How I Lead at Young Women Camp | An Interview with Vivian Bishop-Cook

Vivian Bishop-Cook lives in the Green Bay, Wisconsin area and works as a therapist. She has been a participant and leader at Young Women camps at least 15 times as an adult. Highlights 02:30 Introduction to Vivian and her background. 04:45 Vivian talks about what she is seeing in her therapist’s office. Most people are working on relationship issues, balancing their lives, and working on their self esteem. 07:15 Vivian’s girls camp experience growing up and also as a leader. As an adult she has been to girls camp 15-16 times. 11:50 Vivian focuses on 3 things for girls camp. She calls it the three ring circus. Faith Friendship Fun 14:50 One of the most important parts of camp is mentoring the YCLs and letting them lead. In Vivian’s stake they also call a YCL director. The YCLs are the heart of the camp. 20:40 How Vivian’s stake mentors the youth. Mentoring is the secret sauce. Youth do the devotionals. They pick the topic but Vivian mentors them on how to do the devotional and how to present the topic. 24:50 The number one request from the young women was to have a longer personal spiritual time during camp. 25:20 Vivian shares a story of one of her young women and her experience with personal spiritual time during camp. 26:40 Mentoring the youth to do devotionals is more than just mentoring. It’s an opportunity for the leaders and the youth to connect and get to know each other more. It’s a moment of one on one time to help them with their testimonies and struggles in their lives. 29:00 Part of having the YCLs doing the devotionals is to help them tap into their vulnerability and sharing a part of themselves. 29:45 In preparation for camp they teach the girls what a testimony is and what the components are. This helps the testimony meetings be focused on the gospel and so that the testimony meeting doesn’t turn into a group therapy session. 30:50 The ring of friendship is another important principle at camp. They created “campanions” so that everyone has a friend at camp. 35:00 Vivian’s stake has been working on including the YCLs more. They invite them to do the workshops with them. It’s not always easier to have the youth lead but it’s very important to their growth. 39:00 Vivian spent about 8 years outside the Church in her early 20s, where she explored other faiths. But everything led her back to the Church. 42:40 Final thoughts and testimony of leadership and growing closer to Christ. Links TRANSCRIPT coming soon Listen on YouTube Get 14-day access to the Core Leader Library