Girls Camp...Inspiration from Home

Next week my girls are going to girls camp.  I was the camp director the past two years and loved it! I'm sad that I won't be going this year, but I wanted to give my girls some inspiration from home while they are there.  These are the quotes I will be sending up hidden away in their luggage.

How can I fit Scripture Memorization into my busy life?

Twice a year our church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) holds a General Conference.  It is a time for our leaders to give us counsel and as I listen I find ways I can come closer to Christ.  This year we were in Zion's National Park during Conference.  Fortunately my husbands truck has satellite radio and we were able to listen to our leaders as we enjoyed the beautiful sea scenery.

I was particularly touched with Elder Richard G. Scott's talk entitled "For Peace at Home."  You can find it here.

The summery of the talk is "One of the greatest blessings we can offer to the world is the power of a Christ-centered home where the gospel is taught, covenants are kept, and love abounds."  He talks about how amazing our personal electronic devices are.  He said, "If you young people would review a verse of scripture as often as some of you send text messages, you could soon have hundreds of passages of scripture memorized. Those passages would prove to be a powerful source of inspiration and guidance by the Holy Ghost in times of need."

Well I thought, what if my welcome screen on my iphone had a scripture on it, and every time I turned on my phone, I read it and tried to memorize it?  Elder Scott said, "Great power can come from memorizing scriptures. To memorize a scripture is to forge a new friendship. It is like discovering a new individual who can help in time of need, give inspiration and comfort, and be a source of motivation for needed change. For example, committing to memory this psalm has been for me a source of power and understanding." 

I want those blessings in my life.  So I'm going to start with the scripture mastery scriptures and since Seminary Students will be studying the Book of Mormon for the 2013-2014 school year, I'm starting with those.

So here are some fun images with the 25 Book of Mormon scripture mastery scriptures. To find the complete scriptures click here.   Enjoy!

If you are browsing this page in Safari you can save these images to your camera roll.

1. Find the image you wish to save.

2. Tap and hold down on the image.

3. A menu will slide up-tap "Save Image."

4. The image will be saved to your camera roll.

To find the picture later, just launch the Photo App.

If the above method doesn't work, then pinch to zoom into the image at the desired crop and take a screen shot.  (on an iphone push both buttons at the same time.)

Getting kids to do jobs

Last night was a great "mother moment".  My 13 year old daughter asked me if she could be in charge of the family night lesson.  I said sure.  Apparently she was not happy about how the the family was dealing with the clean and dirty dishes in our house because she made a power point about doing jobs.  Then she made a chart assigning everyone a time to unload and load the dishes and help with setting the table.  I was really impressed with her inititive.  What a great girl!

Another tool I have found that worked really well during the summer (when we had more time to do jobs) was a web site called "My Job Chart".  I really should be implementing this during the school year too.

Parents can go in and assign jobs and a point value to go with the job and what days the kids need to do the job.  It took a bit of time to set up, but once it's done, it keeps track for you.  So if the kids do their jobs they can get a reward.  It will also allow you to pay part of the reward to a charity.  (I'm thinking tithing.)  If you want you can even set up a reward system that allows the kids to buy things from Amazon.com with the points they have earned.  The best part?  It's FREE!  You can check it out here.

LDS Girls Camp Ideas

Here are a few Ideas for Girls Camp.

This is a mural an amazing artist in our ward airbrush painted.  He painted on a white sheet.  We then hung the mural between two trees.  This was such a great addition to our camp.

This picture represents two ideas.  One is that we covered the tables with white butcher paper and then the girls wrote what they were grateful for during the week.  We would change the paper each day.  This was a great way to have the girls focus on the positive aspects of camp.  

The second idea is the photos of the girls.  I took a picture of each girl before camp.  On the picture it says "Let His light shine through you."  I printed the photos on vellum paper and attached them to pieces of glass (from Ikea) with spray glue.  I then used a white masking tape to tape the four corners of the glass together to make a box.  Then I placed a battery operated tea light in each box.  They looked amazing and the girls loved them...for about 5 minutes.  Unfortunately this story has a very sad ending. Right after we placed them all out on the tables a huge rain storm came up and they were all destroyed by the water.  So if it looks like it might rain, get the decorations under cover!

Two years ago Our theme was We seek after these things.  This is the logo I came up with.  All week the girls were seeking.  There were tons of treasure hunts.  The logo itself had clues.  The crown represents that she is a daughter of God.  The earing is a "C" and represents Christ.  The necklace is actually a glyph from the original gold plates.  I found them here.  (Scroll over until you see the correct document.)  And finally (this is a bit of a stretch) the pony tail makes an "F" representing faith.  Each day we focused on Each of these topics, Daughters of God, coming closer to Christ, and The Book of Mormon and Faith.

LDS Girls Camp Ideas - Hot Air Balloon

Hot Air Balloons!

Before we went to camp we had the parents of each girl write a letter telling their daughter how much they love them, how they are proud of them and how they had seen their daughter Arise and Shine Forth.  We then put the letters (rolled up) in the baskets of the hot air balloons that had decorated our camp.  The girls then had time to go by themselves to read their letters.

We made the Hot Air Balloons by using a mandarin orange can punched with 4 holes.  I used a tool called a crocodile.  But you could fill the cans with water, freeze the water then using a hammer and nail, hammer 4 holes around the top of the can.  Let the ice melt and then continue on with the project.

We covered the cans with scrapbook paper.  Then using two long pieces of ribbon we attached the balloon to the can.  They were super cute!

LDS Girls Camp Ideas - Light and Eyes

We have quite a few girls in our ward that went to girls camp (56 to be precise) and I wanted them to get to know each other better.  So on the door of each cabin I put a picture of the girls eyes (laminated with a magnate stuck to the back) along with the scripture  "The light of the body is the eye; if, therefore, thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 3 Nephi 13:22" and separately I had their name.  During the week the girls tried to match them up.  At the end of the week the girls had a great reminder of camp to take home.

Download the .psd (photoshop) file for this project.

LDS Girls Camp Ideas - Angry Birds

Last year I was the girls camp director in our ward.  I have a few fun ideas I thought I'd post.

Angry Birds!

We had a blast with this activity!  Our Activity days girls made the basic forms of the birds.  They made paper mache forms over balloons.  Then during a pre-camp activities the Young Women painted the birds.  This is how a few of them turned out.  If I had it to do over again I would take small four square balls and decorate them, but the paper mache was practically free.

Then we had a bunch of boxes. (Free at the grocery store) We had a lesson about how there are things in our lives that drag us down.  Things that keep us from our full potential.  We were angry at these things and we were going to knock them out of our lives!  The girls then wrote on the boxes those things they wanted to overcome.

We then made a wall to knock down that had pigs, some paper mache and some #10 cans with paper around them.  

We had a sling shot made from Medical tubing and a piece of fabric.  Two girls held either end and then one girl launched the bird.  It was great fun!