My ward has a new Girls’ Camp director, and she sat in Young Womens today so she can get to know the girls before camp (which I think is sometime in June). Our first camp meeting will be this Wednesday. Thus, I’ve been thinking about my experiences at Girls’ Camp, especially my first year.
I almost didn’t go. My birthday is in July, and the stake we lived in had Girls’ Camp in August, so I would turn 12 just a few weeks before camp and be eligible to go. The ward started preparing for camp several months early, so they contacted me to get me involved so I could go with them. Thanks, but no thanks, I told them. I wanted nothing to do with camp. They were kind of confused by this – most girls look forward to it. But I was adamant that I didn’t want to go.
I didn’t explain it to the YW leaders, and I didn’t even explain it to my mom, so no one could resolve my concerns. However, the previous summer had been 5th Grade Summer Camp, and it was hell. Even though 5th Grade Camp was a school camp and Girls’ Camp was a church camp, they both involved going up in the mountains as a group for a week, and I wanted nothing to do with it. Count me out. Forget it.
Fifth Grade Camp came the summer between 5th and 6th grade. The school district broke the elementary schools up into three groups, and then for your group’s week, you went up to the camp. I wish I could remember where it was, because as hellish as it was, it was in a really beautiful area. Our week came, and I was excited because they’d advertised this well to get as much participation as possible. There were very few people who didn’t go. It started out with a hike into the camp. I don’t know how long the hike was – no more than 3 miles probably – but it was unexpected (no one told us it would start this way), and there was no water until we got to camp. Great. Hiking (an activity I hated) in the mountains in July with no water. When we finally got to camp, I downed a ton of ice cold mountain water. It was delicious. And I got sick because I’d been so thirsty and drank too much water too fast.
They then gathered the girls all together (the boys were gathered somewhere else) so that we could be divided into our tents. They had three large army tents with wooden raised platforms for us to sleep in. They told us to get in groups of two or three, so that we could be with friends, and then they’d split us up into the tents. At this time in my life, there were seven of us who usually hung out together: Patricia, Tanya (another Tanya, not me), Tammy, Mary Ellen, Mary Beth, VeLeah, and me. We were all standing together, and three of them grouped together, and they raised their hands.
“Can there be four in our group?”
“Sure, that’s fine,” said one of the teachers (it was 5th grade teachers from the various elementary schools who mostly ran the camp).
With four in the group, they raised their hands again, “Can there be five in our group?”
“Fine,” said the teacher, who seemed to be getting impatient, trying to keep all these 11-year-olds under control. A fifth person was pulled into their group.
Obviously the next question was, “Can there be six in our group?” Again the answer was yes, and the girls pulled the sixth person in. I was the only one not pulled into the group. They didn’t ask if there could be seven in a group, and they just looked at me and shrugged. They may as well have literally stabbed me in the heart, it hurt so much. I had thought I was one of them, but I was clearly mistaken. I moved a bit away and just stood there alone. The teachers started dividing the groups of friends into the tents. The teacher who was dividing up our area happened to be one of the teachers from my school, so she knew me. When she asked who I was with and I told her no one, she knew who I usually hung out with (those six girls who’d just rejected me) and put me with them. They acted like they were so happy I got to be with them after all, which confused me. When we got our stuff and went to our tent to arrange where we would all sleep, I was put at the end of the row, as none of them really wanted to be with me.
So that’s how 5th Grade Camp started, and it remained pretty much the same for the whole week. There was a lot of hiking (like I said, I hate hiking), and some of the teachers were really nasty and didn’t seem to want to be there (there were also some teachers who were cool). It was miserable and stressful. I made it to the end and vowed to never go to another camp ever again. I liked camping with my family, but camp and camping are two totally different things.
So fast forward to the next summer when Girls’ Camp came up. As I mentioned, I wanted nothing to do with it. There were 18 YW in my ward, and all of them were going but me, and the YW leaders really, really wanted everyone to go. My parents had a very hands-off approach to parenting, and they said it was totally up to me; they weren’t going to tell the YW leaders to leave me alone, but they also weren’t going to insist I go. The leaders kept bugging me (I don’t want to give the impression they were obnoxious about it because they really weren’t; they just kept trying to figure out why I didn’t want to go, and I kept not telling them, so they just kept trying to sell it in a kind but general way), and I finally caved. I enjoyed the pre-camp stuff, like a car wash fundraiser to earn money to pay for camp. I was really scared about what lay ahead, but I was also kind of looking forward to it.
The morning of departure arrived. The whole stake met at the stake center at some ungodly, early morning hour like 6 a.m. As I sat in the car with my mom in the dark, pre-dawn summer air, and other people came and started loitering around the buses that would take us up to camp, I started to cry. I was so anxious. Fifth Grade Camp started with buses, too. My mom tried to tell me I would probably have a lot of fun, but I was just scared that it would be rejection and misery all over again. I spotted some people from my ward, and they seemed to be gathering, so I bid my mom farewell and grabbed my stuff and joined them. We drove to the camp (it was probably an hour drive or so, maybe a bit longer because the busses couldn’t go uphill very fast), and we set up our tents and everything got underway.
Thank goodness those leaders wouldn’t leave me alone. I had a blast. It was so much fun, and I went every summer after. I loved the spiritual part with the devotionals and testimony meeting. I loved passing off the camp skills. There was some hiking, but it actually wasn’t so bad without a nasty teacher berating me for being slow; the other girls and the leaders were kind and some went slowly so I wouldn’t have to hike alone. I loved the crafts. I loved hanging out with the other girls and the adult leaders who were so fun and so silly and so cool.
So with pre-camp stuff starting in my ward, I hope the girls that I teach have a fun time and feel loved when they go to camp.