This is what I got for my birthday:

Lost. 

In the mountains.

I was "leading" a group of four 13-year-olds back down to our girls' church camp after a morning hike. After spending a couple of frustrating hours hiking back and forth down several different trails, all involved learned a very valuable lesson: that it only takes one wrong turn to veer away and become far from the right path. Luckily I had another great friend "leading" with me to share the embarrassment, humiliation, terror, panic, and (later) tear-inducing, ab-tightening, all-you-can-do laughter. 

We sped too far ahead of the rest of the group behind us and ventured far from camp. It was a humbling experience after that morning I dug into my fruit and granola parfait and listened to the survival lesson thinking it was for the most extreme cases and probably not very applicable. I'm usually pretty confidant and feel like I have a decent sense of direction, but things change when you have four young girls entrusted by their parents and one is starting to experience symptoms of heat exhaustion under your wing. The looming dark clouds weren't close, but still a threat to consider. 

While running to retrace our steps down one of the trails I heard the mysterious rattle sound that a couple of girls complained about at a certain spot. Here is where I realized the potential danger of situations such as this with particular unmentioned reptiles who make particular rattling sounds. I learned that I need to be better prepared next time I want to go off on a mountain and play Jim Bridger. 

Meanwhile back at the camp, four wheelers were sent out searching for our small group, an impressive set of speakers and sound system were set up to blast music calling us home with what I think I remember playing "The Eye of the Tiger" upon our return. One of the other leader's husband flies for search and rescue and was about ready to hop in the copter to come spot us for his worried wife when we made our way up the hill. 

Although an embarrassing situation and thankfully not too dire, it was still nice to see the forces at work who cared enough to bring us home. So many parallels can be drawn from this experience. All of the girls included their own interpretation in their testimony around the fire that evening. One was grateful for the atonement which makes it possible to return, another for how difficult it was so she remembered the lessons learned. One said, "This was the hardest, most difficult . . . and coolest thing I've ever done."