7.25.2016

Believe Camp

Hello, reader!

I am currently sitting in Panera missing camp and wishing that I was still with all of the wonderful teens from the Midwest. I just came back from my very last church camp in Polo, Illinois. I have gone every year since I was in 5th grade, so this was my final and 8th year of camp!

Of course, when you do something over and over again like that for eight whole years, it can get boring and repetitive, but this camp has been amazing and different every single year. This year's theme was Believe, and I learned about believing in God's will for my life and how to deepen my faith and trust in Him.

There were fantastic lessons by great speakers who had amazing stories and testimonies to share with us. We had separate guy/girl classes that also made a huge impact on my experience at camp, and it was fun discussing what we learned with other people around the camp. For instance, in the picture below, Lexi, Abby and I were discussing what we had just learned from a girl's class and how we were going to put the lesson into practice in our lives. Then Bob Dignan gave us a selfie stick so of course we had to take a selfie!

Me, Abby, and Lexi after the Women's Lesson on friendships!
This week we were also split up into teams, and coincidentally I just so happened to be on team China(thanks to whoever did that). I was on the media team and 6 of us made vines all week during team challenge time to get points for our country. Here's a link to our vines. We had an awesome team that finished first(or so we thought?) in the relay race on Friday, but then apparently something happened so we tied with Egypt for second! Oh well!
Anya holding our flag ya!! Go China!
The rest of camp was just filled with spending time with God and friends. I could tell that the camp leaders/staff put a lot of heart into the week; it was the best year I had ever had! Thank you to everyone who sent me mail, I really appreciated it :).  I'm so grateful to have been able to experience eight years of camp!

Annette, Lexi, Bella, and Me!
Sabrina and I having a uke session!
Ren, Kaylee and I recreating this photo-
WOW that transformation!!!
I've met so many of my best friends at camp, and it's so crazy to think that we are all going into college soon! Some of my friends were counseling this week, and I hope that I will be able to counsel next year too. I'm about to leave Thursday for San Diego to go on my mission trip that starts Sunday in Mexico! I will write a super long blog post about it when I get back!

Have a great week,

Joy :)

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