Blue/Green/Salmon/Melon/Orange/Periwinkle

So that's it, right? No more polos... perhaps ever. I have a plan for this point out, and it no longer leaves my summertime open.
What do I have to show from three summers of EFY? Well, first of all, these summers are not about me. It doesn't matter if I didn't get anything from the many weeks of tiring hours and little profit. As long as the youth go home with something, then it's ok. And there is pretty much no way any counselor goes home without having gained something.

After 14 weeks total over 3 years, I have seen both sides of this program. If I were to focus on the negative aspect (in my view, strictly opinion), I would see a bunch of teenagers who come to this camp for social reasons and minor spiritual aspirations. I would see the tears at the end of the week and despair that the children think only of their basest of relations and don't focus on the greater relationships of life, like the one with your Savior and your family. I would see a bunch of attention craving and obnoxious college students who revert to a level of maturity experienced long ago... and I would be part of that. I would see the cliques and clapping and cheering and dancing and gossiping and I would wonder where the true purpose has gone.

And I would only scratch the surface. The positive is so much heavier, but so much deeper and more difficult to perceive. Will these boys remember? Has the spirit spoken to them as it did to me when I was at their age?

Two years ago I had a group, "Being Alone", which was so phenomenal that they got their very own post on my blog in addition to a spot in the one post of amalgamated EFY memories. Of those twelve boys from that week, eleven are on their mission (with the 12th being a possibility, though I no longer have contact with him). One comes home relatively soon. For this alone, my many weeks with the tools and eccentricities of the staff seem wonderfully bearable. And again, this is only a scratch on the surface.