This year's efy theme was "Here am I" (1 Samuel 3:4) Last week was my first time going and this is what happened...
(Note: I will post this as a day by day thing. Not all posts will be daily!)
Last Monday I woke up at 3am to go to a camp I REALLY didn't want to go to. When I signed up I was super excited so go but now I wasn't so sure. I wouldn't know a single person there and this would be my first time. Well, I woke up anyway got dressed (in my mlp shirt!) and we started off. This would be a 7 hour road trip to Buena Vista, VA. Since I didn't want to go 7 hours alone with only Mommy for company, 4 of my siblings came along too. I didn't sleep that whole trip. :)
We stopped at Subway for lunch. I got a Turkey sandwich and Doritos. I wasn't that hungry so I didn't eat much of my sandwich and at the dorms I put my Doritos in a drawer for "later"
Checking in
I checked in at 11:30am and got lots of comments for my shirt! During check in I got, The efy shirt, a lanyard with my name and room number on it, an efy bag and handbook. I also signed up for the Variety Show at that time.
After getting my stuff it was time to go to the dorms! I really didn't want to go, but I did anyway. The dorms were like a Hotel! 3 floors, an elevator, carpeted rooms, it had everything! Except a pool and tv. There were 4 to a room but I only had one roommate. I don't know why that is, it just is.
After she came and we both got settled in we put on our efy shirts and went to go meet our counselor and all the other girls in our company. We all introduced ourselves and it already felt like I knew these girls. We did the normal go over the rules, dress code, and stuff like that, routine and then set off to to meet the boys of our company.
Company Time
We went off and found our company spot, where we would meet every day, and played some get to know you games. We played a game where we all sat in a circle and one person stood in the middle, said their name, then said something interesting about themselves. If anyone has done the same thing or has the same thing or whatever they all get up and switch seats. The last one standing then had to do the same thing. When it got to me I decided to just get the word out and see if i had any friends so what i said for my interesting fact was"I'm a Brony" everyone was confused and someone asked what that was and I said "I'm a fan of My Little Pony" they responded with "I used to watch that show, then I turned 7!" I was like "ok moving on" and changed my fact to I'm a Mormon. Of course that was real original.
After the games we settled down and we were told our Company name, Return With Honor. The scripture that goes along with this is Jeremiah 24:7 (So we could remember it 24/7!) It reads,
"And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart."
Then it was time to "Escort up" and go to Orientation. My escort was a boy named Jeffrey and he became my C.o.W. (Crush of Week) more on that later! :)
Orientation was fun. Before it started the counselors taught us some new line dances. Little did I know that those silly dances would become one of my favorite parts of efy! Once the orientation started things settled down. I don't even remember much except that since it was efy's 40th Anniversary they showed a video of famous Mormons saying happy birthday to efy. Studio C and The Piano Guys got the loudest cheering from us! Another video was shown explaining a little about efy and the fun things we would get to do there, like, dances (my first!), pizza night on Wednesday, Games Night, Musical Program, and the Variety Show. Then it was time for FHE.
FHE (Family Home Evening)
Our Church has counseled us to have Family Home evening every Monday so, every Monday night our family has Family Home Evening where we play games, have a lesson, and eat refreshments. Since this is a lds camp our Company, which is our family for the week, got together and played some games! We played one where we had to close our eyes and make certain animal noises while we try to find the rest of our "animals". That was a fun one! But there was still a lesson to it. We played 4 rounds, the first 3 were normal but the last one we were all given the same animal, except for one person. So, while everyone was making fish noises (and the occasional Nemo quote!) one boy had to find all his cat friends. He didn't know there weren't any. After a few minutes of that we had to stop to learn for that. The boy said that he almost started to make fish sounds like everyone else because he felt silly standing off to the side making cat sounds. But he didn't. He dared to stand alone, even if it meant feeling silly or being teased. That's an important part of our religion, because, we get teased a lot for what we believe. I've never endured that personally because it happens mostly at school and I'm homeschooled but, most of these other kids are going into highschool and being the only Mormon will be hard. It's important though that we don't compromise our standards just to fit in. We need to Dare to Stand Alone.
After that game and lesson we played another game. It was similar to Sharks and Minnows, but more fun! It was called anteater and what you do is, you have two people to be anteaters. The rest are ants. And you try to get from Point A to Point B without getting "eaten". If you do get eaten you have to lay on your back with all four limbs in the air. If you don't get touched you run to safety and once you're safe you can go back and help the other ants up. You need four people, one for each limb, to go get fallen ants. But there's a catch, once you run back on to the field you aren't safe, you are able to be eaten again. But if you've just saved an ant all five of you can walk back and not be touched by the anteaters.
We played that a few times then it we had to stop and learn from it.We said, how we need to go back to others and help them we need to do that in real life with the gospel. Whether it be through Baptisms for the Dead or sharing your testimony to a friend, getting people to back to our Heavenly Father, safety, is important.
After all this our company made goals for the week.
Spiritual Goals ~ Take 5 notes or more in classes and other activities
Pray for someone in our company daily
Social Goals ~ Compliment 5 people every day
Work to be more obedient so leaders only have to say things once
Unfortunately, at this FHE there were no refreshments.
After all this fun it was time to head to bed. So we Escorted up and started to long uphill trek to the dorms. It was only like a quarter mile maybe but I'm not used to thesemountains hills. :)
That night at Reflect and Review I journaled,
At first I was nervous but now that I've been here for about 12 hours I feel different. Like I learned I Girls Camp "There's No Place Like Home" but home can be in a few different places. I Have 3 places I consider home, My House (of course!) Girls Camp, and here - efy. There is just something about Mormon camps I guess, because I never felt this way at Band Camp or anywhere else for that matter!
I learned right there that it was going to be an AMAZING week!!!
During the review part we all shared something we learned today. Some things like quotes like this one,
That really hit me hard because, I am busy! I love being busy! And it's not just busy-ness it's plain just not doing anything is also not good. Sure it's fine sometime to relax but we need to put the lord first in our lives. Some priorities for me include, FHE, Mutual/Young Womens, missionary work, and school. These are the priorities not, EqD, Facebook, reading fanfics or minecraft. Those things come after the important stuff.
After Reflect and Review it was time for bed. I talked to my parents for a bit then went to sleep. After all, I needed a lot of energy for the busy week ahead of me!
Orientation was fun. Before it started the counselors taught us some new line dances. Little did I know that those silly dances would become one of my favorite parts of efy! Once the orientation started things settled down. I don't even remember much except that since it was efy's 40th Anniversary they showed a video of famous Mormons saying happy birthday to efy. Studio C and The Piano Guys got the loudest cheering from us! Another video was shown explaining a little about efy and the fun things we would get to do there, like, dances (my first!), pizza night on Wednesday, Games Night, Musical Program, and the Variety Show. Then it was time for FHE.
FHE (Family Home Evening)
Our Church has counseled us to have Family Home evening every Monday so, every Monday night our family has Family Home Evening where we play games, have a lesson, and eat refreshments. Since this is a lds camp our Company, which is our family for the week, got together and played some games! We played one where we had to close our eyes and make certain animal noises while we try to find the rest of our "animals". That was a fun one! But there was still a lesson to it. We played 4 rounds, the first 3 were normal but the last one we were all given the same animal, except for one person. So, while everyone was making fish noises (and the occasional Nemo quote!) one boy had to find all his cat friends. He didn't know there weren't any. After a few minutes of that we had to stop to learn for that. The boy said that he almost started to make fish sounds like everyone else because he felt silly standing off to the side making cat sounds. But he didn't. He dared to stand alone, even if it meant feeling silly or being teased. That's an important part of our religion, because, we get teased a lot for what we believe. I've never endured that personally because it happens mostly at school and I'm homeschooled but, most of these other kids are going into highschool and being the only Mormon will be hard. It's important though that we don't compromise our standards just to fit in. We need to Dare to Stand Alone.
After that game and lesson we played another game. It was similar to Sharks and Minnows, but more fun! It was called anteater and what you do is, you have two people to be anteaters. The rest are ants. And you try to get from Point A to Point B without getting "eaten". If you do get eaten you have to lay on your back with all four limbs in the air. If you don't get touched you run to safety and once you're safe you can go back and help the other ants up. You need four people, one for each limb, to go get fallen ants. But there's a catch, once you run back on to the field you aren't safe, you are able to be eaten again. But if you've just saved an ant all five of you can walk back and not be touched by the anteaters.
We played that a few times then it we had to stop and learn from it.We said, how we need to go back to others and help them we need to do that in real life with the gospel. Whether it be through Baptisms for the Dead or sharing your testimony to a friend, getting people to back to our Heavenly Father, safety, is important.
After all this our company made goals for the week.
Spiritual Goals ~ Take 5 notes or more in classes and other activities
Pray for someone in our company daily
Social Goals ~ Compliment 5 people every day
Work to be more obedient so leaders only have to say things once
Unfortunately, at this FHE there were no refreshments.
After all this fun it was time to head to bed. So we Escorted up and started to long uphill trek to the dorms. It was only like a quarter mile maybe but I'm not used to these
That night at Reflect and Review I journaled,
At first I was nervous but now that I've been here for about 12 hours I feel different. Like I learned I Girls Camp "There's No Place Like Home" but home can be in a few different places. I Have 3 places I consider home, My House (of course!) Girls Camp, and here - efy. There is just something about Mormon camps I guess, because I never felt this way at Band Camp or anywhere else for that matter!
I learned right there that it was going to be an AMAZING week!!!
During the review part we all shared something we learned today. Some things like quotes like this one,
"Satan doesn't need to make us bad, he just needs to make us busy!"
-Bro. Andre (Session Director)
That really hit me hard because, I am busy! I love being busy! And it's not just busy-ness it's plain just not doing anything is also not good. Sure it's fine sometime to relax but we need to put the lord first in our lives. Some priorities for me include, FHE, Mutual/Young Womens, missionary work, and school. These are the priorities not, EqD, Facebook, reading fanfics or minecraft. Those things come after the important stuff.
After Reflect and Review it was time for bed. I talked to my parents for a bit then went to sleep. After all, I needed a lot of energy for the busy week ahead of me!
ps. I'll try to upload videos and audio stuff later. It's not working right now so I'll stick to pictures!
