Be, be, be prepared; the motto of the boy scouts

In the last couple of week, I had two big events with my 11 year old scouts.  Ont Friday and Saturday June 14-15, we were at Adventure Park, which is a scout camp just for 11 year olds.  It is at the end of the road on the North Fork of Hobble Creek, east of Provo Peak and takes most of an hour to get there, mostly because the last 2 miles are a terrible road.  (They say 2 miles but it seemed like 10, all twists, turns, rocks, bumps, and dust.  The camp is in a pretty setting however, rather primitive and wooded.  There is just a dribble of water in the Creek at that point.

I went with some trepidation, concerned that it had been a few years since I had camped with scouts, and that maybe my old body couldn’t put up with sleeping in the wilds and chasing 11 year olds for 2 days.  But I could, and it was still fun to be in camp with boys.  The comaraderie, the joking, watching the guys learn and explore still had some magic.

It was sort of a “de je vous” experience.  I remembered how similar I felt after my first heart attack, and that was 29 years ago.  I was insecure about what my body could tolerate for a time, and steered away from strenuous outdoor stuff.  After a couple of years someone pushed me (maybe Larry Kn) to go on a backpacking trip to the Uinta Mountains with the older boys in the ward.  Was Matthew in that group?  Anyway, I resolve to not do anything too strenuous, like climb a mountain.  I knew I could carry the pack OK, but also that they were planning to climb a peak to flash signals to other scouts on other mountaintops.  The day came and we were camped right below a mountain called Cleveland Peak, which is on the ridge above Moon Lake and Brown Duck basin.  The kids and leaders stated the climb.  It was not technical, just taking strong legs and strong lungs.  Boyd W was there as a member of the Bishopric, about 10 years older that I, and we resolved to stay together in camp.  However, as we saw people start to climb, we decided to follow them slowly to a point where they disappeared over a ridge.  After a few minutes we made it comfortably to the ridge and we saw the climbers ahead of us hiking toward the peak.  My body and heart and lungs were doing just fine, so I kept going clear to the top with the strongest of the group.  It was now obvious that there were no limits physically on what I could do, so at that hour I lost any fears and insecurities about pushing my body.  It was a wonderful revelation that allowed me to have a number of other outdoor experiences, without anxiety, over the next number of years.

I thought about my Cleveland Peak epiphany as I was finding last week that my 76 year old body could still enjoy a good camp with the scouts.

Mt. Nebo

Also, on this very morning, Randy R (my new assistant) and I did a 5 mile hike with our little patrol.  We did the Spanish Fork River Trail and River Bottoms Road loop.  We had Josh with us and also Sterling M and Ethan C.  We stopped every half mile or so and shot a direction with a compass.  We made it a contest, where each boy would shoot the direction and tell us their reading, then Randy would shoot the same object and the kid the closest to Randy’s reading would win.  At first the variation was quite wide like 20-30 degrees, but by the time we approached our car, they were coming within 2-3 degrees of each other and Randy.  For the last shot, which was the peak of Mt. Nebo, two of the kids had readings of 200 degrees and Joshua called it 199 degrees.  Randy, the politician that he is, announced that the official direction was 199.5, and everyone was happy.  This is the best that any group I have had of 11 year olds, in mastering use of a compass.

Wendy fixed a waffle breakfast for all of us before we went at 7:30 am.  It took us over three hours to hike the five miles.  The boys found lots of things to explore along the way and I was glad for the not so fast pace.  I came home and took a long nap, and now am not the worse for wear for my latest scouting adventure.

The “Buddy” system

While at 11 year old camp last Friday and Saturday, we pushed the BUDDY rule.  We had four boys so needed two buddy groups.  Joshua was with Jared and Ethan with Sterling.  They got into the spirit of buddiness and did a pretty good job of staying together as buddies.  They were able to tell us the reason for the system–to protect their buddy and keep each other safe, from getting lost, and to give or go for help as needed. 

Sterling’s dad, Chad M, was there, and he told us of his experience as a soldier in Iraq.  In the army, each man had a BATTLE BUDDY.  The reasons and responsibilities were similar to the scouting buddy.  He said if an enemy sniper had you both pinned down and you needed to get to safer place, your buddy might shoot a bunch of shots in the vicinity of the sniper, while you ran for better cover.  Then you would shoot a bunch of shots to cover your buddy while he joined you.  Without such a battle buddy you might be killed.

Then we realized that there were other kinds of important buddies.  In just a few short years, these scouts will have a buddy called– – a MISSIONARY COMPANION.  Missionary companions also help keep their buddy safe, and as Jared reminded us, “in the mouth of two witnesses” your testimony will be established with the people you meet.

After their missions they could start to look for their ETERNAL COMPANION, for the Lord has decreed that it is not ever good “for man to be alone.”  Until you find an eternal companion to marry, you will be incomplete as a person, but eternal marriage makes you “whole.”

Terryl and Fiona Givens have reminded us that “the heaven toward which we aspire consists of LOVING RELATIONSHIPS THAT ARE ETERNAL.”  “God himself is a relational being.”  “Divine families encircled by his fire and light are the very essence of life and eternal life; without them this earth–indeed this cosmos–will have missed the measure of its creation.” (“The God who weeps”, pp. 106-107.  The last quote is from Truman Madsen.)

Provo temple shift line assignments

We got a new men's coordinators for our Thursday shift at the Provo temple several months ago.  To be helpful, I volunteered to redesign the men's line assignments for them.  They wanted to go to a 30 minute schedule for initiatory ordinances, which would reduce the length of time that workers are doing these ordinance from 40 or 60 minutes at a time and make temple service more friendly for older men who do not have the stamina to stand for longer periods of time.  They were using the Excel spreadsheet program to document and communicate these assignments.  The matrix covers as many as 10 different assignments (or "line") for each of about 60 workers.

In the process of this redesign, we tried to solve some other problems, including people taking excessive time for lunch, and uneven coverage at different times of the day for other temple ordinances and procedures.  I also found that the old program did not use some of the power that  Excel has to save coordinator entry time, but required double entries and hours of double checking reports for consistency.  In my design, I used the concept of a single master page, where most all of the changes are made, and these entries flow through to and populate data on various subsidiary sheets needed in components of the temple processes.

We tried the new assignment sheets Thursday for the first time with considerable success and lots of complementary responses.  We did find one type of glitch for which I need to find solutions.  The problem is that there are a handful of interdependent assignments from which a worker cannot leave  until his replacement arrives, but the replacement cannot come until the

first person leaves his current assignment and arrives at the new post.  As you might guess, this causes some problems.  I have looked carefully now at the entire master assignment sheet and identified every instance where it appears this problem might be present and tweaked the master design in order to implement the needed fixes.  We will try out the revised schedule next week and hope everything works.

I had a new missionary comp for 24 hours

Several weeks ago Philip W. contacted us for a favor–to pick up his son, Benjamin, who had a mission call, at the SL airport on this past Tuesday and keep him overnight and take him to the MTC Wednesday.  Philip is a family history contact that I made a year or so ago.  Shortly after beginning to research the family of Theophilus Lewis, probable brother of our ancestor John Lewis, and document the descendants Theophilus’ oldest daughter, Nancy Caroline Lewis, I discovered that someone had submitted names of some of her descendants for temple work.  Philip W. is her descendant.  He was a convert to the Church in his early 20s, served a mission in Washington State, the came to Utah to finish his schooling, graduating from the U of U and finding a convert to the Church from TX to marry (they met at the SL family history library), works at Duke University in the admission office giving computer support, and lives in from Wake Forest, NC, a suburb of Raleigh, in an area that we are quite familiar with from our mission.

We made a connection.  I just love to find Church members among the distant relatives that I am trying to identify in my family history work, and to have the NC experience in common also was a nice bonus.

They have three children, and the oldest, Benjamin has a mission call to Arizona Tempe.  He has just finished a year at BYU-I.  They have no family connections in Utah (other than us).  I talked to Elder W. on the phone and we worked up a plan.  Wendy and I picked him up at the SL airport Tuesday at about 11 am.  We drove to downtown SL, had lunch at Crownburger, then spent a couple of hours at Temple Square, which he had never visited before.  We helped him find a Distribution Center and a Mr. Mac’s, to exchange some clothes that were the wrong size (they had shopped by internet), to buy an alarm clock at Wal-Mart, and brought him home to get over his jet lag and 4 am flight start.  On Wednesday morning we took in an endowment session with him at the Provo temple (it was only his second time), went to lunch at Brick Oven, and did the drop-off routine at the MTC.

Elder W. was a pleasant companion for a day (he needed one–missionary rules, you know).  We enjoyed this experience a lot.  We got well acquainted with sister W. by phone to report on the visit and get her son to the MTC.  She was pretty emotional.  Wendy assured her that she had cried in her behalf at the MTC drop-off.

VOA presentation to leaders of 11 stakes

I had a very pleasing experience last Tuesday in the early morning.  The commissioner for our scouting district had invited me to make a 45 minute presentation on our stake Venturing Officers Association (VOA) to representatives from the 11 stakes that are in our scouting district (members of Stake Presidencies and stake YM Presidencies).  VOAs are a significant feature of Venturing and opportunity for giving young men growth opportunities, but are not used very often.  I think we are the only stake in our district that has been successful in getting a VOA off the ground.  A VOA is an organization covering a group of Venturing Crews. It is made up of 1) a presidency and 2) representatives of crews in its jurisdiction or representatives coming from lower level VOAs if organized at a broader level.  One of my assignments from our stake presidency when I was called into the stake YM Presidency a little over a year ago was to make Venturing work better in our stake, and creating a stake VOA was an important part of that strategy.

With lots of support from President Christensen (stake President) and his 2nd Counselor, President Blair, we got our first VOA going by last fall.  We are now in the process of calling a new Presidency for the coming year (June-May).  The current VOA accomplished several things, including getting trained so as to be able to present on 8 hour course in leadership skills to the rest of the Priests of the stake.

After receiving this invitation, I in turn extended an invitation to key members of our VOA to help make this presentation.  I worked up an outline which they agree to, and prepared a handout.  I met with these young men twice in preparation, and they ended up making almost the entire presentation.  I sure was proud of them.  I think it showed off very well our stake’s accomplishments with our VOA and what great things youth can do if the adults will get out of the way.

Presenting were Dallin B, our current VOA President, Zach V, our current program VP, and Nathan C, who will be the President for the coming year.

Side note: About everywhere I go, it seems to be my destiny to organize a VOA.  This is my fourth VOA.  I established a Stake VOA (then an EPA–Explorer Presidents Association) while Stake YM President in Taylorsville Central Stake.  I worked with a district EPA for the Olde English Fort District for several years.  When we moved to SF, I organized a VOA in the Palmyra District and was adviser for 3 years until we went on our mission.  (Our president the third year was a girl, Jennifer Lowe, who went on to become the Council VOA, Area VOA, and then National Venturing President.)  After the mission, I thought I was retired from the VOA adviser calling, but our stake leaders called me out of retirement and here I am again.  It sure is fun to keep associating with outstanding young people and to see them grow.

What is a real man, II?

Here is a question that I got from (somewhere I can’t remember): You are a man, married and have one child.  You are almost out of money and can’t get any more.  You have just enough money to buy two hamburgers.  Who gets the hamburgers?  You, your wife, or your child?
Answer: Your wife and child, because as a man you have a commitment to serve others’ needs before our own.

Why did a number of men on the Willie-Martin handcart companies die before other members of their families?  Answer: Because they were real men who, when the company became short of food, gave up their share of the rations so that their wives and children could have more to eat.

When I was a boy, Perfect Circle piston rings advertised its products using a very muscular, tough-looking, grizzled man tenderly holding a baby chick or something like that, with the caption “So tough, but oh so gentle.”  It somehow reminded me of my Dad, who was big and muscular, and who always took on the hardest job when I was working with him, but also could recite poetry and play tender songs on the mandolin, a sort of “strong and sensitive” or “strong and giving” combination.  Hence the statement, “Ideal manhood is strong, but uses that strength first to help others.”

Who is the ideal man?  Christ.  He had all power, yet submitted to the suffering in Gethsemene and Calvary in order to benefit others.  He was strong, including strength to endure unbelievable pain and suffering.  He was strong and perfect in many ways including his altruism.  And he absolutely restrained from any sin.  Yet he had a tender love for sinners.

Christ was also the Son of Man.  Man of Holiness was one of the names for his Father, our Heavenly Father.  Capitalizing this word seems to portray that Christ had a model of an ideal Man as his father.  As do we.