Jan. 9, 2012

Summer Camp: Pine Island, three campfires/alone time.

As a scoutmaster for Boy Scouts of America in the Utah National Parks Council in Utah I had numerous experiences that were lessons for my life. Some of these lessons I realized almost instantly while other took on greater value through my life.

One such experience has just recently (tonight, I am writing this at 3 am) come into my mind and I have suddenly found a use for it in a new business that I am starting. I have been involved in many Multi-Level Marketing programs in my life and have never succeeded at them mainly due to the fact that I really haven’t wanted too. But there are other reasons as well of course but now I am in one where I want to succeed and in fact must succeed and will by putting the principles learned on this campout to use now.

You see I went on the camp to try out an experiment that I had been told about in one of my scouting leadership trainings at Camp Maple Dell in Payson canyon near Payson, Utah. The instructor told us about a camp where he had taken 8 scouts on a summer camp. These were each boys that had been unable to go to their own troop camps for some reason during that summer and he still wanted them to have the experience. He was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and with that background and knowing each boy also were members he wanted to be able to teach them some principles learned in the church about themselves and their value and destiny. He decided to have a special set of campfires during that week to teach them how to put on a campfire and also to teach them the gospel.

He told us that he had a great experience with that camp. The first night they got to camp he told them that they had 50 minutes to plan for the campfire and then he would get the last ten.  The second campfire that they would hold on Wednesday of that night they would have 30 minutes and he would have 30. Then the final campfire for the week on Friday night they would get the first 10 and he would use the last 50.

The first campfire went something like this as I remember his story.  They used the first 50 minutes and did skits and songs and told stories. Then he took the last ten and told them that they were somewhat experiencing what their ancestors had experienced as they crossed the plains to come to Utah. They were camping out, cooking meals over fires and hiking through the wilderness. Although it was really no where like what some of the pioneers experienced they were still doing the same types of things. He then related some stories about his ancestors that were similar to the experiences of these boys.

The second campfire they sang more songs, played more skits and told more stories and then he took the last 30 minutes to tell them the story of Joseph Smith who at age 14 had questions about God and which church he should join. Joseph he reminded them was about their same age when this all started for him. He then told the story and how because of his faith and desire to know the truth was actually visited by the Savior and His Father. He bore his testimony about the truth of that experience and ended it. It took 30 minutes.

The third campout they sang a few songs and did a couple skits but they only had 10 minutes. He then talked about Jesus Christ and His life and what it would mean to them if they studied His life and tried to become like him. He talked about planting the seed of faith and letting it grow in them and about how they would need to nourish it and help it to flourish. He took 50 minutes and the boys all sat there totally listening to what he had to say about the Savior. Well little did he know that one of the fathers was standing outside of the campfire in the trees listening to this event and taking it all in rather well himself only from a different perspective. You see this father was a sportsman and always put sports before scouting in his sons life. He felt that it was more important to learn to play sports that to just go camping and earn merit badges. Well after the campfire ended he came into the light and talked to the scoutmaster and told him how he had watched the boys as they sat there listening to him and how every one of them were glued to his words. He had never seen a group of boys sit for so long and not lose attention to the speaker. The scoutmaster then simply replied to him “You could never do that of a football field could you?”

Well, that story stuck a cord in me and I decided to follow a similar plan for my summer camp that year with the scouts. I got the committee together and told them where I wanted to go for camp that year and we began planning.  I had camped as a boy near Palisade Lake in the Granddaddy Basin of the High Uintah Mountains. It was a special place for me as I had camped there several times and knew the lake quite well. As it turned out though the committee member who was in charge of getting the tour permit and lining up the area could not find that camp in the basin. So I relented and told him we could go to one nearby called Pine Island lake and so that is what was planned.  I then told the boys of the place and how I wanted to do the campfires. They agreed and went about planning their portions of each campfire program.

The first day we went in was a bit taxing on the boys since we had to hike about 7 miles up and into the basin then over to Pine Island lake. I had taken all of the maps of the basin and knew where Palisade lake was located but went ahead and camped at Pine Island. It was a bit rough for one group of the boys because the scout assigned to bring the tent for them didn’t have the poles so they had to devise a way to string it up into the trees with ropes. It worked but it took a while for them to get it up. We finally got everything done and they did a little exploring and fishing and then we ate supper and started the campfire. It went pretty much just like the campfire program that I was taught and we went to bed.

The next day just because I had to prove to myself that I could go cross country and not get lost I set out with my maps and hiked the ½ mile through the trees to Palisade lake. I then followed the trail around through the woods back to camp. As a scout I always took a camera (little Brownie Instamatic) with me on our camps and one year had photographed a tree that had fallen across a small marsh. The trunk had broken several times and because of some of the larger branches holding it up it formed an M shape across the foot deep water. I had taken a picture of it but over the years as I looked at the picture I could not remember where along the trail I had photographed it. Well as I returned along the trail back to the camp, coming to it from the opposite direction of the day before when we hiked in, I suddenly realized that I was seeing that exact same tree and it was only 100 feet from where we had set up camp. I suddenly realized why my assistant could not locate the other lake because I was to find that tree just to satisfy my years of yearning about it. I stood back and in what I thought was about the same place took another picture. It had been over 25 years since I had photographed that tree. (When I got home I compared the images and the tree had lost a lot of the smaller limbs but basically looked the same however the background trees had all significantly changed. It was a lesson on how many years some of those dead trees have been in that forest, much longer than I had ever before expected.

The next day we hiked up to Four Lakes Basin, a place I had always wanted to go as a youth but never made it. Some of the scouts and one scoutmaster swam in the lake but only for a very short time. It was terribly cold. One of the other adults and I hiked up above the lake around the cliffs and back down coming back to the lake form the opposite side. He was tall and had long legs and I found it a challenge to jump across some of the rocks that he seemed so easily able to cross. However as we came back down I found that I had the advantage since I could easily go downhill while his knees prevented him from going quite as easily. After returning to camp I spent time also preparing for a hike that we would take the next day cross-country to Governor Lake. I had a great fear as a youth of getting lost when up in the mountains and so partly for myself and a lot for the boys I had decided to do a cross-country hike using the maps and letting them use their compasses to direct us. I had three patrols that year so I had each patrol responsible for part of the hike. So after a great campfire program and it went just like it was suppose too, I told them of my plans for the following day and we went to bed.

The next day was great. The boys found their way to the lake. We even had plenty of time to stop and fish along the way. We spent the entire day and got back late that evening just in time for them to make supper, eat and go to bed. I felt that it was a great success especially for me. I had now dispelled all of the fears of my youth through two experiments that week. One, for me personally, on Tuesday and then one for the boys on Thursday.

As we held our scoutmaster planning that night before retiring I told the other three adults that were with me that I would be gone the next day and they would be responsible for the boys. I would leave before everyone got up and would return in time for supper and for the final campfire. I arose the next morning before 6 AM and left the camp. There was a smaller lake higher in elevation from Pine Island and yet quite close to it so I hiked up toward it looking for a place where I could be alone and yet not so far away that I couldn’t keep a little bit aware of what was happening in camp. I was almost straight up from the camp so every now and then I could hear what was happening but not well enough to really disturb what I had planned. I spent the entire day thinking and praying about each boy and leader. After I had spent time on one of them I wrote a short letter to him telling him of my testimony and things that I felt he needed to know. I did this for each scout and each leader. I found myself several times during that day wondering if I was really listening to the spirit or just writing things I thought that they needed to know. I proceeded however and did it for each one of them. (It was fun that during the day I was visited by a little hummingbird three times, It could see my red scout shirt and came up to see if I was a flower and had something to offer it to eat. I have often wished that I had.) I also prepared my part of the campfire that night by collecting a small flat rock and a small pine cone for each person. My talk was going to center on planting a seed of faith and my testimony about the Saviors visit to the Americas after his crucifixion. The rocks at that time we are told in the Book of Mormon were rent,  cracked and even thrown around as the earth was in such tumult over the Saviors death. The rocks we were camping and hiking around that week were a testimony to me about the truthfulness of that account.

I returned with my letters, rocks and cones to camp around 6:30 PM and called all of the scouts back from fishing etc. so we could have supper and be ready for the campfire as planned that night.  The campfire went well and as I talked to the boys about the rocks and the cones I handed each one of them one to keep and take home so they would remember what we had talked about. (Years later as an adult one of the boys told me he still had that rock and pine cone.) I waited until the very last and then put them on silence for the rest of the evening. I gave them their letter and told them to go to bed, and without talking to anyone else, read the letter, say their prayers and go to sleep.  Later that night after they had all gone to bed one of the scoutmasters came to me and said, “How did you know that I had been struggling with the very things that you told me in that letter?” I told him how I had spent the day and had often wondered if I was really listening or just saying what I thought that I should say and for me his question had just answered mine. I then knew that the Lord had directed my thoughts that day for each of them.

We hiked out the following day and I will always cherish the experiences I had at that camp. The Lord had taught me something that I would end up needing years later.

Well as I lay in bed tonight I suddenly recalled this camp and with my studying the last few weeks I realized that for me to succeed with the business of helping other people that I would need to let the Spirit direct me in much the same manner it had for me during that day on the mountain above Pine Island Lake. I will need to get to know them through a conversation with them and then in a way go to my mountain and find out how the Lord would have me act in their behalf. I won’t be able to tell many of them I am sure that it was the Lord directing me but I can later bear testimony of it as they become friends and I know more about their religious beliefs. Until that time it will just be setting an example for them and living the gospel so that it is evident to them why I live as I do and why they are so important to me.