Day 9 Jambo: A last day of Adventure and Packing up Camp

Today was the most pleasant, cool morning we've had.  It rained all night on and off.  The skies are blue-grey with ripples of light tinged high cloud visible through the mist.  The ground is mud.  Our council leaders delivered some fresh hay and the boys spread it around the camp to give our area ground some structure.  Egg and ham muffins with juice for breakfast this morning to begin a day of adventure and work.  

Three groups headed out this morning to the worlds longest zip line, the archery range and a technology exposition area called "The Cloud", and the BMX area.  Some went to get their carved bolo ties, others have gone scuba diving.

Can you believe that last paragraph?  Where else on earth could you access all that in one morning?  And that is just a small list of some of the things that could be done today.  This really is an amazing place!

Boys working on the woodcarving merit badge this morning.  I failed to mention that option!

Boys committing to...

1. Let the Master carve you

2. Do a good turn daily

3. Live the scout law and oath

Bryson shooting clays:

Making 'mucus' at "The Cloud"

Making a 'cloud' at The Cloud.

Jeremy and Josh went to Echo Lake to get their fly fishing merit badge.  Instructors taught them to tie flies, get their rods ready, cast, catch fish, clean and cook them.  They even ate them!  Jeremy caught 7 (fish story?) and Josh caught one.  This was the size of Jeremy's largest fish:

This afternoon a group went white water rafting!

At the end of a busy day, back to camp for a chili dog, macaroni salad, carrot and apple pie dinner with red powerade.

Now it's time to pack our bags, pack up camp and catch some quick z's.  We'll be up at 4:00 AM to load our bus in order to leave at 6:00 AM.

This sight of two boys from some other troop squandering their chances to take advantage of all there is here reminded me of one of the reasons we asked the boys to leave their phones home:

A great comment

We got a wonderful comment on our Blog from an Assistant Scout Master from troop 629 in West Valley City.  Unfortunately, while trying to click "Publish", I fat-fingered "Delete" instead.

Here is the comment:

"As the asst scoutmaster from troop 629 in West Valley City, I want to thank you all for this blog, the pics, the commentary, and the fine example you are setting for all scouts and their families. What a special time for all of you and I pray for your continued success and safety on this wonderful adventure. looking forward to more posts! :)"

Thank you so muchfor your kind words and support.  A testament to your leadership Bro. Tagge!

Day 8 Jambo: Doing our favorite activities!

Yesterday afternoon it was announced the first 150 boys to show up at a church tent would receive a hand-carved bolo tie.  You would have thought they were made of gold.  Half the troop got up at 5:45 in order to make the 2 mile hike to be some of the first in line. The breakfast crew got up at 5:30 in order to go get the food for breakfast so that the boys could eat before they left. 

Do these sound like our boys?  :)

Here is a sample of the hand carved bolo ties given out at the LDS tent:

Today will be another day of fun activities. After a bagel and cream cheese breakfast, some of the boys left for mountain biking high up in the mountainous, others went rock climbing with the plan to follow that with gun and bow shooting.  A third went to the BMX tracks with a plan to go mountain long boarding afterwards.  

This is at the "Low Gear" mountain biking course.

Today and tomorrow, as well as last Wednesday Thursday and Friday, 1/5 of the camp either leaves on buses to do a service project somewhere in the state of West Virginia (That's about 4-5,000 boys doing a service project every day.) or goes on a trek to the true summit of this property to participate in Highland games, and Pioneering and American Indian activities at the Garden Meadow site.  For those remaining behind, it means that the lines for fun activities are shorter!

I look forward to hearing of their adventures!

The boys are hoping Gil the Bus Driver is still following them along.  Gil, here are the boys holding up #41 (Gil's troop number) and shouting GIL!!!

A big shout out to the Assistant Scout master for troup 629 from West Valley City who is following our blog.  Thank you so much for the kind words!  We really appreciate it.

We were about to do dragon boat races:

When we had the largest thunderstorm if the week!:

About 4 inches of rain in about 10 minutes.

So, back to camp for Stew and Biscuits!

Then, at 7:00 PM, a second big storm!

At 8:30 in the stadium, the LDS church sponsored a "Family Home Evening" to celebrate their 100 year anniversary of involvement with scouting.  President George Albert Smith was pleased with the training program for boys developed in 1907 by Lord Robert Baden-Powell, and the church incorporated scouting just 6 years later.  (The moon rising over the stadium, light steaming through the mist from the left of the photo.)

These boys hardly like each other! 

A couple more boys favorite activities.

Sam Peterson:  Rock Climbing.

Davis Newman:  BMX: 

Day 7 Jambo: The Sabbath

A beautiful calm mist settled between the trees overnight after the cooling rainstorm.  Sunrise brought sights you don't often see in the west.

Tucker Pike's patrol fixed a breakfast of scrambled omelets and pancakes with orange juice.

Then we walked to the main amphitheater for Sacrament Meeting with Elder Neil L Anderson.

The sight of so many LDS scouts from all over the country and from many parts of the world was impressive.  (The long white tables are the sacrament tables)

As 60 Priests broke the bread and blessed it, and as 180 deacons and teachers passed the bread and water, my eyes became moist and I remembered another group sitting on a hill as the Savior fed them with a small number of loaves of bread and fishes.

Elder Anderson mentioned the same, and stated it was the largest Sacrament Meeting he had ever attended.

He said, "To Do Our Best we must be able to feel the Spirit and follow His promptings."  God our Father has allowed both Good and evil to act upon us.  Satan is about in the world attempting to make all men miserable like himself. What will matter at the end of our lives will not be if we are rich or poor, intelligent or not. An athlete or an athletic unknown.  What will matter will be if we choose good rather than evil.  To see clearly, we must be clean and pure.  There is no substitute for it.  "Be ye clean that bear the vessels of The Lord."  There is power in being clean.  Beware the plague of pornography.  "I warn you in the name of The Lord:  Be clean and be pure."  Through prayer The Lord gives us strength to overcome temptation.

Ask your boys to tell you the stories behind the following quotes:

"Beware of the Evil behind the smiling eyes."  - Bro. Winn

"I am late, but I am clean."  - Joseph F. Smith

Just before Elder Anderson spoke, at the end of the Sacrament and during a talk by the President of the BSA, Wayne Perry who is LDS, it began to rain lightly.  The scouting leaders set up a rain fly over the podium chairs.  Dear Sister Anderson bore a brief sweet testimony from underneath it, holding a handheld mike and clearly feeling sorry for being under shelter while the 4,000 were under raining skies.  When Elder Anderson stood up, he began speaking with a handheld microphone under the podium rain fly.  Then he paused, walked to the unsheltered speaker's podium and said, "I have faith enough to speak from here."  He continued his speech and warm rays of sunshine rose over the hill from our right.  The rain stopped as we were spiritually fed about being clean.  As we walked back to camp, the cool rain began again.  I observed a powerful lesson watching a clean vessel, an Apostle of The Lord, have faith in a spiritual prompting, and watching as The Lord delivered on the prompting He sent.

The boys spent their last Sabbath here doing a wide variety of things.  Some wrote in journals and read scriptures, some went to religious displays, and attended some of the more sedate activities like woodworking, Brownsea Island and archery.

As dinner time approached, hungry boys filed back to camp.  We had a chicken stir fry dinner with rice and fortune cookies.  Then a complete surprise:  a leader from the Summit Bechtel Reserve delivered a large sheet cake!  The boys could not get in line fast enough.

After cake we cleaned up, had our troop meeting and the patrols sat down to study Preach My Gospel together.  It is just wonderful to see the boys engaging in teaching each other these lessons.

The sunset brought another surprise.  The largest and longest firework show I have ever seen.  The boys LOVED it!

Hope you all have a good night!

Day 6 Jambo: Concert and Thunderstorm

All are alive and well this morning!  We have had some minor cases of heat rash, blisters, minor cooking burns here and there, but the boys are up, happy and excited for more adventures today.  

Breakfast was cereal, milk, grape juice and oranges.

We split into four groups and headed to Zip lines, BMX, Mountain biking and Climbing.  

We have been starting each morning with the boys divided into four groups, one per leader, to go to four high adventure activities.  The boys join the group they wish to.  After the first activity, they buddy up and proceed to the next.  There are so very many things to do here.  I would be surprised if you could'nt work on every merit badge here.  There are booths for NASCAR, NASA, the Navy Seals, AT&T and many other organizations.  There are booths from many religions, ours being one of the largest.  And there is also Brownsea Island.

Brownsea Island:

Brownsea is an historical island in the lake where the year is 1907 and Scouting has just begun.  Colson and Styles' brothers work here as some of the first Boy Scouts.  They run the "Island" and teach games and history to people who visit there. It is a wonderful exposition on Lord Baden-Powell, and why he began scouting.  Fascinating history.

Look who I found!

We saw Colson's brother Connor as well, but he was tied up with duties from the General.

In the afternoon, all the scouts went to the large grass amphitheater.  It was hot but a really fun event with scout entertainment by a break dancer, an excellent young scout pianist, and large scout band.  The King of Sweden spoke as did the star of "Dirtiest Jobs".  3 Doors Down were the main performers.  For most boys it was their first concert.  Many of them said it was too loud, and the performers were 'scary'. Music to a mother's ears I'm sure!

At the concert:

3 Doors Down Concert!

Another cooling rain storm for dinner:

It rained, lightninged and thundered like there was no tomorrow!

Here are a few more boys with their favorite activities.

Connor Powell:  Rock Climbing:

AaronRollins:  Climbing:

Henry Peterson:  Mountain Biking: