Girl's Camp

Well, the first thing you need to know is that they haven't really had girl's camp (or boy's camp) in our Stake for 11 years. They've had youth conferences, but somehow the other stuff fell out of favor. So this year the Stake President decided to start up the process again. There was quite a bit of resistence--to the point that he was accused of apostacy for wanting to have camp, and in tents! (No really, somebody thought it was against the handbook to have girls camp and use tents. Maybe the previous leaders used that for an excuse to avoid it!)

Carnaval is such a carnal week down here that all youth camps and activities are ALWAYS planned the four days of carnaval to keep the kids off the streets during this time. Our church services (the week before Carnaval) was let out early to help people get home before the Parade of the Piranhas (transvestites--everybody goes drag for fun and to expose their stupidity) which passes in front of our chapel. The next week, church for the youth was at camp; the adults and primary kids combined with another ward. The missionaries are on house arrest that week too.

The last factor is that public parks aren't known for being safe. Going hiking at some of the forests around here is considered foolish because theives can be hiding anywhere and jump out when you are isolated. Anyway, there aren't really places to camp, and our stake doesn't own any land. But in Rio, many people live in apartments, so when someone wants to hold a big party (which is a very common thing to do) they rent a special party place. Most times these places are houses that have a pool and lots of land and room for a barbaque. So that's what the church did. We camped on the soccer field.

I had to put in some pictures of this house! It was AAAMAZING. It must have been the pinnacle of chic in the 1960's. I guess it was built for a judge that did a lot of entertaining. He died, and his kids arent' interested in the house anymore, so it's a party place now that will probably be bought out by land developers anyday.