Girls Camp Army Military Battalion Theme

I’ve gotten the chance to plan a few Girls’ Camps for the Church of Jesus Christ over the years. Before we get started with the details about our Military themed girls camp from this year, feel free to check out ideas from other years also. 

Check out our Wizard of Oz girls camp here. 

Or the Shine in the World girls camp here. 

Plus, I got to be a small part of a Book Of Mormon based youth conference too.  I was in charge of the Tree of Life, and the details for that are in the post linked above. 

This year, our 2018 Girls’ Camp Theme was “Protect your Peace.” We turned it into a military/army theme! When President Nelson invited the youth to be part of his youth battalion I was sooooo excited because plans for our camp  were  well underway at that point! 

Our notes from our first meeting set our minds on fire. Here are those thoughts:

START NOTES

Girls camp -Protect your Peace

*surround yourself with good comrades 
*Enlistment
*Basic training/ boot camp-kick off activity
*Battle plan and communication from the front line back to the troops! Walkie talkie activity!
*Code of conduct (no man left behind…protect each other)
*Uniform
*What is our weapon
*Who is our captain 
*Daily rations (fed spiritually)
*War in heaven ( they were already valiant) need to know who they are and who’s they are! They fought then, and can fight now! 
*We know how the war ends and that brings PEACE! If we are on Lords side we cannot fail! 
*Boots on the ground…Are we willing to fight the fight…Act or acted upon! 
*Are you using Christ’s camouflage
*When it it ok to RETREAT?
*Armour of God 

I keep thinking about all the trials and tribulations (bombs) that come at us, and how sometimes girls (even adults) think that getting married in the temple means that they will live happily ever after. But the truth is, we will all have hard times aka “rough terrain” and we need to stay close to the spirit, and rely on the Savior and His atonement to make it through those hard times. 

MESS HALL {food}, COMMAND CENTER {Stake Camp}, LATRINE {bathrooms}, MEDIC {nurse}, BOMB SHELTER {amphitheater}….and many more!

Daily themes:

P – Prepare for promises (Monday)
E – Enlist in royal army  (Tuesday)
A – Align with Christ (Wednesday)
C – Convert yourself and others (Thursday)
E – Endure eternally (Friday)

(We already know which side wins, which uniform will you wear)

END NOTES

So, as you can see, we were ready with really fun ideas, and our minds were whirling! 

We had our YCL’s make our decorations a few months before girls camp. They made bomb garland, ward signs made out of spray paint camouflage, and a really cute cardboard jeep {which somehow I didn’t get one picture of before the wind obliterated it, darn it!}. 

It looked similar to this one;

1. 

I gathered a few camouflage nets and that completed the decorations. 

We assigned each ward a military name, and we found out from one of our bishops who was at girls camp and a military vet, that our names didn’t make any sense in the actual military, but we laughed about it anyway! We definitely didn’t mean any disrespect. We just liked the names!

Each ward was also assigned a color and I made them each a logo. To make the logos, I bought a $15 military clip art set from creative market and made them into logos! 

When the girls arrived at check in, we gave them each a drawstring backpack, a name tag, a colored bandana that matched their ward logo, a sweatshirt, chapstick, and dog tags.

Several young women earned their 10 hour projects by helping us design, organize and sort the goods. 

This is what our sweatshirts looked like:

Instead of skits, we had a “Battle of the Boots” where each ward made up a short dance to perform. We cut the music beforehand to 60 seconds and the girls had a blast preparing their dances while at camp. We were very careful not to say anything about this before camp because we wanted it to be a surprise. 

We had several wards tell us how great this was because they bonded as a ward while they worked on their dances. Plus, no one has to bring anything to camp for this. In years past, skits have been stressful for leaders to plan.  Plus many bishops participated, and that was so great! 

(Side note: our stake presidency approved every song beforehand). 

I was in charge of a Human Battleship workshop where the girls could either call out a square to attack or choose to send a bomb attack (small balls thrown to hit their enemies). Stay tuned for a full tutorial on this game soon. 

For our service project, we each brought 2 yards of fleece and we made blankets to be sent to refugees. 

We had an absolute blast (pun intended)! And we even gave our ward camp directors a bucket full of MREs (military required essentials) like Tylenol, earplugs, treats and more on Day 1.

Our workshops focused on putting on the armor of God, keeping the communication lines open with our Savior, and expecting rough terrain in our journey. 

Thank you to all who helped plan, cook and execute this fun girls camp! I loved every minute! 

Me on Day 1:

Me on Day 5:

Haha! Truth! I look like I got hit by a Mack Truck!!

xoxo,

Brooke