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Archive for the ‘Youth’ Category

In last month’s LDS youth magazine the New Era there is an article about how Scouting and the Priesthood support each other. I decided to cut the magazine cover off and post it in the Aaronic Priesthood room at church. This is what it looks like.

There are a few articles in this Mormon magazine that are great for young men to read. One of the articles was about a young priesthood holder that was putting together an eagle project. The article was called “He’s Got Game”. He gathered together a bunch of youth and leaders and had them all bring a ball to an organized game of soccer. At the end of the game, he rounded up all of the balls that were donated and boxed them up to be shipped to needy kids in third world countries. I thought it was a great idea so I gave the article to my son to see if it would spark any excitement since he will be working on his Eagle Project soon.

Several years ago I volunteered to be a Mormon Seminary Teacher for the 9th graders at the local Junior High. It was early morning seminary so for me, it has a huge undertaking since I hate getting up early in the morning. After about 2 weeks of teaching, I had completely run out of mission stories and personal experiences as it relates to the Gospel. I began spending about 2 hours per night preparing for the next day of seminary. I learned a ton about how teachers work and why they do that they do. For example, I wanted to be one of those nice teachers so I let the 9th graders sit where they wanted. A few weeks later I found my classroom getting louder and louder. I asked some of my teacher friends and they suggested implementing a seating chart and to organize the chairs into rows. I didn’t like the sound of that, however, I knew it would help with the noise and the visiting with each other during my classes. Needless to say, I was not prepared to be a teacher and had to learn by trial and error, mostly error. At the end of the year, I totally felt like a failure. My only hope and prayer was that all of my students would sign up for seminary in 10th grade so that they could be taught by a “real” seminary teacher.

I tell you this story so that I can tell you this other story. I was walking out of the YMCA last week and a young adult stopped my and called me Brother Carter. He looked at me intently and asked, “do you remember me?”. I looked really hard but could not place the face. He told me that he was in my seminary class in 9th grade. He said he had served a mission for the LDS Church and was now married. Wow, that was cool. I asked him if he remembered anything from his days in my class. He said that he did and mentioned a “magic square” that we used to memorized the Doctrine and Covenants scriptures. It was just nice to know that he remembered me and remembered some of the scriptures we worked on.

Last week our Stake decided to host a Duty to God Clinic. Each year in the past, the Stake provided a Merit Badge Clinic for all of the Scouts that wanted to participate. This year, our stake decided to put some focus on the DTG requirements for each of the young men in each of the Quorums in the Aaronic Priesthood. Out of all of the requirements for all three Quorums of the Aaronic Priesthood, they were able to locate similar requirements so that everyone could work on them at the same time. For the Priests, it was a section of the Duty to God that talks about visiting “the workplace of 3 occupations you are interested in.”. For the Teachers it was found in this requirement that asks the boys to, “Visit at least 3 places where people perform work you might enjoy.” And for the Deacons, it states, “Choose 2 careers you may be interested in doing someday.”

The boys were all brought together at the Stake Center and split up into 4 groups. There were two business professionals that had setup stations in the church, and two business professionals that were setup in their actual business offices. There was an Optholmologyst, Physical Therapist, Local TV Station Salesman, and a Taxidermist. Each of them talked about their careers and gave the boys a look at what it would be like to enter that profession. All of the boys had a good time and everyone that attended the clinic was able to pass of that requirement in their Duty to God books.