My YSA stake held a campout over three days at Cinnamon Creek, a Church-owned camp in Cache County. The stake has been planning and encouraging this camp all year. I signed up for it while I was unemployed. If I had had a job earlier, I don't know if I would have taken the time off for it, but since I had already signed up, I did take the time off. I'm glad I did. It amazes me that I was able to go camping with good meals and high-profile speakers all for free.
Thursday morning, we boarded school buses (owned by a transportation company) to head up near Paradise, Utah. We all unloaded and set up camp. There were two stakes there, so it was a giant group, and we had to spread out over several camps with Book of Mormon names. I was in Lehi, while most of the activities were in Gideon. (Both of those are Old Testament names as well.) Between Lehi and Gideon was a small trail, a little more than half a mile long, with a climb of 120 to 180 feet, depending on the direction. Rather than walk on the dusty road or crowd in the back of a pickup, I ran on the trail every time we had to switch between camps. It was enjoyable. I even used my headlamp to run back in the dark.
We had a lineup of special guests and speakers. After dinner on Thursday, we heard from Paul Cardall, a pianist who was born with heart problems and had a heart transplant. But he didn't do anything musical, so he just talked. I didn't dislike what he said, but sometimes it felt like he threw things out and didn't know where to go with what he said. He brought Jordan Moyes, a guitar-playing singer who was very talented, to fill in on the music.
After Paul Cardall, we heard from John Bytheway, the standup comedian/motivational speaker/scriptural teacher. He impersonated Barney Fife and gave good advice. I could tell most of his jokes were rehearsed (he calls Deseret Book "Desperate Book" because they publish him), but he began talking about metaphorical winds in life when it began to get windy at the camp, and he had some funny off-the-cuff things to say about it. But he said he doesn't understand where dinosaurs fit in, even though they seem straightforward to me!
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| It was great to hear speakers in such a lovely environment. |
So instead, they brought in TC Christensen, who showed us clips from his movies 17 Miracles and Ephraim's Rescue. Just last week, I remarked to someone that TC Christensen is a filmmaker and not a historian, and the things he said about making movies totally confirmed that for me. I immediately recognized some problems with the Ephraim's Rescue clip. They had a Q&A session at the end, and I thought about asking him where he got his historical sources, but I didn't want to be a heckler. (Also, I don't like asking questions in big groups.)
After sleeping poorly in my tent, on Friday we got to choose three speakers to hear from out of four. First I heard from Michael Dunn, the managing director of BYUtv, who spoke on enduring. Then I heard from Brad Wilcox, a BYU professor who's famous for speaking on grace. After lunch, I heard from Sharon Eubank, first counselor in the general Relief Society presidency, who spoke on being spiritual first responders. I chose her instead of the other speaker because her venue had shade, and because I appreciate hearing from women after working on At the Pulpit. I appreciated hearing from someone who's not married for once.
On Friday evening, my ward had to help clean up after dinner, and one of our caterers owns the Thyme and Seasons restaurant in North Salt Lake. I felt really dumb and intimidated around him, because I felt like I kept messing up around him. But I think it's because he gave poor instructions.
Then Friday evening, we heard from Marlin K. Jensen, who formerly served as Church Historian and is currently a patriarch. Some people were annoyed with how long he spoke, but I wasn't. After he was done, I went to him and told him about working for the Church History Department and asked him a question about patriarchal blessings. I felt bad keeping him later, but I appreciated his response.
On Saturday morning, we could engage in various activities. I was excited to go to Porcupine Reservoir, just outside the camp. I went without the rest of my ward, who were doing other things. I stood up on a paddleboard for the first time ever, and I swam to the opposite shore and back. When I got done, people from my ward had come and were there cheering for me. Thanks guys! The "lake" was my favorite activity.
Then we helped do trail maintenance/creation for a service project, but I didn't know what I was doing, and to me, the trail looked fine just as it was.
Then we finally headed back home, and in another bit of ultra Mormon-ness, the others on the bus were singing Disney songs and hymns.
But that's not quite the end of the ultra Mormon-ness. There's an old joke that says, "Why do Mormons lock their cars when they go to church? So no one puts zucchini in them." When I was cleaning up my campsite, there was a bag of zucchini and squash, so I took it with me. When we got back to our church, I asked others if they knew whose it was. They laughed that it was still hanging around, and they said it had been at the church when we left on Thursday, and they didn't know where it came from. No wonder Google's Fourth of July doodle featured Utah zucchini bread!
It was a fun weekend, and I'm glad I went. But it did give me some melancholy reflections on my mortality--not my mortality on earth, but as a YSA. Next summer is my last as a YSA. I think I was the second-oldest member from my ward. Most of the people from my ward were part of a youngster clique, and I didn't always feel included. I often thought that if I turned up missing, no one would notice. Of course, that has as much to do with my own awkwardness, shyness, and standoffishness as it does with anyone else. Today in elders quorum we talked about being more unified and not having any manner of -ites. I need to do better at that on my end.
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