Girls Camp

My first two years of Girls Camp was in Corcoran. Well, it was with the Corcoran Young Women, anyway. I’m not sure where our camp was, but it was called Mirimichi.

The second year I had already moved to Turlock, but the Turlock girls had already had camp, so my parents arranged for me to go back down and go to camp with our old branch. (My parents were always great about getting us to all our meetings, activities, programs, etc., and this is one example of that. Some people would consider that too much of a hassle, but not my parents). The way this stake did Girls Camp was they camped by ward, so I was with all my friends.

These are the only pictures I have of Girls Camp with Corcoran. It was kicked around in my room for so many years, and it has spots on it from who knows what, but I’m sure glad it survived!

That’s me standing outside the cabin. Heather Adamson is hanging out the window. Inside, from left to right, are Alana Burbank, Darlene Hampton and Tricia Adamson.

I’m pretty sure this picture of me standing on the rock is also from Mirimichi. I’m wearing a t-shirt from my dad’s radio station in Ogden.

Girls Camp in Turlock Stake was completely different. Instead of camping out with our ward, we were divided by year (first years, second years, etc.) The girls for each year were divided into groups of ten or so girls each. Each group had a junior counselor and a counselor. We had a mess hall and camp cooks, (who we called Cookies), and we only cooked over the fire for certification. We slept in A frame tents, 2 girls per tent.

I don’t have a lot of pictures of Girls Camp with Turlock Stake, but here is the handful I do have, all from different random years.

In this picture, Janae Lewis (Cox) and Amanda Liston (Day) are in the back, and I am in the front. This is from one of our hikes.

Here is a pretty bad picture of an A frame tent. It was basically a wood floor with a green canvas tent over the top of it.

This picture was taken in the Dining Hall. It was the centerpiece for my mom’s group one of the years she was a counselor. Every group had a table, and we all had to come up with a centerpiece that went along with what we named our group.

This is me on a hike somewhere.

Here is a group of us doing the Shinehah Ceremony (Shinehah means sun—look, I was the Sun!) From front to back are me, Rhonda Potter, Serena Clark, ?, Melanie Reed

One year when I was a youth leader, my group of girls dressed me up like this for a camp activity. I can’t for the life of me remember why, but there I am in all my glory!

And just because it’s here, here is a picture of our Young Women in Turlock, probably about my senior year. This is our Young Women room. 

Front Row: Judy Payne, my sister Celeste, Lindsey Williams

Middle Row: Me, Annette Coder, ?, ?, Jaime Davis, Beverly Coder, Heather Davis, Elizabeth Bjarnason, ?, Sarah Bjarnason, Becky Nees, Emily Doman

Back Row: Susan Day, ?, Sabrina Jones

Seminary Days

Is there a better Seminary program anywhere than the one I went to in Turlock? I really don't know how there could be. I am so thankful for the opportunity I had to be in Seminary there, and for the teachers who worked so hard to make it epic. I memorized all 25 mastery scriptures every year. We were master scripture chasers, and at the end of the year we had "Seminary Day," which involved three, sometimes four, stakes. We would compete in scripture chasing, and other things, and I'm sure there was dinner and a dance. It was superb! We also had a Seminary Sacrament Meeting at the end of the year, where we would visit each Turlock Ward and put on the whole meeting. The Seminary students from the ward we were visiting were the speakers, and we also prepared choir numbers. I will never forget it. It was my goal to achieve 100% attendance all four years, so I went to Seminary every. single. day. The only day I did miss was when we were taking Sam to the airport to leave for his mission. There really was no getting out of it. So I missed out on the 100% attendance award, but I was still there every single day all four years but that one.

What follows are some of the great moments in Seminary...

Brother Liston with the whole armor of God.

Travis Liston

Devan Thompson, Travis Liston, Darrin Wheeler

Looks like donut day!

Derek Payne

Pictures from the Seminary Bowl.

Chasing Scriptures

Watching the proceedings.

We got medals for winning at scripture chase, and I got the purple ribbon for memorizing all the mastery scriptures.

And of course, there was always a dance afterwards!

The "Gold" Plates

Brother Liston made these metal plates, and spray painted them gold. We got to engrave our names in the front if we wanted to pledge to read the whole Book of Mormon that year. After we put our names in, we opened it up to the members of the wards to do the same. At the end of the year, anyone who completed the challenge got to put their names in the back of the book. We buried the plates in a stone box at the stake center, along with time capsule type notes we wrote, to be opened in 10 years. We did indeed go back ten years later and open it up. It was a fun reunion! We wrote new letters and planned to go back in another ten years, but we never did.

Engraving

Burying

Here we are after we buried the plates. On the left are Aaron Bjarnason and Stephanie Bjarnason. Julie Neilson is in front of them with someone else. On the right I'm in the back, and Travis and Janae are in front. I'm not sure who that is in the middle.

Seminary Sacrament Meeting

The Seminary Teachers: Stephanie Bjarnason, Roger Liston, Sue Spencer

The Seminary kids from our three wards.