Emma is a First Year!

This coming Tuesday Emma goes to Girls Camp as a first year. After all the weeks I've spent at Girls Camp, days I've planned, hours I've played, minutes I've smiled, moments I've cried (yes all wonderful things) I'm having a little bit of a hard time letting my baby go. Oh I'm sure every mother feels this way, but with 14 years of Girls Camp in my past I felt like sending Emma to create her own "moments" would be the happiest day of my life. It is a happy day, it is I swear, but in the back of my mind I remember certain girls who were supposed friends being really mean, certain leaders calling me a cry baby when they didn't know I was there, and those awkward times when I was so painfully shy I cried through times that should have been easy.  Those types of memories bring back some resentment but then they also bring back other memories like my sister Anita having my back, going to talk to the stake camp director for me bacause my knees hurt so much and I was having a hard time hiking or the time those said girls set up our tent while I was helping set up others tents and then left no room for anything but my sleeping bag but when Sis. Gamett found out she let me use the whole back of her SUV as my personal dressing room! I don't want Emma to go through mean girls or tough moments with her tender heart. I want everything to always be peachy, but in reality I know that because of those mean girls I'm more sensitive as an adult leader towards those awkward girls. I know that because of the good AND bad experiences I am who I am today; that both experiences taught me something and in all honesty I want my beautiful young woman to go have the experience that the Lord has planned for her. I will pray however that she'll have the type of experience that will help her want to go again because in going again and again is where I learned not to let go of the iron rod, stand as a witness of Jesus Christ, understand and know my Heavenly Father loves me, know for fact that angels walk among us, and many many more wonderful things. Those things were planted deep in my heart and became the foundation to my testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I desperately want that for my daughter.

So, it's down to the final countdown and it's time for me to let go!