Fathers and Sons and Rachel

My awesome friend Alice made our welcome sign.

I currently hold the second best job in the United States, the first, of course, belonging to my pal Barack. (The only reason President Obama's job is slightly better than mine is because he gets his own bowling alley.) I work as a head counselor for BYU Sports Camps. My friend Derek is my co-head counselor, and he and I are in charge of the counselors for the summer. This meant hours of advertising, interviewing, and scheduling. I love it all (that's a lie. I didn't love the time when we had to take one trillion ads to every building on campus during what I believed to be a freezing apocalypse. The oblivious weather man claims it was just a blizzard, though.) and I've been so excited for the summer to start! Memorial Day weekend kicked off our very first camp, Fathers and Sons!

On the first day, the planner of the camp, David, asked me if I could take some flags over to the football field in the GEM, a little electric golf cart. I said I would and I hit the road. The GEM can only go 25 miles/hour at most, but that was fine because it was only a 3 minute drive to the stadium. Just as I was getting there, the GEM started beeping and felt sluggish, but I ignored it, grabbed the flags, and brought them into the stadium.

Because I love watching sports, my job is the perfect one for me because sometimes I get to stand on a field/court without actually being athletic. I took the flags next to the first row of seats and then marched right onto the field. This had nothing to do with my actual job, but I've always wanted to stand on the field where I've watched so many games. In the middle of taking a goofy looking selfie on the field and thus checking another item off the bucket list, David called and said he needed the GEM back.

I went back to the GEM, which continued to beep at me as I drove through the parking lot. It took me a little bit too long to realize that this chirping noise was not installed as an attempt for a poor radio system, but instead to warn me that the little electric car was RUNNING OUT OF ELECTRICITY. Would it really be that difficult to make sirens start blaring when such a life crisis arises instead of a tin beeping noise?! Obviously Heavenly Father loves me, because just then my wonderful friend and co-worker Natalie drove up to see what I was up to. We exchanged our concerns that I was going to die into the golf-cart-turned-death-trap and she promised she would follow me back to the Smith Fieldhouse. I puttered over to the stoplight and said about one hundred prayers as I crossed the busy intersection. This may seem like an exaggeration, but there was enough time to say one million prayers in the time it took the cart to cross the street and safely onto the sidewalk. Going down hill was a little bit faster, but eventually I hit level ground and I was back to going the speed of a three-toed sloth. (You better believe I just read an article about the top 10 slowest animals in the world.) Part of me tried to tell myself, "Hey, you're not actually going that slow." Then another child would pass me on their Barbie bike and I would come back to my senses.

It turns out that if you drive a golf cart 5 miles an hour on the sidewalk, people think it's a great idea to yell at you via their car window. Didn't they know I was ON A MISSION?!? How would the crew of Apollo 13 feel if spacecrafts kept speeding by honking their horns?!  Fortunately some of the voices yelling at me were familiar, as Derek and David yelled to me, "RACHEL! YOU CAN DRIVE THE GEM ON THE STREET!" Apparently they thought I was driving incredibly slow on the sidewalk because I was too scared to go fast. IF ONLY THAT WAS THE PROBLEM. Every intersection I reached I would look back at Natalie and she would cheer me on as if I was completing a marathon. (If completing a marathon was ever for some bizarre reason on my bucket list, this event could definitely count in lieu of an actual one) We would yell back and forth to each other about whether or not we thought I would actually make it, but usually we couldn't hear what the other one was saying because we were both laughing too hard at this ridiculous spectacle. At least Natalie was nice enough to pretend like she thought I was going to survive to eat another pork salad from Cafe Rio. Finally I crossed the last intersection and made it back. What took a few minutes getting there took about 15 minutes to get back. Natalie and I had a good long laugh, and I promised myself I would never put my life at risk again by getting in that death machine. (That promise was broken a few hours later when I decided that only fools walk around campus, but whatever.)

The rest of the weekend consisted of pretending I was part of the basketball team, running errands all around campus, proving I was not part of the basketball team by consuming large amounts of ice cream, and glaring at the GEM every time I passed it. On Sunday we got to take the campers to Music and the Spoken Word in Salt Lake City and then had sacrament meeting in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square. I was hesitant about being one of the only girls in Sacrament meeting since many of the talks talked about father-son relationships, but it reminded me of how much a hero my own dad is to me, and how much I love him. I was also able to think a lot about my relationship with my Heavenly Father and how grateful I am for him and his unconditional love.

This weekend was also a good reminder that no matter how hard you plan, things won't always turn out your way. During the fireside Sunday night, my awesome counselors scooped ice cream into bowls so they would be ready for the campers when they finished. The fireside went almost half an hour too long, and all the ice cream melted into soup. I only wish I had a video of the kid next to me who slurped up his dessert with no spoon. The moral from this story is never plan anything in advance.


Overall it was a great weekend, and I'm glad I got to be a part of it. To complete this blog post, here's a picture of the men's basketball coach, Coach Rose, riding a pink moped. Me and the GEM could beat him in a street race any day.