Letter of the law, or spirit of the law

The past two days have been emotionally and mentally exhausting as I've tried to make hard decisions as a president of a wonderful group of young women in our ward. Our annual girls camp is close to fruition just like the apples on my tree are close to picking.

These girls and their families have known for months about girls camp but yet it seems that all the little minutiae come forth in the last week to be hashed out and solved. This particular instance involves a girl who is a year ahead of where she should be in school relative to her peers but is in a different class at church.

Details were not communicated to me last year about what year each girl was supposedly certifying in. Because of that oversight I was left to my own judgment and placed the girls according to their age, not necessarily who they attended school with. Needless to say, I had a set of upset parents who wanted their girl to be with her peers from school, even though she had not completed the certification requirements and had only come to camp one out of the last three years.

It basically came down to whether I would follow the letter of the law, the age guidelines, that said she was technically a third year camper (and really that was even pushing it) OR would I let her simply go with the group she wanted, to be able to attend with her friends. 

I consulted many different people and ultimately decided to leave it up to the stake. They agreed to let her come as a 4th year and felt that being with friends was more important than camp certification. And they had room for her to still come with them.

I don't wholeheartedly agree with the decision but had decided before even contacting the stake that this was the best route to go if we were going to maintain harmony, thus allowing the spirit to be in our camp. The holy ghost confirmed this to me as I talked with our stake leaders.

Maintaining an environment where the spirit of God can dwell and thrive is essential to a home, to a family, to a marriage, to a community, to a neighborhood, and even girls camp.

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Too much emphasis on the letter makes us Pharisaical, and too much emphasis on the spirit makes us disobedient (because we feel we aren't subject to the 'stricture' of all of those darn rules). Now, before you all jump on my last statement, we should go by the spirit. But the letter points the way to that spirit. When we are living by the spirit of the law, the letter is not a problem for us because we understand the need for it in training us. --sixpacktr, found on a discussion board

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Good things
chocolate chip cookies
violins
early morning hours