Young Men and Young Women Enjoy Special Camps

Mokelumne Ward Young Men  and their leaders participated in a stake Duty to God Camp  It was a great experience for all.  They spent a week n San Juan Bautista at a church youth camp.  The week was full of fun activities, talks by leaders, great food, and sacred personal time for each young man to study and search their scriptures, pray, and ponder.  Everything about this camp was ran by the youth, and youth led.  It was a powerful experience and testimony building event.

  Below are pictures of some of their activities.

   Around the same time the young women attended Girls' Camp. One of the young women wrote this about their camp.  We have no pictures.

  By Aubrey Anderson, daughter of Neil and Ruth Anderson 

     Because of COVID  we did not get to have girls camp at all last year and this year we had a modified version where we had different activities for each of the 3 days of girls camp. The activities included a ropes course in Tahoe, boating at Lake Hogan, and a ward day with games here at the stake center. I was a 4th year this year which meant that I would have done my 4th year hike, a 4 day backpacking hike, and then returned to camp to sleep on a rock. I’m not extremely sad about having to skip the hike but I know that it would’ve been a good experience for me. 

   This years girls camp was fun and different from the traditional camp we have. The first activity of girls camp that I did was the ropes course in Tahoe. Now I’ve done many different ropes courses in my life so to me this wasn’t a big deal. I am afraid of heights but knowing that I have a harness that will catch me when I fall completely masks that fear and I was able to do every course with no hesitation.      But it wasn’t the same story for everyone. When we had Young Women’s the following Sunday some girls described how they were so scared of falling and were struggling to complete some of the courses, despite being strapped in. We can relate this experience to the gospel and Jesus Christ. He is the harness, and the ropes courses are trials in our lives. When we are faced with trials and challenges in life we are scared and feel as if we are going to fall, but if we root ourselves in the gospel and keep that harness on He won’t let us fall. 

   The harness can also be seen as the atonement. Just like how every girl at the course was given a harness to keep them from falling we were given the atonement when we came to earth. In order to use the harness we needed to clip it onto the wires that were connected to the courses just like how in order to used the atonement we need to turn towards Christ, follow his commandments hear him, follow him, and repent. And we do this so that when we sin or fall off the path we won’t fall and get hurt, but instead the harness will keep us strapped in and safe.