Albany Georgia Stake's Girl's Camp: June 23-28, 2008!!!!

Since I am the Beehive teacher in our ward, the Young Women's President asked me if I would go to our stake girl's camp as the leader from our ward. Not knowing how to say no, especially since no one else from our ward could really go, I said yes! I ended up driving four of the six girls from my ward 3 hours north to Jackson, Georgia, which is about an hour away from Atlanta. We spent a week at Indian Springs State Park, which was humid and beautiful! I was placed as leader over the first-year Beehives and got to sleep in a bed nicer than theirs in their cabin! I had the opportunity each day to help around the camp with crafts, certification, cleaning, teaching devotionals, and getting to know the girls. I loved it! Everything but the weather between noon and 7 pm was wonderful. It was a great experience for me because I feel like my leadership skills grew, as did my testimony of the importance of service. Girls Camp Rockz!! (as the young women would say!)

Look at this porch! Now THAT is a Southern look: the long, big porch with a railing and a row of chairs to lounge in. Almost every home here has a porch with some kind of lounge chair or bench on it. Georgians LOVE to sit on their porches and just relax. It was nice to relax on this porch at camp too!

This is the awesome craft cabin where I spent most of my free time quilting. The young women also made bracelets, necklaces, candles, and wooden wall hangings here!

The open grassy area under the trees was shady and the perfect place to meet for our various meetings, activities, and devotionals!

Georgia may be STINKING hot and humid, but the vegetation is BEAUTIFUL.

At camp the girls had MANY opportunities to make crafts. This is just one of many that I helped with and got to make myself! If you can't tell what it is, it is a garden stepping stone with an "S" for Shirley!

The building is the Cafeteria Cabin where we ate and would meet for various activites. Here are some of the girls playing a game!

The pathway to our dormitories! At nighttime we could see fireflies!

Beyond the swimming area in the lake, the girls could go canoeing. It was really funny to hear about their experiences afterwards, because a couple of the Beehives swear they saw an Aligator and they were SO SCARED! hahaha, I shouldn't laugh but their reaction was so funny!

The swimming hole where the young women splashed and played!

This is quilt #8 almost done! It was really special to be able to spend so much time serving others while at Girl's Camp. Service truly does uplift you and makes you feel great!

We had the opportunity to make EIGHT quilts while at camp! I never knew it, but quilting can really be fun! I became a quilting fiend and worked on 7 of the 8 quilts! It was fun to get to know the girls and other leaders while we quilted and ate candy!