ready, including teach a song, spiritual thought, and prayer
5. Participate in camp skit commercials between the wards' skits
6. Collect camp news (embarrassing moments, fun tidbits, et cetera) and turn in to camp leaders for the Gossip Song
7. Lead all girls in singing before morning and evening firesides
8. Lead a Stake game of Steal the Flag
9. Participate and lead a group of girls on the Stake Hike to Lone Pine
10. Anything else they decide to stick me with

I don't want to go! I'm going to screw up or hurt somebody's feelings or get sick or something. Or maybe have fun. I don't know. In any case, I probably won't be posting until Saturday, and then I'll give you a Week in Review-something along those lines. And pictures. Lots of pictures. I mean, I went out and bought a second camera battery so I'd have enough for five days(ish). I should have plenty to share, right?

Ugh. Bye.

PS If you have no idea what I'm talking about when I say stake, ward, Young Women's, Girl's Camp (I know-you look at that and say 'which girl?' but that's how they do it), or other churchy stuff, take a peak at www.mormon.org to learn more. Only if you're interested. If you're super interested, email me at wannabkenobi at gmail dot com and I'll give you a more in-depth explanation of what all of these things mean. Just for now:

Ward-basically a congregation. It's a group of people who meet in the same building at the same time, and they generally live near one another. It's different outside of Utah, but here there are way too many wards to count. I don't think we even have branches here. A branch is just a really small group of LDS people, not enough to make a ward but more than could be included in a Lone Scout troop, if that makes sense. I go to the 6th ward, which is just the neighborhood that I live in.

Stake-a stake is a big group of people in an area who go to the same church building. There are tons and tons and TONS of stakes in Utah-go figure, it's Mormon territory. Each stake has a certain amount of wards in it; mine happens to have eight.

Young Women-youth group, ages 12-18. We all meet together in classes divided by age: Beehives ages 12-13, Mia Maids ages 14-15, and Laurels ages 16-18. Laurels stay in until they graduate from high school. We have activities on Wednesday nights in classes and sometimes as a whole group, then once a month meeting with the Young Men as well. Same goes for Sunday classes.

Girl's Camp-a four to five day long camp for all Young Women, ages 12-18. Each age is divided into years, 12 year olds are First Years, 13 year olds are Second Years, and so on. I'm a Sixth Year, and so it's my last year at camp. I'll be honest, I'm breathing a sigh of relief. At camp, we do certification in First Aid, camping skills, and other stuff like that. We also go hiking, do service projects, arts and crafts, and sometimes freeze in the snow when we go in June (2 years ago-terrible time). We stay in A-frame cabins as wards, but our entire stake goes together. So, all seven of the eight wards go. One of the wards in my stake is the Single's Ward-generally from age 18 to about 35, depending on how many get married.

That's the short of it, at least of the stuff I mentioned. Confused? I would have been if I hadn't been born to this. :)