It’s a well known fact that the Boy Scouts of America are the official activity arm for the young men of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I currently am in the Young Men’s organization serving as the Second Councilor and this calling has given me a lot of opportunity to work in scouting as it requires me to concurrently fill the spot of Scout Master.  It’s very demanding and requires a lot of my time, but the reward of providing an example, teacher, and friend to many young men that don’t have many of those is worth the effort.

While growing up, I lacked examples, teachers, and friends as father figures and relied on my Young Men’s and Scout leaders to fill those holes.  Now, 13 years after I received my Eagle Scout Award I still have regular contact with many of those leaders and always look forward to spending time with them and their families.  They of course love to hear about my struggles with my Scouts and laugh as they look back and remember what a terror I was for them.  I have many fond memories of scouting activities including summer camps at Bear Lake, Lake Alexander, Camp Steiner, mid-week activities, basketball, camp-fire games, cook-outs, service projects, and many  more.  These memories are things I recall often as a man now and think of my goal being creating memories such as the ones I have for the scouts I now work with.

We recently took a trip down to Goblin Valley with the troop and hiked Little Wildhorse Canyon.  It was spectacular and I know I will always remember it.  Many of the boys have expressed that they really liked it as well and want to make it an annual event.  The canyon itself is a very narrow slot canyon.  You can hike up it about 3 miles to the back side of the mountains and then about 3 miles south to another slot that you can hike down to create a loop.  All said and done it’s about 9 miles from the parking lot, around, and back.

As I’ve been thinking about my scouting memories, I just thought I would share and invite you to share as well.  Please feel free to comment.

Last week for a scouting activity we decided to play dodgeball in the gym. We initially picked teams a few times and started to play. I haven’t played dodgeball in over 10 years and once we got a few rounds into it I found that I really enjoyed the game again and found myself wanting to organize a dodgeball league for ward play.

Right now the church sponsors a basketball, volleyball, and softball tournament…why not dodgeball? After about 10 rounds we decided to play leaders against scouts. I am proud to say that the leaders destroyed the boys. Over eight rounds, they boys only beat us once. Also, what better way to take out your aggression on a mis-behaving scout than drill him with a ball from mid court sending him to the side-lines.

For those scouts out there looking for a fun activity for a scout night, I would highly recommend a good old fashioned game of dodgeball.

As a boy growing up in the church and the scouting program I played a lot of steal the bacon. However, last night I played it for the first time as a scout leader. Myself, three other leaders, and about 10 scouts played steal the bacon with chalk board erasers in the nursery room at our local LDS church building. This was of course after we had worked on the camping merit badge.

Even as an adult it was a lot of fun. We had an eraser at each end of the room. We placed coats over every window and door, and then would hit the lights so it was dark and while on our hands and knees would charges head forward until we either got tackled, or found the eraser. Once the eraser was found it was full speed back to our home wall to bang the eraser on the wall signifying my teams victory. My hands and knees are sore today, but I’m glad to say my team won with a score of 12-7…WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!!!