Priesthood Campout

We decided to have a Priesthood Commemoration Campout this year, and we invited all the men and boys in our ward. This is the first time an outing like this has happened in our ward. We don’t have a lot of Young Men and we wanted to make it like a Father’s and Son’s outing, but there are quite a few boys in the ward who don’t have fathers at home.

Unfortunately, the weather turned bad this week, after an original forecast of nothing but sunny, warm weather. I was worried that no one would show up because of the rain in the forecast. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many. We had 37 people come at some point or another. 32 stayed for the campfire, and 22 stayed for the night. I have been praying that the campout would be a success, and I think it was.

We had rain almost all night long. Some of us stayed dry, and others did not. It was a good thing it stopped in the morning, and those who got wet were able to dry out a little by the fire. We only had three Young Men come. I wish more had come…truth is I hope the ones who did aren’t wary of coming again because of the cold. We woke up and could see the snow level half way up the hill above us. However, I think the lowest the temperature got was about forty degrees.

There were many things I wish I had done differently. I am going to list them for future reference. We told everyone to meet in the parking lot, and that we would shuttle to the campsite, but that didn’t seem so feasible once we were up there. I ended up putting signs up for people to follow, but I wish I could have communicated that to them to begin with. So, the lesson is to take more time to plan and get feedback ahead of time.

I took it upon myself to do too many things myself. I needed to be out making sure everyone was having a good time and had what they needed. Instead, I was making breakfast and forgetting to tell everyone that there was milk and OJ in the cooler, or that there were tortillas for the eggs. Lesson: Spread the load and supervise.

One lesson I learned from my last campout was getting a good night’s sleep. I slept in a mummy bag on a big air mattress at Goblin Valley, and I was cold, so I made some adjustments. I used my five pound standard sleeping bag instead of my mummy bag, and instead of an air mattress, I used my backpacking pad and another sleeping bag as padding. I also brought a blanket to put over me. Result? I was much warmer. I slept very well, and that makes a big difference on a campout. I didn’t even wake up after I fell asleep until 3:30 am because I was too hot. I took off my pajamas and socks, and slept great until it was time to get up.

I do wish I had made more assignments and given some thought to what they should be. I struggle with the same thing at work. I’m always trying to accomplish something to the point that I forget to give direction to others.

The weather didn’t cooperate with us most of the time, but we still had fun. We still felt the spirit as we listened to a member of our Stake Presidency, and we learned a lot. And that’s what life is all about.