YW Girls Camp - On the Sea of Galilee

My ward YW went to camp this past week, and it was quite an amazing experience.  Our leaders are wonderful and they did everything they could to make the experience fun as well as very spiritual and educational.  The focus was on the miracles of Jesus Christ on the Sea of Galilee. 

We went to Bear Lake (Utah) which surprisenly enough really resembled the lay of the land and the look of the Sea of Galilee.  They were told the stories of Christ, Walking on the water, Calming the storm, Fishers of men, and others.  They were taken to a look out point that overlooked the lake and told all about Galilee, and the Bishop shared some of his testimony there.  They had a day where their food was the kinds of things that they ate at that time, such as humus, olives, flatbread, and more.  Their YW President had been to the Holy lands and had a lot of pictures as well as clothing that she showed them. 

One of the activities were that the girls made their own oil lamps out of salt dough clay mixed with cocoa, so that when it dried, the lamps resembled clay lamps.  It took several days for the lamps to dry, so they let them dry in the sun for several days.  The last day, which they sat around the campfire and had a testimony meeting, the girls got to put oil in their lamps, and enjoy them, until they started to burn the salt dough.  The YW President had a picture of the 10 Virgins and read to the girls while they were making their lamps, about each of the 10 Virgins.  You can find the reading here: http://gaylaprince.com/the-ten-virgins/ The girls also made some tiny pottery and such out of the salt dough and really enjoyed it.

They got to go on a boat ride out in the sea of Galilee ( Bear Lake) and I am guessing that they were told about the story of the walking on the water, or the fishers of men. (I wasn't with them at this time)

They had a tent pitched that resembled a tent that could be seen in the dessert, with a satan rug on the floor (Satan comvorter).

Of course they did all the certification that was needed, and they had dutch oven cooking for dinner every night by the husband of the YW President.  These two were such great examples of what a married couple should be like, complementing each other, putting the other's needs first, helping each other, and smiling all the time.  Girls need these kinds of influences.  He was one of the two Priesthood holders at camp.

The Camp leader did a marvelous job and had great crafts and things for the girls to do. A couple of the things were that they made necklaces out of a tiny corked jar (very small) and they put sand from the sea of Galilee, to remind them of their Galilean Camping experience.  Another craft was that they made these flowers out of fabric rounds, to decorate their flip flops that they wore at camp.  They made braclets out of embroidery floss, and other things, that were meaningful to the girls.

I Found a link to sugardoodle that has more on this Girls Camp theme. http://www.sugardoodle.net/Ten%20Virgins/index.shtml