Girls Camp 2016: Have Hope

"You will have many challenges in your lives, but if you will always center your life in Jesus Christ and NEVER lose hope, you will have peace. Remember that darkness has no power against light"(Dawn J. Young). This is the message that we "hope" will stay with all who attended girls camp this year. Our camp theme "A Perfect Brightness of Hope", taught us to never give up on our Savior. For the rest of our lives, we must be rooted to God our Father and His Son Jesus Christ. We spend such a short time at camp, but the camp theme and it's message, will stay with us much longer that 4 days we spent at camp.

Now the question is how do we maintain all the things we learned at camp? It is easy to feel the Spirit when we are up at camp with people who love us and share our faith; away from worldly music, media, and standards. But what do we do when the tent comes down and we return back to a world of hate and declining standards? The answer is simple. We have hope.

What does it mean to have hope? We can hope that our favorite sports team will win the game, or we can hope that that cute boy likes us back. But when it comes to Heavenly Father hope is much more than an empty desire. Hope is faith in the Lord and His plan for us. Heavenly Father promised us that if we remain faithful we will someday be able to live with Him and become like Him. When we keep that promise in our hearts when we are going through hard times, we can remember what we are really here for. Hard things that are going on in our lives now will someday be a faint memory because God will keep His promise to us that everything will work out. Whether you are a 12 year old beehive or a fun Grandma leader, it is crucial to have hope. To have hope for the future. To have hope and faith in The Lord. We must have the courage and hope to look forward to things to come when we live a Christ centered life.

Our solo time booklets asked us to think of 4 ways to gain hope. There are so many ways that can help us strengthen our hope! Here are a few ideas to get you thinking about how to gain more hope.

1. Build a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Our ward has already given us a head start on this one! As we "Give Him 5" everyday by reading our scriptures we are building our relationship with Christ. As we come to know Our Savior, we can understand His Atonement and the impact it has on our future. We learn that everything that was broken will become fixed and we can become clean so we can live in the presence of our Heavenly Father.
2. Live the standards of the gospel. When you first think about the standards of the church, they might not seem like something that would give us hope. But when you think about it more, you will come to see that the standards can bring hope. When we live a life that matches what God asked us to, we get power. We have the Spirit with us which gives us the ability to do so much more than we could do alone. By living the gospel standards we can get the strength to overcome challenges and we can have the strength to move on to the future. 
3. Constantly communicate with the Lord. A lot of times it is east to fall into a spiritual rut. We say the same prayers, we go to church, but we don't really pay attention. Don't let that happen to you! When it does happen, get out as fast as you can. When we are actively communicating with God through prayer, scripture study, and church meetings, we can hear promptings that will tell us what we need to be doing. This can give us hope to accomplish the things we were put here on earth to do. 
4. Keep an eternal perspective. Look past things that are going on right now. Remember that there is more to come, and that our main goal is to live faithful so we can return to out Father. Our Heavenly Father promised us that He will make everything OK. He has a plan fur us and our lives. It is east to get caught up in little things in life like school, friends, and family. But in the end all we need to worry about is our devotion and faith in God. School, friends, and family are all good things, but when they are getting in the way of our spiritual progression, it is important to look at the eternal perspective. 

So while you may be sad that camp is over (especially if it was your last year of camp), in reality camp isn't over. It never really gets over. The things we learned, the friends we made, the Spirit we felt, and the testimonies that were built and strengthened will be with us forever. Something about our lives will never be the same. Our hearts will be capable of loving more than they were before. Our friendship bonds will be stronger than they were before. We will have more hope than we had before. Our testimonies will burn brighter and stronger than before. All because of the 4 days we spent together at girls camp.