For our Girls Camp theme this year, we are trying to stick really close to Stand ye in Holy Places.  Our main focus will be HOW TO MAKE YOUR HEART  A HOLY PLACE.  (Or How to Create a Zion Heart).  Our goal is to help the girls prepare by studying the scriptures and by knowing the Savior.  (One of our Stake YW leaders said this at our meeting:  “This is the time to prepare for adulthood.  The time to perform is NOT the time to prepare!”  That sums it up perfectly.)  So we have chosen seven Holy “Places”, we will assign one to each ward:

Prayer
Church
Scriptures
Family/Home
Knowledge/Learning
Peers/friends
Temple

Our “fun” theme, or I like to call it our “delivery system” is going to be a little different.  We want to make sure that the focus is on the temple, so we are going to have each ward choose a temple somewhere in the world (with 140 of them, we should get some fun variety).  So their ward theme will have to do with that country’s culture, language, foods, decorations, colors, dances, whatever!

Skits:  We will replace skits with a hymn or primary song in their language or a dance from that country. 

Ward Devotionals:  we will encourage them to learn something about their temple and country to share (maybe some facts about the history of the church there, the date the temple was dedicated, fun factoids about the area, maybe even a treat!) and then they can teach and bear testimony about their assigned Holy Place.  (We might even encourage them to learn to bear their testimonies in their language.)

Handouts:  We will make passports for them, and each ward will have a sticker or a stamp of the temple in their country.  When they deliver their devotional, they will give out stamps/stickers.  We will also have some from the stake for different activities. There will be a spot for handouts, journaling, etc.

Faith Walk:  We want to create a faith walk that will help drive home our point to Focus on the Right things.  (any ideas out there?)

Games:  We might ask each ward to learn a fun game from the country to teach the rest of the stake.  We also think some fun “Be not moved” games (king of the hill?) could be fun.

Speakers:  Missionaries galore!  We will invite Return Missionaries, Preparing Missionaries, and Serving Missionaries….that sounds like a good idea in a lot of ways.  Missionaries DO stand in holy places, after all.

It will be fun to see how this develops. Our goal is to have the youth leaders do most of the planning.  This is the bare bones  plan, we meet with them soon to let them flesh it out.  I think it will be awesome!  Happy Camp Planning, everyone!