The best experience of my life

I'm going to EFY again this summer!! And this time, it's for EIGHT weeks. For anyone who doesn't know, Especially for Youth (EFY) is a summer program for teenagers that my church does. Each session is a week long and they have sessions all over the country (and in a few other countries). The youth (who are all 14-18) go to classes on different spiritual topics, have game nights, show off their talents, go to dances, and a ton of other stuff. It's a big opportunity for them to meet other LDS (Mormon) youth and strengthen their testimonies. I went for four years as a teen and last summer I went back as a counselor for three weeks. Each counselor is responsible for a group of 10ish teens of their same gender and then we're paired with a counselor of the opposite gender and our kids make up a company. We teach them devotionals and just take care of any of their needs during the week. It's an exhausting job and you hardly sleep, but it was definitely the best experience of my life. I learned so much from the youth and made some amazing friends out of my fellow counselors. So I applied again this year, and I got the job! However, I'm working way more sessions this year, including a special edition session in Palmyra, New York. So I'll get to visit a lot of Church historical sites, like the Sacred Grove, where God and Jesus Christ visited Joseph Smith, and visit the Palmyra temple! It's going to be the best summer of my life.

Here's some pictures from last year's experience:

 My very first group of girls. They're covered in ice cream in this first picture. Ice cream mountain/Ice cream fight - it's a tradition. I'm not quite sure why the youth enjoy being covered in ice cream so much.

 Same girls, much cleaner. This is before the Friday dance. My co-counselor, Michael, got roses for all of the girls.

Working on their service project.

This is the whole company from that first week - Direct Thy Path

 My girls from the second week. They were the sweetest and I adored them.

 My co-counselor, Mike, with the pyramid of DVDs that we built for check-in.

And the whole company from week 2 - Heaven's Highest

 I loved week 2, because my best friend/roommate Meghan was there as a counselor too! We were EFY roommates when we were teenagers so it was a dream come true for us to come back as counselors.

These ladies, Chelsea and Stefanie, lived in the same building as me in Georgia. We were crazy and had so much fun.

 After Georgia, we were off to Florida, where the campus is GORGEOUS.

 My girls made an amazing banner. The footprints were all done by finger painting. That is not what my finger painting looks like.

 Two of my favorite people in the world - Fabiola and Michael. We went on several adventures to Walmart together during the week. I miss them tons.

 My last company - Divine Mysteries. They might have been the craziest kids I had all summer. Every day with them was an adventure.

The EFY counselors from last summer. I miss them all so much!

Basically, I can't wait to go back.