Girls Camp Cook

I cannot say no. Brother! The trouble that gets me into!

“Gale, would you do me a huge favor?”

Linda, my younger sister looked at me beseechingly. What could I say? She had been called to be the Stake Young Women President about the same time I was asked to be the ward Relief Society President. My calling was exacting, but at least I was just in charge of all women who lived in our ward, (a ward consists of all the members of our church -the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints- who live in a designated geographical area. Our ward had about about 600 members.) Linda, on the other hand, was in charge of all the young women who lived in our stake. (A stake consists of all the wards in a geographical area, which in our case was all 10 wards in Snowflake.)

“What do you need?” I asked, thinking I ought to help her. Being Stake Young Women President was a really big job.

“Well, we're having a stake Girl's Camp this summer,” she began, looking at me out of the corners of her eyes. I remembered that look. It was the same one she'd used when she asked if she could have some of my birthday candy, or if she could use my new colored markers for her school project, or if I would drive she and her girlfriends down to the movies. Linda wanted something.

“Sooooooo, I was thinking,” Linda continued cautiously, “that maybe you and Moe could be our camp cooks?”

Really? Linda wanted me to cook for the entire Young Women Girls Camp? I was quite flattered. After all, Linda was known for her cooking. She had spent years teaching high school home-economics, and cooking was something she knew well. To think she thought I was good enough to be their cook! Cool!

“I don't know what Moe will think,” I told her, pretty sure that my husband would not be as flattered by the offer as I was, “but I'd be glad to do it.”

It wasn't until later that I began to think through what I had just done. Cooking for 200 teenage girls and their leaders would not really be a piece of cake, you know. Especially when those girls were out in the middle of the forest, and I would be cooking over a bar-b-Que grill the whole time.

Moe reluctantly agreed, but only because he knew he would just be along for the ride, not doing any of the real work.

Linda was extremely grateful, which boosted my ego even more, until I finally realized that she really didn't care what kind of cook I was. What she needed was Moe. Having that many girls and their leaders out camping required support from the brethren, and she needed to have at least two men in camp all the time. Having Moe there meant she was already half covered. So much for my ego.

I actually did have a lot of fun. I planned and experimented with all kinds of recipes, looking for food that would be easy to cook and please the girls at the same time. I shopped and organized, and developed menus for four days and three nights. I made 240 death by chocolate cupcakes, with the assistance of the sister-missionaries in our ward who volunteered to help. Then Moe and I transported everything up to the forest, and I cooked.

Things worked out pretty well, except for the rain and cold. Girls camp was the last week of May, normally a pretty dry time of the year in the Arizona mountains. But not this year. It rained every day, and even hailed once. It was so cold that I ran into town on the second afternoon to buy powdered cocoa mix and Styrofoam cups, so the girls could have hot chocolate that night.

Girls Camp was close enough to Snowflake for Moe and I to drive back and forth, sleeping at our house each night so I could check on mom and make sure she was doing alright, then leaving early in the morning so I was at camp in time to make breakfast. Mother, although still on oxygen and very lonely, was physically holding her own after loosing dad. It was good that we lived with her, since she was not able to do much manual labor or cleaning, but she insisted she was fine being alone during the day.

On the last day of camp, after cleaning up and packing all our equipment, I cornered Linda and told her thank you.

“This really has been a lot of fun,” I told her with a big smile. “It's been good for me to watch Kami and Krissi hanging out with their friends. I don't know if Kami would have come if Moe and I hadn't been here. She doesn't enjoy girls camp anymore than I did back when I was her age.”

Linda smiled and nodded her head. “I didn't like it much, either,” she admitted. “Strange how they make people like us in charge of stuff when we grow up.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But it's more fun now that I'm an old lady.”

“You're not an old lady,” Linda told me, laughing, “and everything was great. The food was delicious, and the meals worked out smoothly.”

“Well, I'm glad it went OK, and that it's over. You don't have to do Stake Girls Camp next year, do you?”

“No, thank goodness. Next year each ward will do their own camp.” Linda smiled at me, knowing I was checking to make sure she wasn't going to rope me into being camp cook again. “But you know, Gale,” she added with a sideways look out of her eyes, “the following year we're doing a Stake Pioneer Trek.”

Oh, no!