EFY- Salt Lake City 3

This week of EFY was really interesting for me. I was SO excited to go back to EFY all week during my week off. I was even thinking to myself a lot, "If I were at EFY, I'd be doing *this* right now." But then Saturday night hit and I suddenly didn't want to go back. I'm not entirely sure why. I was kind of stressed because I had been trying to look for a real job for after EFY, but I couldn't find anything. I was worried about having a hard week and the necessary energy to be a counselor. I was overwhelmed and just not sure if I could do another week. It was also hard because it started to become a bit monotonous. During EFY training, someone mentioned how important it is to give each week your all because even though you may work multiple weeks in a summer, it's the only shot these kids have. I just thought, "Duh. Why wouldn't I give each week my all?" I was so excited to be an EFY counselor and didn't understand how it could be difficult when you have personal stuff going on and when you're exhausted and spent in every way possible. I was just kind of burned out. It was compounded by the fact that not only was it my fourth week, but it was my third week with the exact same campus, exact same schedule, exact same dorm building, and exact same food. It really became a bit monotonous. And all of these things going on added up to me not really wanting to be there, even once I got up to Salt Lake and was at the fireside. It was interesting that at the fireside for counselors, our session director (Brother Bacon) talked about desires. And a lot of the counselors talked about desiring to help their kids in various ways. I felt pretty inadequate when I realized that my desire was just to have the desire to be at EFY so that I could be a good possible.

Luckily, that desire did come (though it didn't starting coming until Monday evening and didn't really come until Tuesday) and I ended up having a great week. I was with the 14-15 year olds again. This week, I had 12 girls in my group, and there were 34 kids overall in our company. Our company was Glory of the Sun (from 1 Corinthians 15:40-42). Things weren't perfect with our company, but my girls were sweethearts. That was such a blessing, considering how much I was struggling at the beginning of the week. I felt bad that I wasn't able to spend as much time with them as I wanted, since I was on lunch and free time duty a lot, but they were pretty understanding.

I learned a lot personally this week. It was definitely hard in a lot of ways with the different personal things me and my co's were going through, as well as dealing with some difficult things within the company, but it was so good. And there was such a good payoff. As hard as it is, I wish I could be an EFY counselor forever.

The co's... Ryan, Kylie, and me.

Glory of the Sun!

But as for now, I need to finish packing and get to bed. I leave in less than 8 hours to head out to Kirtland for my last week of EFY. I'm sad EFY is almost over for me, but I am so excited to go to Kirtland. It should be a blast!