YW Camp Miracles
Among some members in the Merthyr Tydfil Wales Stake, the best time to book a foreign holiday is the week when the Young Women camp is planned, because the weather is almost always terrible. The camp in 2019 was no exception. As the Young Women camped in West Wales over the Easter holidays the weather turned particularly grim, with high winds and heavy rain forecast. The girls, however, still managed to have a great time.
Some of the activities were moved to the nearby Newcastle Emlyn Chapel and one morning, when the weather was clear, they spent several hours providing service at Skanda Vale, a multi-faith spiritual community near Llanpumsaint, Carmarthenshire. The community includes an ashram monastic community, a hospice and three Buddhist temples. Sister Shelly Bristow, the stake Young Women president is a regular volunteer at the hospice and she arranged for the girls and their leaders to help at the centre. They engaged in a number of activities including cleaning out the elephants’ enclosure!
President Matthew Wigglesworth, of the stake presidency, visited the camp overnight with his wife, Sara. President Wigglesworth related how the Lord supplied gentle miracles for the group despite the difficult weather conditions. The Met Office had issued a yellow weather warning while the girls were at camp. As the girls assembled in the marquee for their testimony meeting it was raining and blowing so hard that they couldn’t hear each other.
But President Wigglesworth reported that as the meeting began it all calmed down. The sun came out, bringing a rainbow and the sounds of the birds singing. He also recalled that he was woken in the early hours of the following morning with the wind whipping around his tent. He got up to check how everyone was faring. He found that the marquee was lifting off the ground even though it had been securely strapped down the night before. Even the thick side poles were bending in the storm, but as he went around checking the tents of the young women and their leaders, he found that not a single guy rope had been pulled out; complete peace and calm surrounded them.