Believe. Hope. Endure.
I wanted to be an EFY (A summer camp for LDS youth) counselor ever since I first went at 13. I was ever disappointed when BYUI required me to devote my summers to school taking away any chance of being a summer camp counselor. This past summer I managed the chance to do it. The application process lasts up to 4 months but the experience validated the wait.
I got to spend three weeks working with some of the coolest youth in the world. Here is a brief recap of each week:
Week 1:
The first week feels like a tornado of late nights, lessons, excitement and confusion. I never knew for sure what I was supposed to be doing (Even though I read the manual a thousand times). Thankfully I was blessed with an amazing Co-counselor (co-co), Sarah Hill. She kept me from looking like fool all week. We had an amazing chemistry and therefore our group of youth was awesome. I was sad EFY
stopped the week long competition between groups because I'm pretty sure we would have won EVERYTHING.
Traditionally EFY assigned the groups scripture based names. This is no longer the case. Now
the youth get a chance to create their own names based on scriptures the counselors choose
before the youth arrive. This week I over zealously decided for our partnership to use Deuteronomy 7:3-4-- the marriage scripture. From the scripture they picked "Destroy thy Anger." It isn't quite as cool as one of their other ideas, "Anger of the Daughters," but it was still the BEST name that week.
My only disappointment this week was to realize youth REALLY do think it is cool to sneak out at night. Counselors never do because this means no sleep. A word to the wise, when given a chance, respect other peoples right to sleep.
Also an important note- our cheer was awesome and should have been included in the cheer-off but the judges ignored the awesomeness of our J-Biebs cheer. (Sarah Bieber...anyone?). They did recognize the coolest banner in the history of EFY. I wish I could say this was all my idea- too bad counselors just supervise.By Saturday of that week I had NO energy which made helped me be insane. As counselors we eat breakfast after the youth check out each Saturday and then have a week wrap-up meeting. At breakfast I formed an awesome friendship bond of insanity with Rachel Oberholzer and Sarah (my co-co). Everyone kept looking at us for our excessive laughter. For the rest of the three weeks we stayed insane around other counselors and couldn't seem to shake that rep.
Week 2:
This week I was partnered with the amazing Aimee Warren. It was her firs week and my second. It rained every day, affecting many of the outside activities. I was initially scared to work with 14-year-olds because I thought they would be obnoxious- wrong. They definitely have a different energy than 16-year-olds but still fun. Again I had a group with an awesome banner and this week we added a top cheer (I did have to help a LITTLE with this one because they were quite as proactive as the 16-18 group).
This week I started telling my youth that BC (which actually means Building Counselor or the people just above counselors in the chain of command) meant Best Counselors. I wanted to convince them that they could vote me BC at the end of the week. Luckily for them I am too nice and told them the truth shortly after lying.
I loved working with Aimee because her testimony was so sweet. She was humble and willing to improve and made me want to do even better than I had the first week. Being a counselor can be a lot more difficult the first week than it would appear and Aimee did a great job. There was such a good feeling as Aimee and I team taught the last nights devotional. I loved teaching it from an angle of our advice to the kids on how to make the most of their teenage years. I flet like the theme tied in so well here. BELIEVE. We must believe first. As we come to believe we find HOPE. Hope is necessary to get through difficulties and trials that await us all in the future. That is how we ENDURE. It is all founded in the atonement of Jesus Christ. After that devotional we sang the theme song for the youth. (that was probably my most daring move- I do not sing)
WEEK 3
This week was more exhausting and rewarding than any other week. I had one boy in my group who didn't speak english. I spent most days translating for him and taught all my lessons bilingually- thanks to my mission to Mexico I could communicate with him. It is crazy how God works to make sure he had a counselor that week who spoke spanish (One of my CO-CO's is also studying Spanish in school- there is no way that is by chance)
Another struggle was having extra Co-counselors. There were four of us for the week. I liked working with each of them but never felt like our
relationship could be as strong because we couldn't bond like in weeks past.
This week I found myself having more spiritual experiences and learning moments as I dedicated all my time to working with a youth who didn't speak the language while also trying to give each of the other youth in my group my time. Of all the weeks, the third was mostly about ME. I feel bad- I gave it my all but there was so much for me to learn.
Over all EFY was an incredible experience. I learned so much about the youth, about myself and about the Savior. I tried each day to pray and ask God to have me teach what he would have the youth understand. I asked to be able to see them as he did and to be able to show his love. I realize that I can never have been able to show exactly what he feels, but I did feel something different. I got a chance to understand better what it feels like to be disappointed by youth not wanting to do whats right, I felt frustration when words didn't seem to be enough and I felt satisfaction t the sight of changes. The youth taught me a lot. I'm glad I did it. If you're LDS, single and free for even one week in the summer APPLY! Heres the link: efy.byu.edu/yp.
