PALMYRA, N.Y. — More than 400 youth, ages 14-18, and other volunteers from five stakes in the Palmyra, N.Y., area met at Seneca Lake April 24 to help transform a local farm into a Young Women camp.
A week of rain suddenly burst into a sunlit landscape as workers gathered their tools that morning. They built picnic tables and benches, constructed bridges, cleared trails in the woods, and demolished cattle feed areas in the barns to prepare the land for construction.
Seneca Lake, located 30 miles from Hill Cumorah where Joseph Smith was given the plates for translation into the Book of Mormon, is a beautiful pastoral area that is steeped in Church history. Located a short distance from the Peter Whitmer farm in Fayette, N.Y., where the Church was organized in 1830, Seneca Lake became a site for early baptisms, including the baptism of the Prophet's father, Joseph Smith Sr.
When completed in the summer of 2005, the Young Women camp will offer Church members an opportunity for outdoor activities and contemplation.
"A few years ago, we realized that the young women in the Rochester and surrounding stakes were badly in need of their own place for a camp," said Elder Neil Pitts, newly called Area Authority Seventy.
The girls had been renting space at Boy Scout camps, and were often unable to schedule the weeks they preferred.
After several years of dreaming, planning, praying and searching, leaders in local stakes found a spectacular 200-acre farm with lakefront property for sale.
Rising above the east shore of Seneca Lake, the property has two homes, three barns, five silos, a little cottage on the lake, and a dock boat house, "all in pristine condition," Elder Pitts observed.
Historically, Seneca Lake was one of the cleanest, and most reflective of the 11 finger lakes in the region.
"The property met our needs because we wanted not only land, but also water for swimming, canoeing and boating," said Elder Pitts.
In the open fields, rustic cabins will be built with bunk beds on four pods or camping sites scattered throughout the area. Each pod will have names taken from the Book of Mormon. The cabins will house 200 young women and adults.
There will also be a pavilion, a first-aid station, an amphitheater, rest rooms and showers.
A gentle flowing creek has carved a deep ravine suitable for rappelling. In the wooded areas, a forester has begun to shape trails.
Elder Pitts commented that the seven stakes of Rochester, Palmyra, Syracuse, Buffalo, Owego, Utica and Albany have agreed to maintain the property.
Echoing the feelings of others, Gabby Weese, 14, from Brookport, N.Y., said, "I'm definitely coming back when the camp opens. Attending will give me a feeling of accomplishment."