Girls Camp is Finished!

And I survived! Our camp was aptly named "survivor" because we had to endure torrential rain storms! Things started off fine:

And we had a productive and FUN first day. We broke into "tribes" and made torches to represent the tribes. We also started on crafts and our service project.

Day two we woke up to overcast weather, but I wasn't about to let that ruin my plans. So we had breakfast and went on our hike, with beautiful views.
As we were hiking down the trail, we started getting hit with huge raindrops. By the time we were back to camp we were soaked! I was still optimistic that the rain would be hard and over fast. But the rain didn't stop, it just kept getting harder and harder! We had to hang out at the pavilion or in cars all afternoon! After dinner the stake leaders came up to give a devotional, and they said our area was in a severe thunderstorm warning! It was still raining so loud and hard that we could not hear the devotional. We headed back to our tents and found out some of the girls stuff was wet (some beehives had left the door to their tent OPEN!) and the tents were leaking. Things definitely took a turn for the worst. It was still raining, and a girl (and a leader may or may not have agreed) suggested we go home. The leaders and I said it didn't sound pleasant to pack up in a major rainstorm. So one of the priesthood leaders said we should just drive home and come pack up in the morning! I didn't want to leave. Not because I was disappointed that my camp was ruined (I was disappointed- this was my sweat and tears!), not because I didn't want to pack up in the rain, and NOT because I was determined to make everyone miserable, but because I wanted to show the girls you don't give up when things get a little hard. And it seemed like the rain was going to let up! Another priesthood called the bishop and luckily he agreed with me :) He ended up driving up to our camp at midnight to bring dry tents and sleeping bags.
We did go home a day early, but we survived the worst of the storm! We met back at the church to have our "spiritual" beauty pageant and testimony meeting, and every single girl came back. (I guess they didn't hate me after all. And by that time I was done blaming myself for what I thought was the worst camp ever.) Every single girl bore her testimony, and almost all of them said they were glad they came to camp and that we stayed through the night :)

And now it's all over and I can RELAX! Special thanks to my sis for taking care of my kids, and spending three days going to movies, swimming, and bowling with 6 kids!