June 20th ~ Monday

When I woke up, I was indeed burnt :-( but Diny, from Holland, told me using toothpaste worked well. I started the day  rubbing mint toothpaste all over my burnt shoulders. It actually does work nicely.

We had our morning inspirational thoughts and meeting. Next was breakfast and  Word study time with the young ladies. This went well and we really do have a great bunch of girls. I scrambled to get ready for my elective that I'm doing, snorkeling.

It went really well and the kids all seemed to enjoy it. But I did not realize how hard it is to get a mask to fit your face until I was trying to get these young people set. It took about a half hour to get eight of them ready.

 Laura, co-leader, was unable to swim today so I took them out alone. We made it around the large rock without anything too exciting happening. There were some different fish that were rather nice and interesting rock formations. Once you come around the turn it is rather deep. I did not know where we were supposed to meet the kayaks so I started to head across the cove to a sandy area. The water was so deep you couldn't see anything but the very blue water and the sun rays. It was rather pretty in its own ways.

P.S. I was wearing a shirt for those concerned. But we overshot the rock we were suppose to meet at and had to back track a little bit. After arriving at the rock I had one young lady inform me she has panic attacks and she was nervous  she might have one. Then a young man told me he was exhausted, even though I had repeatedly asked about stamina and been told he was fine, and unsure he could swim back.... We all did make it back. Life is good.

It was funny to me that one of the Turkish girls while sitting on the rock eating our snack proclaimed, "I'm black!" in a very cute Turkish accent. Now she is honestly not that much darker than I am, I actually think I might be slightly darker at this point. We had a fun conversation about how skin color and the definition of beauty changes depending on where you are. We also had some other good conversations.

Later I did kayak check-outs which was somewhat stressful. I really don't like having the safety of so many young lives  in my control. But all was well, although I banned one kid from ever using the kayaks again...

For big group games we did capture the flag and the playing field was ridiculous! You could not see from one end to the other and it was extremely hot and on very rocky and sandy terrain. I ended up falling and have a really large bruise scrape thing on my thigh. I did not have time to change out of my swimsuit so more skin than normal was exposed, it was not pleasant and after all that I was an inch to slow :-(

We ended the day with a much appreciated dinner, lesson (dignity), and cabin time.