For one particular troop meeting, our patrol leaders’ council planned the skill instruction portion of our troop meeting to be on music. That sounded good to me until they told me that one of the instruments they would be giving instruction on was an electric guitar. We met in the Primary room of our building […]
Read more Years ago, I looked across the street from my home and saw my neighbor training his dog, a German shorthair pointer. He would give commands such as “heel,” “sit,” “roll-over,” or something like that. The dog obeyed perfectly. It was a beautiful sight. I thought, “Why can’t I train my children to be perfectly obedient […]
Read more Recently, I attended a troop meeting just as an observer. The troop was holding a “shakedown” to make sure all of the Scouts had everything they needed for their summer camp and, hopefully, did not have anything they should not be bringing. The Scoutmaster sat at the front of the room the entire meeting and, […]
Read more As Committee Chair, I recently met with a Scout who told me he was ready to submit his Eagle Scout application and wanted some help. I asked him what his “position of responsibility” was in his unit and he looked at me like a “deer in headlights.” Unfortunately for me, over the years, this has […]
Read more Our goal as LDS Scouters is unique. It is to: “Help young men become converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and fulfill their divine roles” (Young Men Auxiliary Training). The Young Men General Presidency has suggested three ways to accomplish this goal: Be with them. Connect them with heaven. Let them lead. This blog focuses […]
Read more In the October 2016 general conference, Elder J. Devn Cornish shared an experience he had after graduating from medical school and was in a pediatric residency training in a high-powered, competitive program. He was faced with a challenging assignment and felt unqualified to meet it. In his despair, he alternated between sobbing and sleeping and […]
Read more When I sat down with our new senior patrol leader and told him that we had decided that the adults were no longer going to run the troop and that he would now be in charge and make decisions, he looked at me like a “deer in headlights.” Like most 13 year-old young men, I […]
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A couple of years ago, the eleven-year-old Scout patrol in our ward decided to join the troop at our district camporee. We were excited to have them join us but we were also a little nervous because by then we were very much a Scout-led troop and we were not sure the eleven-year-old patrol was […]
Read more One of my assistant Scoutmasters told me that it used to be like “pulling teeth” to get his twin boys to get on their uniform and get ready for our troop meeting each week. Then, when the Scouts started running things, he came home from work one night and his sons were already in their […]
Read more Due to bad traffic and bad weather on the way up the mountain, we arrived at our campsite of about 7,000 feet elevation at around 10:00 p.m. on a Friday night. There were patches of snow on the ground and it was probably about 30° F. Shortly after arriving, I watched one of our Scouts […]
Read more Years ago, just before the beginning of an Eagle Scout court of honor, I was standing in the back of the chapel and overheard a conversation between two of our wonderful young Eagle Scout candidates. One of them said to the other, “Right after this meeting, let’s burn our Scout shirts!” They both laughed and […]
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