FOR OUR BENEFIT, THEY ARE HERE!

Our Mission continues and we will be blessed to have the Eagle Mountain East Stake here starting on Monday, which will include our Granddaughter April, Greg's oldest, on her first Girls Camp experience and Grandma and Grandpa get to be their hosts! I will have to post about that, for sure.

On July 20 to 23 in our camp Sariah, we had a most uplifting experience. And just coincidentally the following Sunday I was asked to give the Priesthood lesson, based on the talk in last conference by Dallin Oaks, called "Unselfish Service". Let me explain.
We were hosts to 4 groups of Special Needs Mutual girls from the Salt Lake Valley for their girls camps. They do things a bit differently, due to the limitations of many of the girls. They only come and stay for one night, Monday to Tuesday afternoon, and then Wednesday to Thursday afternoon. During this period of time, each of the girls is assigned a special buddy, who is a volunteer girl from usually another stake, who come here and donate their time to helping the girls in their camping experience. They are to do "everything" together, even going to the restroom, sleeping in adjacent bunks, and etc. They used two of our campgrounds so each of the nights there were two different groups here. We had the South Jordan and West Jordan groups on Monday and Tuesday, and the Brighton and Bonneville groups on Wednesday and Thursday.
It was very heart warming to see the bond that developed between the SN girls and their special friends. Lots of tears and hugs were shared in parting on the second day of each camp, even though they had only been together for just over 24 hours. It was an amazing thing to behold and the Spirit that was present was almost overwhelming at times.
Two stories that were really touching. There was one girl in a self-directed wheelchair who had Cerebral Palsey and of course had limited motor control. But we found out that she is going to start at Salt Lake Community College this fall to study computers! Her name is Tiara. The other was a girl who was climbing a tree to retrieve a cat when she was 16. Beautiful girl with a great smile! Her name is Brandy. As a result of the fall she is now confined to a wheel chair and has essentially no motor control and communicates by use of a pointing board attached to her wheel chair where she spells out words by pointing at the letters! Yet they go on.
I remember one tiny young volunteer helping her special needs friend, who was a lady who physically was in her 50's I would guess and yet this tiny girl stayed right by her with her arm through the ladies arm helping her to get around. It was just so touching to see these things happening all the time.
After the numerous opportunities of witnessing acts of "unselfish service" for 4 straight days we were convinced that these wonderful folks are here not for their benefit but for ours. We were taught what is was to be Christlike in our service to others.
The one group of volunteers was from the Uncle Boyd Fugal's Stake in Pleasant Grove, the Northfield Stake, and their shirts read "HE IS...". There we about 25 of them, all carrying this theme through their service.
I have included here 3 pictures of the more than 400 I took of this experience. I will share others with you at another time.