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Wood Badge May 2011--Mutual Dell

I have not been a very consistent historian this last year. I have written letters to my family almost weekly, but have not shared anything on my Blog so that it can be included when I ever get around to publishing it. I went back to my family letters and extracted this information about my third Wood Badge experience the last week of May, 2011. It was a wonderful experience to work so closely with the great Scout leaders in American Fork East Stake. A lot of the participants were also from the East Stake, but I had a few in my Owl Patrol who were not--Jim White from Highland, Kasey Walker from West American Fork, and Nancy Davies from Eagle Mountain (I think). Here is the letter that I wrote on May 30, 2011, with a few pictures added.

I just finished my third experience with Wood Badge last week, this time as a Troop Guide for an amazing Owl Patrol.

Owl Patrol: (Left to right) Me, Jim White, Tony Anderson, Nancy Davies, Greg Squires, and Kasey Walker in front; Ryan Gunther and Lerin Porter in back.

Senior Patrol Leader Sam Liddiard and Scoutmaster John Miller

Staff and Participants

It was fun to have Ammon and Brian on this Wood Badge course also. I sure enjoyed myself and learned so much. The first time there was just so much to digest that it didn't all sink in. Then I was on staff for a course last August and learned some of the things that I had missed the first time. This time I was a Troop Guide again and it was an absolutely amazing experience because I was not as worried as the first time that I was on staff. I was able to concentrate more on the principles that we taught instead of always worrying about what came next. Over the coming weeks I hope to be able to put into words some of the lessons I learned so you can share in my experience. We were in American Fork Canyon at Mutual Dell and there was no internet or cellphone service so we felt quite isolated but we prayed that the Lord would take care of our families at home while we were away from them. See Teresa's Blog for her experience getting locked in a downstairs bedroom with her boys and how she was blessed to get out of that predicament. I have a conviction of the value of Wood Badge in helping leaders of boys in Scouting and also in their personal and work lives. I witnessed a lot of opposition thrown at those who were on staff and I am convinced that it is because of the importance of the lessons to be learned at Wood Badge that Satan doesn't want to see happen because of the great strength it can be in doing the Lord's work. Sam Liddiard, who was the Senior Patrol Leader for the course, had his father die a week before Wood Badge and his funeral was the day before we began. He could have asked to be excused from serving on course but he did not. The morning that we were to begin, Bishop Back's son came up a bit early to let him know that his mother-in-law had died that morning. He could have gone home also to help his wife with funeral arrangements, but he did not. I had some personal obstacles to overcome. Each time I have gone there has been a fear I have had to face. The first time it was just a fear of being put in a patrol with a bunch of strangers and having to stretch the limits of my interpersonal relations and doing silly things like songs and skits in front of a crowd of strangers. I conquered that one. On staff last summer I had to go to bed each night knowing that there were mice running around in the cabin where I was staying. That kind of freaked me out but I made it through that one. I know, it is a silly thing but nevertheless it made me very uncomfortable.

This time I was more aware of the fact that we were camping in bear country (IN TENTS). My flashlight was not used so much to see the ground in front of my feet but to search to the end of the flashlight's beam to make sure there were no bears "out there." Of course, no one encountered a bear and I was mighty thankful for that.

My worst opposition came when I went to take a shower the third day. The women's showers were reserved for the eight women on course from 9:30 p.m. until 5:30 a.m. and after that they let the men use them. One day I decided to shower in the evening. I took a very quick shower and washed my hair and reached out to get my towel and realized that I had forgotten to bring it with me. Now what? I had my dirty clothes, the ones that I was going to put on and I had a headband that I use to keep my hair out of the way when I wash my face. I ended up using the headband to dry off. Not very efficient I decided. Next I went to the sink area with my dripping wet hair and plugged in my hair dryer to blow dry my hair. The hair dryer worked on Monday morning but now it did not. No amount of fiddling with the reset buttons would get it to work again. I tried to dry my hair to some degree with my curling iron but that is hard on hair and was very ineffective because of how wet my hair was, so I finally gave up and decided to see if one of the other ladies was still up so that I could borrow her hair dryer. Fortunately I was able to borrow one and got my hair dried so I could go to bed, albeit a bit later than I had hoped. The strange thing is, when I came home and unpacked I decided that I would just throw away the useless hair dryer. I plugged it in to make sure I hadn't been imagining things that night, and sure enough, it worked for me. I had a chance to laugh at myself that night but it did not discourage me or keep me from having an amazing experience. Well, it is late so I will write more next week. I hope you all had a good week and will do great things this week. Love, Mom/Grandma/Colleen

A glimpse at a week of Wood Badge

Serious times...