YSA camp unplugged

We had a day to prepare for our YSA ward camp out…and then drove up to be in Cinnamon Creek Campground by Porcupine Dam above Hyrum.   It was completely off the grid with absolutely no service once you start in on the dirt road…which lasts about 20 minutes.  The area opens up to about a mile of camp grounds and facilities.  It hosted 1000 YSA’s from our stake and a few Layton wards.  IT was a great thing to be a part of.  

We had one bus driver get lost and what should have been a 2 hour trek turned into a 4 ¼ hour trek..and this bus had a lot of our ward on it.  They  all came off the bus with good attitudes though.  Flexible schedule is what my dad always tried to instill in us once vacay started….whether you are trapped on a bus or at the camp site, it’s still vacay…so change your attitude accordingly.  

We camped as a ward and we ended up with about 50  YSA’s attending.  

The YSA's are really amazing people.  I caught a moment of Connor putting Mackay's sock on for him..

We heard from amazing speakers – John Bytheway, Brad Wilcox- spoke on Grace -  and high school friend Sharon Eubank ,and  we just had the best time.  Sharon called Wayne and I up front to talk about our lives and asked if we had any struggles or heart ache in our lives...of course, we said yes... and then she asked would we do it again...and of course we said YES.  It was good for me to think on this. 

 Sharon shared a story about a boy- Jesse Hernandez-  in LA who fell into the sewer system and the lengths the parents and rescue people did to pull him out, not even knowing where he was in the 64 miles of sewage pipes or even if he was still alive.  They found him by putting go pros on cut up surf boards and they saw a swipe of hand on the side of a pipe and  figured out with math where he would be an hour from there which was between highway 5 and 408 .  So they shut down the freeway and were going to drop a net down the man hole..when they uncovered the hole, Jesse was wedged in the pipe, alive, waiting for them.  He was in the sewer for over 12 hours.  A miracle.  She related this to ministering and not giving up on the one, rescuing the one, and going into the hole to pull them out...  It was beautiful. 

We love our calling as bishop because we can just talk to and hang out with our people….the most difficult committees to be on at this camp would have been transportation and food.  I applaud these people.  Such a big deal to feed a thousand people 3 times a day with NO kitchen. 

I’ve been having a little trial of my faith as of late.  I see all of the heartache in the world,  suicides ( a boy’s father in our ward, and a friend’s son just in the last 3 weeks)  cancer, health issues, questions with no answers,  job situations…and it’s  just easy to lose hope.  SO I’ve been spouting to Wayne that the Lord’s plan isn’t one of happiness but one of “Everything just  happens” because we are humans having human experiences, and our challenge is to find God in all of this.   Some of this is true about humans having free agency and human experiences, but there is another element that I was leaving out… SO I’ve been reading and studying and praying with this struggle-bus that I’ve been on.    John Bytheway shared an analogy about a puzzle.    When we do a puzzle  we gather like pieces together, and do the border and there are always those pieces that just don’t seem to fit anywhere.    Do we then throw those pieces away, or scrap the entire puzzle?  NO.  We keep working on the puzzle, even when it gets frustrating as puzzles do, and eventually it all works out.  And the “don’t fit anywhere pieces,” actually make sense and  fit.  We finish puzzles because we have HOPE that it will all work out.   Like the puzzle, it’s better to  go through life  hoping it will all make sense and that it will all work out.  This is a much more hopeful attitude than the one I have had as of late.  Eli Wiezel WW2 camp survivor wrote, “Suffering is just suffering until we assign meaning to it.”  This is Hope.  Everything Happens for a reason even if we don’t know what that is…yet.   I have HOPE that this is true, because it  makes all of the STUFF we are going through feel so much better.