Consecration and Returns: YW Camp
What an amazing past few weeks! It has been a complete whirlwind and full of important and powerful experiences.
YW Camp gave me an opportunity to serve the young women I love so much and to work alongside adult leaders who love, uplift and inspire me. It was an exhausting week, in that the kitchen is a place where the work never ends. But I am a fan of physical exertion, and experienced once again that working in that environment is my favorite. I love simple service more than leadership. When someone else is instructing my responsibilities, I feel no pressure. And it became again, the place where girls and leaders alike could come, receive a hug and secreted treat, sing, or just participate in uplifting and happy conversation. That is the one acknowledgement I can give to my "in the kitchen at Camp" service. There have been years where the cooks are concerned about keeping the extra bodies out of the room and years where the tension level is very high because of the stress that feeding so many people can produce. I know that my efforts to "lighten it up" and lift spirits were successful. It has become a warm and friendly environment where all are welcome. Nothing in life brings me greater joy than laughter, love, and service.
Sunday at Camp continues to be one of my favorite days. This year, instead of sitting back and basking in the glow that it produces, it became necessary for me to invest more than I could reasonably offer of myself. That is always an interesting experience for me. Long ago, back when I was just a new Beehive, I made it clear to Father in Heaven that I am His. Long before I was required to make the covenant, I made it clear to him that I am his servant in this work.
And He has used me for that purpose. At twelve years old I was called to run the nursery for Primary. At fourteen, I was the Junior Sunday School Chorister. I served in all the capacities available in YW class presidencies (growing up in a small ward gives you lots of opportunities!) These were important experiences because they took me out of my comfort zone and taught me to trust Father. At eighteen, I participated in the Summiteer Hike like no other where Judy Wasden, Cheryl and Marilyn Johnson (Randall) several others and I became real women. We spent eleven days in the wilderness, hiking 72 miles, including the ascent to the summit of Mt. Whitney. We learned about pushing your physical body beyond its limits, about practicing faith, and about literally enduring to the end. Then the sometimes painful polishing began. I served as YW President and Seminary teacher at twenty-one. I returned to YW Camp as ward leader, as hike leader. I served in several Primary and Relief Society Presidencies where I was tutored by great women like Roberta Cordon. I was Nursery Leader; taught primary, was a YW advisor and YW Camp Director, all by the age of twenty-eight. I then served in the Stake YW Presidency, Ward YW Presidency, taught in Relief Society and Primary some more. For the last couple of years my service has been in Seminary. Every circumstance taught me new things about myself, and about serving and consecrating my time and all that He has given me back to the Lord. But I'm not sure any of them were more powerful than this Sunday at Camp.
My dedicated search to find the Savior in a very personal way over that last few years has taught me a couple of very important truths: We are often required to give more than we possilby can and the Lord provides whatever is needed to make up for what we do not have to offer. Sunday at Camp was just another experience of faith and trust. The short version of the Sunday story is that I was asked to do something I had never been able to do before, and to do it with perfect trust that the Spirit would provide.
I don't perform piano or guitar. I have had years of piano training, but my nerves manifest through my shaking fingers so I only play for my personal pleasure at home. The guitar is something I dabbled in on my own. I have very limited skill, and never perform because I only play for preschoolers (a very nondiscriminating audience). Bryna H. had asked me to accompany one song for the Sunday night fireside so I figured out the chords for it at home and practiced a few times before camp. I was not comfortable and was nervous about the hands thing, but knew that I had done my preparation (transposing the song to the only three or four chords that I can play!) and was ready more or less. I got up early Sunday morning at camp to hike to a place to see the sun rise. Anni and Kit joined Dad and I in our quest and it was a great but exhausting start to the day. Graceful as I continue to be in my physical existence, I did fall down a hill which was wrong both because it happened literally in front of my bishop, who is always looking for a good laugh at my expense, and I had promised Sister Morrison when I asked permission to go that no one would get hurt! Then it was time to prep the food for the day. The morning continued with a beautiful Sacrament Meeting.
Nothing in my life touches me quite the same as a Rucker Lake chapel service. Taking the sacrament while sitting in the trees, listening to the sounds of nature and looking across the lake always does me in. I feel fully surrounded by Father's love, the love of all of my young and older friends. I am served the sacrament on lovingly hand-crafted wooden trays, by the bishops of our Stake. Time seems to have no boundries. I seem to remember in the present, my years on the chapel benches as a young woman at Rucker Lake, receiving the sacrament with my peers, alongside my Young Women leaders, some who currently suffer in illness others whose spirits have already left this life. I feel overwhelmed by love, personal concern for me, their investment into my life and the building of my testimony. Then, like a shot of harsh reality, I leave the meeting because of my kitchen duties, sensing such a loss that I will not be able to hear the powerful testimonies of Pres. W. and Pres. H. or attend sunday school class which is one of my favorite things. It's kindof a school of the prophets feeling to sit with the adult leaders of the stake and share our insights about the scriptures. Painful for me to miss.
After serving mid-day dinner and organizing supper, I am asked to meet with Judith about the night's music. Bryna is in charge of the fireside. She is one of my favorite people and is my supervisor for Seminary. I have learned so much through her direction. She doesn't have much experience with music and there was a misunderstanding about participants, so she and Judith make the best of their situation and ask me to accompany all of the performers on my guitar. I blanch. This is critical. We are in the clutch. Bases are loaded, ninth inning kind of thing. But it is a total guaranteed strike-out because the guitar is just a thing I toy with. I know about performing things. I know what it takes to be ready. I am not stupid enough to claim I can do something that I know I can't. And as I open my mouth to say, "Sorry, ladies..." I hear my voice saying, "I'll do my best..." knowing I really don't know how. This is not something I can fake, or cram for. You either have it, or you don't. And I know I don't.
Then with a desperate prayer in my heart, I explain to Judith that I can only play three or four chords. She gets it. She knows music. There is no way I can do this. I put my hands on the guitar, and no kidding I start transposing all of the songs into the chords I know. I mean absolutely no irreverence, but this was a Joseph and Oliver moment. My hands are moving across the guitar and I am calling out to her faster than she can write down what the sequence of the chords is to be. She is scribbling down the notation and I am being directed with almost total clarity (it would have been total clarity, but I don't know how to transpose music, so part of my mind is screaming out the tune to the Twilight Zone) what I am to tell her. The joke is, I have no idea what key I will be playing in because that is beyond my abilities in music theory. I only know that my hands are moving and my voice is talking. After the music is all transposed I just want to cry. I am exhausted.
Now it is time to go to the chapel and rehearse with the singers. Okay, another reality check. I am not an accompanist. Accompanists are very special. They are the most critical piece to a performance. They carry unique pressures and responsibilities. With the aid of many gifted accompanists I have performed hundreds of times in my life. I have never been an accompanist. Frankly, I don't have what it takes and I have the humility to know that. Besides, my hands shake during performances. We do not have nearly enough time to practice and I don't know how to play well enough. My stomach is wrenched but I sit down with the guitar at the front of the chapel and somehow keep from crying out: "You are all completely crazy. There is no way I can do this! I am in way over my head." But I stay still.
I'm begging Father at this point. He knows I trust Him. He knows I will go anywhere or do anything that He asks, but this is the last place and the least comfortable circumstances for me to be publicly humiliated. I can't handle that the people I love will be watching such an embarrassing attempt to do something I have no ability for.
I shut Satan's whispers down in my head and try to focus. We rehearse four or five songs. Everyone around me seems so relaxed and trusting. They have no idea that this is an impossible assignment for me. And I am somewhere in the twilight zone, half in, half out, knowing that I am definitely not in charge. I try at some point to explain briefly to Pres W. that I'm in over my head. I think he senses my edge of panic, but he's going out on a limb himself because he is timid about his beautiful singing voice and has commited to participate. I mumble that there is a very strong chance I will never be able to play these songs the next morning--one of those the clock struck twelve and the carriage has turned back into a pumpkin things. I leave the rehearsal having accompanied successfully. Now I have the amazingly frightening task of trying to finalize my original assignment, to teach one of the stations at the fireside. I have been mulling over my presentation on Joseph and Hyrum for weeks. The handout I have prepared is ready. That is about it! I know I am going to be sick. How can I possibly be in this situation? I know basically what the Lord wants me to do for the fireside, but it is one of those let-the-Spirit-finalize-the-details presentations. I walk past Pres W. at the gazebo, and I think he senses something. He asks if I'm okay. I know better than to answer the truth because I will start to cry all over his shirt. I'm barely holding the stress together. I'm very conscious that I might physically implode. I smile and say "I think so..." If he only knew. I consider asking for a blessing, but feel for some reason like this is a test of my faith and trust and I need to show Father that he has already taught me enough about letting go of fear.
Finalizing ideas come to me about the presentation. I set the guitar in the chapel and go to the location I will be teaching to put up some pictures I have brought, prepare the recorded song on cd that I feel prompted to play. I skip dinner and time my presentation and pray again. Father knows that I know this whole evening is in His hands.
And it was. I might not have accompanied perfectly but it was believable. And I could tell when I was teaching, that it was the Spirit in charge. There were many tears as the Spirit testified, my own and others'. And it was exactly what Father intended the experience to be.
God performs miracles, daily. Sunday at camp was a huge miracle for me. I testify that our Father lives. That He loves us enough to make us stretch and work for our answers. I testify that we were sent to find our Savior Jesus Christ in a very personal way. It is a mission of recovery. We already know Him. But the veil is drawn. We must find Him again and rediscover what He already knows about our commitment to Him.
Bryna came up to me a half-hour before the start of that Sunday fireside at camp. She sat down, looked in my eyes and having observed me with the pressures of the day, stated: "You have consecrated your life, haven't you?" I could have said a million things. I was on the edge of an evening I was terrified to experience, but strangely calm at the same time. I answered honestly, "Yes, I have."