First Year & Third Year at Girls Camp in South Korea

Hi there peeps. This is Big Sis and I'm going to tell you about my second year at the Korea Girls Camp.
Day 1: Even though this was my second year, I was a third year because of the whole situation of the 11 year olds moving into Young Women's and so I got to move up. Last year, there was only the Beehives and so there was only 10 of us. But since this year, there was everybody, there were about 30-40 girls. We all arrived at the same camp site as last year, and set to work. We all pitched the tents, and then we were separated into our groups according to year. I was in the 3rd year, the Indians. It was so much fun because I was in a tent with London, Sadie, Amanda, and Faith. I knew Faith and Amanda from last year, and London and Sadie are in my ward, so it was so much fun having friends already at the beginning of camp. After getting ourselves, plus helping a few first years situated, everybody goes into their group craft rotations. We have so much fun going around to different leaders and learning some cool new stuff. It was really hot, and so for free time, I walked with 15 other girls down to the river. Sadly, the inflatables weren't there this year, and so we just played around in the water. The life guards didn't allow us girls into the water past our waist. Funny thing was that we later learned that the boys who went to the exact same spot for camp the week right after us were allowed to swim to the other side and go cliff diving, with the same life guards. LAME!!!!! Anyways, the day was already really close to being spent, we we had dinner and we had some awesome singing sessions of camp songs around the camp fire. That was so much fun to be singing super old girls camp songs. We all get ready for bed, but didn't quite go to bed. Our group stayed up a bit linger, but then we got tired at around 9:30, so we called it a day. Even for just the first day of camp, I had so much fun.

Day 2: It was 4:10 am when I woke up to the loud sound of very strong rain pounding at the top of our tent. We had a rain cap on so we didn't get wet, but then we remembered all of the stuff that was outside. We all quickly rushed out of the tent in our PJs running around camp, along with about 20 other girls, getting all of the stuff and putting it under dry places. After about 10 minutes of finding everything, we got back to bed. That was sure a fun way to wake up though. Today was the hike day, and so after a good breakfast and some scripture time, we packed our bags and set off. The hike last year we really hard, but luckily we started on the same trail, just ended somewhere different. It was luckily flat, unlike last year,  but much farther. Even though it was difficult at some parts, it was still a very beautiful hike. When we completed the hike and got back to the camp site, we ate lunch and had some really cool craft activities. After that, we had some really fun scripture study time. My goal this year was to finish my personal progress by the last day of girls camp. So, I worked super hard to finish my personal progress. After dinner and some really messy cinnamon rolls over the fire, we broke off into groups and played a whole bunch of games. While we are playing games, the Youth Camp Leaders (YCL's) set up a faith walk. One by one the groups got called to do the walk. It was a lot of fun going to each of the different leaders and learning something about the gospel and then getting charms after each lesson. At the end, we got our 2019 girls camp shirt. It is a super cute one. Right as we walked into our tent, it started to pour rain outside. I really think that God is blessing us and so it is only raining when we sleep. What a wonderful blessing. We caledl it a night at 10:00. What a day.

Day 3: I am so happy that I brought earplugs, for swimming, because the rain got so heavy that it sounded like a tractor was just sitting, on, right outside our tent. Anyways, I eventually got some sleep through the horrible storm last night, and then we all woke up, excited for our white water rafting adventure. The rafting wasn't so much fun last year, because there was no rain to cause the white water, but due to the super rough storm last night, there was a lot more white water than normal. Super exciting. We set off for the river and got into our raft groups. The ride was going to be about 12 Km (about 7 miles) where we were going to finish at a Korean restaurant for lunch. All of the girls and leaders got split up into 5 rafts and then we set off. From experience last year, I didn't bring a backpack this time, and I'm glad I didn't because the bottom of the raft filled up with water in no time. The white water rafting was so much fun. Towards the end of the rafting, we hit a clear area and some of the girls jumped in and swam around for a bit. I didn't want to get in the water because it was cold and I didn't want to get water in my ears, but our raft guide thought otherwise. He snuck up behind me, grabbed my life jacket and threw me into the river. I was more surprised then mad, but eventually, I had fun splashing around with the other girls. After about 10 minutes of that, we got back into the raft and went all the way to the end of the river. We had lunch at the Korean Buffet restaurant. I didn't expect the food to be so good, but it was and I loved it. When we got back to camp, it was shower time for many of the girls, and I didn't want to wait for 20 other girls to finish, so me, Evelyn, Sammie, and Kira went down to the river to skip rocks since the life guards, once again, didn't let us in the water. After dinner we did some lip singing for some songs that we were assigned at the beginning of the week. It was a lot of fun because afterwards, we all got up and started to dance. It got really late super fast, but we stayed up a bit longer. Me, London, and Sadie are going to pull a few pranks on the other girls. We planned to put glitter on the toilet seat, and tape the other girls' tent shut. After having a bit of fun, it got late and so we went to bed. My arms are definitely sore.

Day 4: Our pranks worked! We woke up to a couple girls trying to get out of their tents. We tapped our tent shut too, to make it look like we didn't do it. It sure was a lot of fun to do that. However, one of the leaders were to ones to find the glitter, and they didn't really like it, but other girls thought that it was really funny. I don't think Emily knows that it was us, and I still don't think that she has figured it out! LOL! After everybody got up and had breakfast, we got dressed and we drove off to the caves that we were going to explore today. The cave were super long and the hallways got super narrow that there was one part that we had to get onto our hand and knees in order to continue down the path. Since some elders came from the different wards, they weren't able to fit, so them and a couple girls that got claustrophobic stayed behind. Me, M&M and a few other girls ran ahead and got to the end of the cave. It was so much fun to wander around the cave, but we had to eventually go back to the beginning. So back down the narrow pathway we went and soon met up with everyone at the opening of the cave. We got back to camp and had lunch. Then, since the day was super hot, almost all the girls got into swimsuits and for once, the life guard actually let us into the water, so we played around for a while. We get back, do a few activities with some devotionals, then have dinner. We reveal all of our secret sister and have fun talking together. It was testimony meeting that evening. It was originally planned to be 30 minutes, but it turned out to be 2.5 hours long instead. After the meeting was done, we have some fun eating s'more dessert's and mess around camp with flashlights. We had fun being kids and playing old game like tag for a while. After getting tired and saying good night to bishop and the leaders, we head to bed. Since today is the last night, most girls are pulling an all nighter, but I will never do that because, I mean come on, who does that???? Anyways, I got to bed while the others stayed up. What a fun day.

Nicole and Big Sis

Day 5: Sorry to say, nobody actually managed to stay up all night. My tentmates said that most people stayed up until only about 2 am, but then, one by one, started to fall asleep. Some girls looked like zombies this morning. We all got to wear our camp shirt. It's always fun to be matching with all of the other 30 girls. Like I said before, it was my goal to finish my personal progress before the end of camp, and I did accomplish just that. I finished my personal progress last night, and I will get my last ribbons before we leave camp. I'm so happy about that!!! The service project this year was to do a fan walk of the river shore and clean up all the trash. While we all started together, it truly only ended with about 10 people actually cleaning the shore. 25 of the girls just walked to the end and back, talking and not cleaning. So me, Evelyn, Sister Mayo, M&M and a few of her friends along with Sadie and London all stayed behind with me and we did two sweeps of the 1/2 mile long shore line. We picked up about 5 trash bags full of trash, plus a 6 foot long rusted over pole, and a fishing net basket. We found at least 20 fishing lines, 30 hooks, and so much trash. We all wore one latex glove, and me and Evelyn had to change ours out twice because hooks kept on snagging them. We eventually got back to camp and dumped all the trash. Kinda disappointing how much the girls didn't care, but that's okay. I did learn however that I am allergic to latex gloves, just like dad. My hand felt really weird being a bit swollen and red, but other then that, I was okay. Sadly, two girls didn't get very lucky and they got stung by Korean wasps. I felt really bad for them. After everyone cleaned up camp and packed the cars, we did the awards ceremony and goodbyes. I got the award for the most athletic because I was always ahead on the hikes and stuff like that. And I did get my last two ribbons. Super neat. After a lot of tears and good bye, we got settled into the cars and drove home. I loved my adventure at girls camp again, and I can't wait to see how our Germany girls camp adventure is going to play out too. I'm sure going to miss all of those amazing girls. Until next!

Big Sis, Nicole and Faith

Hi! This is M&M here and I am going to tell you about my experience at the Korean girls camp! It was so fun! This was my first time going and it was one of the best things ever!
Day 1 : We got up super early in the towers. Our HHG had already left so we had to pack like a month in advance to be able to keep everything and still be able to have it for the Germany girls camp. We woke up, and did double and triple checks on everything. We then left the towers at like 7:30 and went down to the parking lot. We said goodbye to Mom, Dad, Little A, Monster, and Bailey. We put the things in the car and set off. It was so much fun playing games with Claire and Aurora. We were in the same car so we played games and watched movies and talked. We drove all around the Korean countryside then finally made it to a total mountain area. We arrived at Girls Camp at around 11:00. We got the tents out first then set up the tents. I have never really set up a tent before because Big Sis and Mom and Dad usually do it. So we tried our best and we still had to ask the older girls for help. No biggy. We got all of our bags and set up the inside of the tents. Claire, my best friend, was not in my tent sadly, but my friend Aurora was! We got a 6 man tent and set up. I slept next to Aurora and it was fun making friends with the other 5 girls in our tent.

M&M and Aurora

I made a friends with a girl named Natalie. She is really nice. Our other tentmate, Kiri, was sick so she had to go in a separate tent. She was also our leader for our tent (our YCL , Youth Camp leader) and she gave nightly devotionals and gifts! There is a river right next to our camp site so we went swimming after everything was set up. The Korean lifeguard wouldn't let us go past our knees! How weird is that! He yelled at us when we went deeper. So after we went "swimming", we did a craft. One of the leaders taught us how to cross stitch and now we are all making a Korean cross stitch picture. We all worked on it during free time. Dinner was ok. We had to do it over a fire because the grill was not used sometimes. So dinner was ok and we all just talked and had fun until it was time for bed. It gets freezing at night but hot in the day so it is always wobbly in the temperature. We all took showers in a big open room so we all wore swimsuits when we did. After we were all showered, we went to the bathroom, changed, and went to the tent. Kiri was feeling better and she gave us a cute devotional. Our ranking is Fairies because we are beehives so we got fairy dust necklaces. Mine was green and it sparked! We went to bed thinking of the fun of the next day.

All the Beehives

Day 2 : The Sun rose at like 4:30 so some of the girls like myself woke up at 5! We all got ready for the day and we sat outside in the cold weather and talked/whispered to each other while cross stitching, but choose to go back in the tent after we were too cold. We worked on them so much that I was almost finished! It had rained sometime during the night so we had to sit in the tents to cross stitch. After all the girls woke up, we ate breakfast. We had schedules and we all had fun. After all of us were ready, we got in the cars and set off for a hike. We drove almost 10 minutes then got out. We did a head count and then set off! We climbed up a hill then stopped for a water break. It was super steep and super hard. We walked and walked and enjoyed the scenery. We walked in the mountains and saw a river too. We stopped hiking up after about an hour-ish.

Claire, Nicole, M&M and Big Sis

The leaders were taking pictures and we got to stop for a water break. The hike down and was not as hard. We got back in the car after the hike and we all had free time. Some girls went down to the lake and some stayed at the campsite and cross stitched and had fun. I stayed behind with some other girls that cross stitched and we had fun.

We had a devotional and it was super fun. We did the faith walk too. We, the beehives, walked all along the river and we got devotionals and charms all along the way. After about 5 stops, we made it to the top and we got the shirt for the camp year. It was so amazing and spiritual and FUN! We all got ready for bed and had a fun time that day.

Day 3 : Lots of girls including myself woke up around 5 again because the sun was up. We did some more cross-stitching and talking. We all got ready in swim suit sand water shoes because we went white water rafting. After everyone was ready, we went to the river that was for white water rafting. I didn't have water shoes so I had to wear my tennis shoes. That was such a terrible thing because my shoes got SOAKING WET! We got in boats and set off for a long rafting that took place for like 6 hours. We paddled and paddled and it was super tiring. We sat on the edge and had one foot in the water always. That sucked but we got to put them in sometimes like during the white water parts. We went around rocks, stopped at swimming parts, and went all the way round the river and we didn't even make it to the end! We went all the way to the drop off point and we were all super tired. We went to an open restaurant that was reserved for us and man, the food was some of the best. It was a huge buffet and there was so many amazing foods. We sat with friends and we ate to our hearts content. I mostly just ate sticky rice and pork with some other stuff. It was good. The food was great and the people were so kind. After we were done, we headed back to the cars and went back to the campsite. We did fun stuff like stories and had treats.  My tent had to move to a new tent because Kiri was better and she moved to our tent. After we were all set up , it was time for bed and we all got ready. After, it was super fun talking with all of my friends in the tent and we all fell asleep to the sound of the river.

Day 4 : I was able to sleep in until 5:30 this time. It was still super early, so I just went out of the tent and cross stitched with the other 10 girls out there. After everyone was ready and full from breakfast, we got in the cars and drove to a cave. This cave was not as close as expected but that was ok. We went over a bridge that we saw while water rafting so that was cool. We had to all wear helmets inside so we choose the sizes accordingly. I brought a flashlight for this reason. On some parts, it was so dark that you could barely see in front of you. So I was able to shine a light through the darkness and let people see that there is a puddle here or stairs next to them. It was fun. The rock formations were cool and the cave was refreshing because it was super hot outside. I was glad I brought a jacket because it was freezing in the cave.

After we were done, we were all super tired. The leaders were super awesome and they bought all of us ice cream. We drove back to the campsite after we were all done. We got in our groups and practiced our dances. We had skits and we made our own dance with a song. My groups song was "I'm Happy". It was fun! We stayed up late because it was the last day. I didn't eat more than one cookie because I get sick if I eat too many sweets. They were so good and I wished I packed more for the car ride the next day! We did the testimony meeting and it was super fun. After that, DANCE PARTY!!! The girls in the other tents and our tent were so loud. Aurora and I were tired and we just fell asleep while focusing all of our mind power on the sound of the river. We were asleep a little later. The girls told us that they played candy poker and they found Aurora and I asleep just before they started. Good thing too. They didn't get to bed until almost midnight.

Day 5 : Since most of the girls stayed up most of the night, we all slept in. When I woke up, all of us found out that the YCL's pranked us and duck taped our zippers together and we couldn't get out! We had to whisper yell for the other leaders to help us get free. It turned out they did it to all the tents and the leaders had to help them all get free. After we were all up and at 'em, we got ready and broke down camp. We all took pictures and set off in the cars. We all had to make room in our bags for the secret sister gifts that we got that whole week. It was just as enjoyable going back home as it was leaving in the car with friends. Spending time with friends is the best! I can't wait to go to Germany Girls camp!

Best Friends: Claire Walker, M&M and Aurora Mayo

Faith and M&M