growing up

So I am now back from girls camp. I loved it as a camper and now I love it as a counselor. This is my second year in a row as a counselor. It’s rough to be in charge of five eleven-to-twelve-year-old girls, but intensely rewarding. And so much fun when you’re still half-kid inside. You get kind of torn sometimes, though, because half of you understands what the adults are talking about and half of you understands what the girls are talking about and it’s hard to make the talk meet somewhere in the middle. If that makes any sense.

The whole week was great, but I want to mention a strange “adult” moment I had last night. One of my girls, one whom I love dearly, got sick. I think part was from the heat, part from overexertion, and part from camp food (the food was great! I’m actually friends with the head cook. But weird things happen in the heat, especially with girls who only eat junk food because they don’t know any better). She threw up a couple times in the course of the day, and actually got quite hysterical in the evening. I think the hysteria was a combination of sickness, the heat, the emotion from the testimony meeting, and the emotion from it being the last day of camp. After the girls watched the slideshow of pictures from the week, I had this girl go take a shower, and then we were all going to go to sleep in our tent. And then the junior staff and junior counselors (16- and 17-year-olds), eternal rivals, started a water fight in the middle of the night. Most of the girls from the rest of the camp got involved, and my girls were recruited.

And here came my dilemma.

It was the last night of camp, and I wanted the girls to have fun because I knew it would make a great memory. I also really wanted to go and be a part of it. BUT, one of my girls, the most energetic one and the one who wanted most dearly to go, had been sick all day. And I put my foot down. Two of my girls went and joined the water fight, because my sick little drama queen insisted they go. I knew she hated me. I felt so guilty because I knew I was taking a priceless memory from her. But, even though she had had a blessing and was feeling much better, the best thing for her to do right then was to sleep. I knew she was spent and that the only reason she wasn’t sleepy was that her body was running on adrenaline.

And I realized that that’s what good parents do all the time. They say no, even though they know it will make their child angry or upset, that it will hurt their child’s feelings. They say no because they know it is the best thing for the child. It reminded me of the movie Raising Helen, where Helen has to raise her sister’s orphans and learn how to be a good parent, and one of the lessons she has to learn is that sometimes she has to put her foot down and let them think she’s mean, let them think she’s uncool, let them hate her. She has to do it because she cares more about their well-being than about being cool.

Needless to say, it was a bizarre moment for me. I had been the crazy, fun, immature counselor all week, but last night was the time to be the adult.

And it definitely makes me think of our Heavenly Father. Sometimes we ask for things because we don’t see the bigger picture, and He has to say no, because He knows what we need, and He knows that that is more important than what we want. And He always has His priorities straight.

Just as a short epilogue to the story, this girl doesn’t hate me. After a good night’s sleep she was once again happy to see me and sad to say goodbye. She gave me a long, tight hug before she left. She was definitely my biggest handful this week, but she has become very precious to me. I can see the strength of her spirit and I am so excited to watch her blossom into a beautiful and wonderful young woman. I have one word to describe her: delightful.

Last night, the camp director, a woman I’ve known for years and years, since I was a little camper myself, said something to me last night that really touched me. She said that I’m probably the best thing that happened to those little first years. That just makes me beam inside.

only ONE semester of Spanish???

I’m going to be a counselor at Saratoga Stake Young Women’s camp next week. I’m pretty excited. Well a couple days ago a girl who’s going to be a JC asked me to help the JCs (Junior Counselors) with a skit they’re planning to do for talent night, based on the YouTube video “One Semester of Spanish – Love Song”. If you haven’t seen it, and you understand even the most rudimentary Spanish, I recommend it. It is a linguistic beauty. Anyways, the JCs want me to play guitar for them in the background. The chords aren’t that hard, but I tried to find the lyrics online so I could get a sense of when I play the verse chords and when I play the chorus chords, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. Granted, I didn’t look TOO terribly hard, but I did try. So I decided to transcribe them. And now I’m going to include them here to benefit other people out there who may be looking for the lyrics to this sensuous song of passion.

(p.s. My Spanish is kinda rusty so if anyone notices errors in the Spanish please let me know! Even though he mispronounces things and accentuates the wrong syllables, I want the spelling to at least be correct)

(p.p.s. I was going to include the chords but I don’t know how to get the spacing right because it publishes funky. It’s a pretty basic Am-E-Am on the verses and Dm-Am-E-Am on the chorus bits).

The One Semester of Spanish Love Song

Hola, señorita. ¿Cómo te llamas?
Me llamo Mike, me llamo Mike.
¿Dónde está el baño? Feliz Cumpleaños.
¿Qué hora es, què hora es?
La da da da da. Me gusta la biblioteca, vivo en la casa roja,
Yo tengo dos bicicletas, muchos gracias y de nada.
¿Cuántos años tienes? Un momento por favor,
it’s the one semester of Spanish Spanish love song.

Mi mamá es bonita, mi gato es muy blanco,
Perdone me, ¡perdone me!
La da da da da, uno dos trés y cuatro,
cinco seis síete ocho,
nueve diéz, no remembro how to say eleven
Antonio Banderas, nachos grande y cinnamon twists,
it’s the one semester of Spanish Spanish love song.

Au revoir.

(props to runawaybox, the poster of the video, and Spanish Mike, the singer)