GIRLS CAMP
This week we traveled three hours to the northwest to visit eighteen girls at the Donetsk District Girls' Camp. We spoke to them.
I told how, as a little boy, I would make cucumber boats
I told how, as a little boy, I would make cucumber boats
with the too-old yellow, heavy-seeded ones; put a stick in for a mast and put on a scrap of a sail. Then I would float it down the little stream. I compared my little cucumber boat to gigantic aircraft carriers that hold an entire city of 11,000 plus 300 aircraft. Food, surgons, nurses, supplies, theatres, libraries, power, ability to repair holes in itself are all in this majestic ship. There are radar, global positioning technology, radios, computers and sofisticated guidance systems.
I promised them as we sail the sea of life it wouldn't always be smooth sailing and romantic sunsets but there would come storms and waves and rain to beat without on their ship. One who had only prepared a cucumber boat, without learning to work, without kindness and consideration for young and old, without knowledge, without purity, without power and without knowing how to comminuicate with his God, would not be a very good captain to trust with their dreams. Imagine as the little boat starts sinking in the tempest and darkness and there isn't even a place to keep your footing; there is not a shelter overhead.
How are you going to prepare in order to share the captaincy of, not a cucumber boat, but a mighty ocean vessel.
Whence comes the power?
(You all know the rest of the story)
The camp Constitution, schedule, assignments and menu
How do you keep food cool in Ukraine? You dig a big, deep hole, cover it over with poles and dirt, build a ladder, and put your food in. Fortunately for me, this storeroom / refridgerator just happened to house a cumber-boat in the making.
Mom spoke first. She talked about preparing now to enjoy Priesthood power as a vital part of a future family. She was convincing and emotional as she told how a worthy, priesthood husband was directed to the very place a lost daughter would fall. Because of this Priesthood she still has eight children and now a sweet little Violet.
(You know the rest of the story)
Notice the value-colors on the neckerchiefs of girls deep in study of their scriptures.The girls really loved your mother.
Oh, that's good to see.
ReplyDeleteThey look like home.
Home looks like them.
Both are home.
Just haven't been there
(an earthlife long enough)
to realize it.
that's really funny - I love my mother too! I wonder why . . . maybe it's because she is so amazingly great!
ReplyDeleteVylette is so wonderful and deserves more than who and what she gets . . . I am also more than grateful for such a wonderful priesthood holder somewhere in my family - I don't know!
oh, I hate not being able to hold thoughts in my head . . . I was thinking about what I'd write about the cucumber boats . . . but I forgot . . .
ReplyDeleteso, I like the cucumber story . . . I remember those years at girls camp - bishops night was my favorite . . . my dad, the smartest guy in the world, would come and share amazing stories with the girls - and this on your mission is even better because my mom, the smartest woman in the world, is there too!!!