Go Ahead And Call Me Camp Amazon Woman!

Well it has been a very busy two weeks! Eric and I spent four days in Yellowstone. It was awesome!!!!  It was so beautiful there. There were so many things to see and do. Eric and I spent every day hiking and walking around and taking pictures. I took 197 pictures while I was there. Luckily I didn't post all 197 of them on my blog! Eric and I were really hoping that we would get to see a Grizzly bear. I wanted to see it from a distance but Eric wanted to see one close up. Maybe it was a good thing we didn't see one! We probably would have been bear food. We did get to see 3 black bears though and that was pretty neat because I had never seen a bear in the wild before. The only bear I have ever seen is the one hanging up in our hallway! Along with the bears we saw some deer, elk, coyotes, cranes, antelope, ground squirrels, and a ton of buffalo. We were even driving along and there was a big traffic jam so we slowed down. When we rounded the corner we saw what was causing the jam. It was a buffalo walking down the middle of the road. He must of been really old because you could see his hip bones and his ribs and he could hardly walk. It was really sad :( I hope he didn't have to suffer much longer!!! Eric and I also got to experience the extremes of parenting. While we were getting ready to watch old faithful there was this little boy behind us. He was seriously the biggest brat I have ever met! He refused to do anything his mom and grandpa asked him to do. He would scream and cry and one time a man touched his shoulder to go around him and you would have thought the little boy's arm had just been chopped off. He screamed so loud and just started bawling and saying that the man had touched him and it shocked him and it hurt really bad. The kid was crazy! Then another little boy was standing in front of him and he said "Ugh how am I supposed to see now that he is standing in front of me?" He said it so loud. If I would have acted half as bad as this little boy my parents would have marched my butt back to the car, spanked me, then they would have made me sit in the car while they watched old faithful but this kids parents didn't make him do anything. IN FACT they would just give in to his screams and laugh at him and let him do whatever he wanted! After experiencing this little twerps behavior we got to experience another little boy's family. This family was in the camp ground across from ours. This little boy had to only be about 5 or 6 or so! Anyways his parents would call him stupid and dumb and they would tell him to shut up. One time his mom asked him to get some flossers out of the front seat of the car so he went and looked for them. He couldn't find them so he told his mom he couldn't find them. She FLIPPED out! She said "Oh my heck you can't do anything on your own. You will never be a man." Then he was brushing his teeth and he wasn't doing it to his mom's standards so she ripped the toothbrush out of his hands and started brushing his teeth for him. She was jerking his head around and the entire time she was saying really mean and hurtful things to her son in a high pitched really irritating voice. These parents were awful. Eric and I wanted to invite the poor little guy over to our camp. Anyways, despite the bad parenting we still had a really good time in Yellowstone! I am so glad we went.

So after I got home from Yellowstone I got to go to girls camp for 3 days. It was awesome! The theme this year was be your own kind of beautiful. I thought it was such a great theme especially for young women. This world is cruel and I feel like women especially try to fit a specific stereo type so that they will feel like they fit in. When they don't fit that stereo type they tend to be really hard on themselves. This was proven at girls camp. We had an awesome presentation by the sister in charge of the camp. Then the next night was testimony night. A lot of girls shared their testimonies and they admitted that they did not feel beautiful or important. This broke my heart. One girl got up and said that she knew she was not the skinniest girl in the world and that she often did not feel beautiful but when she was at camp she felt beautiful. This really tore at my heart. I couldn't help thinking that these poor girls already know that they do not fit the tall skinny stereo type and they are already hard enough on themselves. Then I started thinking about people who made fun of them or made them feel like they were not beautiful due to the fact that they do not fit that stereo type. Because of this these girls felt like they were not important or beautiful. I wish I could show them what I see. I wish I could show them how beautiful they really are. They have such sweet spirits and their testimonies are strong. I wish the rest of the world could see them the way I see them and the way God sees them. I hope that this camp helped the young women in our stake. I hope that they felt beautiful and important. I hope that they understand their self worth. I hope they know that God loves them.

I am so thankful for this girls camp. I developed a love for my young women that I have never felt before. They are such amazing young women!!! Not only did I get to know my young women better but I got to know my president, Liana, better. She is seriously such an amazing woman. She is so spiritual and HILARIOUS!!!! She made me laugh my butt off during camp. I am so thankful that we are in this calling together. I also got to know Hillary Sheets. She is a hoot. She too cracked me up. When all three of us were together we just laughed and laughed! We even got in trouble for bumper boating in the pond. Apparently when girls hit you with their boats the leaders get in trouble for it. Who knew! But we had a BLAST!!! I am thankful I have gotten to know them even better now.

Needless to say I am thankful for the camping trips I have gone on but to be honest I am a little camped out!!!! Here are a few of the 197 pictures I took while we were at Yellowstone!

                                             This was that little brat I talked about earlier

                                                            BEAR!