I got home from DC and immediately left to go to girls camp with the Manhattan stake. I had so much fun! Girls camp was certainly an eye-opening experience and unlike any girls camp I have ever been to. Like almost everything in this stake it was run mostly by young single adults with a few married women sprinkled here and there. We go to a BEAUTIFUL place called Camp Liahona that the church owns about two hours north of the city by train. The teenagers in the Manhattan stake are, for the most part, typical “inner-city youth.” Raised in the projects, have never left New York City and don’t have most of the experiences that I had growing up. Of the 45 girls at girls camp, 3 knew how to swim (and not very well), 2 were white, they were all petrified of bugs and would SCREAM!!!! I kept telling them, “girls, there are rats and cockroaches ALL over the city including in your classrooms, how can you be scared of that tiny bug?” They told me that they prefer large city rats any day over a spider or bug.
We had a huge beautiful lake with green trees all around it and a lifeguard who was an LDS 16-year old boy whom ALL the girls inevitably fell in love with and flirted with and wrote letters to. The sad part about the lake is that only 3 girls knew how to swim. Most of the girls just stayed waded in and layed around in the area that was about two feet deep. Another leader and I were trying to teach them how to swim, but I realized that just because you know how to do something, doesn’t mean you know how to teach it.
The Canoes: The church owns about 16 canoes for the lake but the rule was that if anyone wanted to go in the canoes they had to pass a swimming test. The girls begged the lifeguard until he finally said that anyone could go as long as they had a life jacket. So a few of the leaders started taking the girls out for VERY short rides that totally freaked them out. The were scared out of their minds to be out in the middle of “deep” water. I imagine it is the same scared feeling that people get the first time they ride a roller coaster. I took a bunch of girls out, having very limited canoe experience but plenty of raft experience to guide and row. The last pair of girls were both non-swimmers and one was VERY freaked out and a big girl. She sat on the floor in the middle of the canoe because she was scared so we were riding pretty low. One time when the canoe rocked a little (as canoes are apt to do) she grabbed the sides and over-corrected. Water came rushing in and the canoe flipped. Both girls flipped out and clung to the canoe, screaming for their life. Keep in mind, we all had very good lifejackets on, we were within the sight of the lifeguard, there was another canoe from camp out in the water and I was there, nevertheless these girls were certain that they would die. I had to pry their hands of the canoe that kept pushing them under giving them an opportunity to swallow water and have that drowning sensation so they started clinging to me. I kept repeating, “your life vest is holding you up. You are going to be fine, just relax.” Instead they were dead set on drowning and swallowing water and panicking. So I grabbed them both around the waist and had all three of us lay on our backs with a girl on either side of me and I kicked us to the shore behind us with the girls breaking every bone in my hand and making promises for “If I ever get out of this alive….” the whole way to the shore. We reached the shore I loaded the two girls onto the other canoe and sent them back to the dock and then the lifeguard came out to help me tip the canoe a bring it back in. I arrived back and all the girls flocked around me wanting to know if the lifeguard “had said anything about (them),” and wanting to know every detail of all that we had discussed.
We had testimony meeting and it was just amazing to hear a little about the lives of these girls. They struggle with such serious problems. I kept thinking, these girls are so scared of water and bugs and most of the girls from my home town and Utah would think it is crazy to be scared of water but if any of those girls even had to spend one night in the life of most of these girls they would die of fright. These are the girls who see a constant stream of sex, violence, drugs and crime and think it is normal. I loved getting to know them better and seeing how the principles of the gospel give them hope is what is truly a hopeless world.
Us waiting for the train on the platform.
We got on the train to come home and the girls were exhausted but were so comforted to see big buildings again.
Conclusion: Teenage girls are crazy.
