Spiritual Food

Katie and I attended Girls' Camp together this summer. I went as a counselor group leader and Katie went as my YCL (Youth Camp Leader). Together with another YCL, we were over eight 2nd year campers. This was my first experience at Girls' Camp as a member of the church.

The YCLs had their own tent, but I was stayed with the eight girls in a tiny cabin. We slept together, ate together, hiked together, and attended all the activities, other than free time, together. Because of this, all my regular personal habits, like kneeling prayer and scripture reading, didn't happen.

I loved being a counselor, but one challenging thing was the lack of sleep. It took until nearly midnight every night to get everyone settled and in bed before I could finally fall asleep. Then, one of the girls was determined to get a hot shower every morning, which meant she and her friends next to us were up at 5:30 am every morning.

I need more sleep than that or I start to get really crabby.

Then, on Thursday morning, one of the girls thought it was funny to pretend she was talking in her sleep. She pretended that she was swimming with Justin Bieber and that he was drowing. She would scream, "Justin! Justin! No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" in a high-pitched voice, over and over again. The other girls believed her and kept trying to wake her up. She would pause for a minute, and then she would start all over again. She did this from 6 to 6:30 am. All I wanted to do was sleep. The camp alarm wouldn't go off until 7 am, and I was desperate for just another few minutes, but I never could go back to sleep.

I was very crabby that morning. I was wondering how I would talk to her about this so it didn't happen again. I was not feeling like using my nice, kind leader voice.

After breakfast, we had what they call Sacred Grove time. We had to find a place as a group, and we had 45 minutes to read our scriptures and write in our journals.

The camp we attend is built on a mountain, and the lodge overlooks the lake below. You can see the view in the picture above.

We settled ourselves on a rock behind the lodge, with the trees and rocks around us, and a clear view of the lake below. A Stake leader had challenged us to read three specific sections of the D&C, so in this gorgeous setting, I settled in to read for 30 completely uninterrupted minutes.

It was as if I had been hungry and sat down to a great, big dinner. I felt spiritually fed. I felt my heart soften, and my mind fill with love for our Father in Heaven and His Son, and for my camp girls. Suddenly, I remembered how the Savior wants us to treat one another and I felt like being kind and patient with the girls, even though I was tired.

That 30 minutes kept me going for the rest of the week.

I was reminded by this experience that my spirit needs to be fed just as badly my body needs to be fed.