Scripture
“20 And they were all young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all—they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted.
21 Yea, they were men of truth and soberness, for they had been taught to keep the commandments of God and to walk uprightly before him.”
Hymn
America the Beautiful – Hymn #338
1. Oh, beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.
2. Oh, beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.
3. Oh, beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev’ry gain divine.
4. Oh, beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.
Lesson
*For Younger Children* Read or summarize “Cub Scout Winners” and then discuss the importance of cub scouts and the friendship, discipline, and fun young boys can gain from it.
HI!
My name is Cory Kennedy, and I live in Sandy, Utah. My good friends, Stuart Weichers and Mark Jensen, and I had a really neat experience last year. We’re members of Cub Scout Pack 953, and the three of us won first place in the National Cub Scout Physical Fitness Contest.
Each Cub Scout pack participating in the competition had an eight-year-old Cub Scout, a nine-year-old Cub Scout, and a ten-year-old Cub Scout on its team. Teams compete against teams from other packs in five different events: sit-ups, push-ups, the broad jump, the softball throw, and the fifty-yard dash. My dad was our Cubmaster, and in our own pack competition Mark was the eight-year-old winner, Stuart was the nine-year-old winner, and I was the ten-year-old winner. We have a lot of really good athletes in our neighborhood, so our pack competition was tough.
The three of us decided to work out together before and after school. We took turns going to each other’s houses for workouts. Sometimes our parents or older brothers coached us, and sometimes we just worked out by ourselves. My dad let me borrow his stopwatch so we could tell how we were doing. Our families really pulled for us to do well.
We knew we had to score as high as we could in every event, but each of us also had a specialty that we kept trying to improve on. Mark has awfully strong legs, and he could broad jump a long way. Stuart could do more push-ups than the rest of us. And sit-ups were my best event.
When we first started working out as a team, we were doing about forty push-ups and forty sit-ups a minute. Then each day we would add one or two more. We pushed each other pretty hard, and we even made a game out of it. Mark and I are University of Utah fans, and Stuart is a Brigham Young University booster, and we pretended that it was the Utes against the Cougars.
After winning in our district competition, we competed against all the district winners from the Great Salt Lake Council. Boy, were we nervous! But our hard training paid off. Each of us gave it everything he had, and we scored well in all of the events. Just as we had hoped, Mark won in the broad jump (sixty-nine inches), Stuart won in the push-ups (eighty-nine in one minute), and I won in the sit-ups (ninety-six in one minute).
We won the council competition, and our scores were sent to Boy Scout headquarters in Irving, Texas. After a few weeks we were notified that we had won the national championship. We were really excited. You should see the huge trophies we received! Our families are really proud of us, and each of us had a super feeling. I think we all learned a very important lesson in the competition: Nothing is impossible, and you can do anything you want to if you are willing to work hard enough.
Discuss the importance of cub scouts and the friendship, discipline, and fun young boys can gain from it.
*For Teenagers or Adults* Summarize or read from “Ellis Tolman: A Scout for All Seasons” Discuss the importance of living the scout law and how it can help us live in accordance with the gospel.
John Ellis Tolman, now in his eighties, seems to have walked out of another, far simpler time. His clothes are timeless—a blue cotton work shirt, denim bib overalls, leather boots, and a bright red bandanna around his neck. When it’s cold outside, the scarf is pulled up to mask his face like a western bandit’s.
Brother Tolman’s appearance is crowned with a flat-brimmed Mounties’ hat, the type Scoutmasters wore in the 1930s. When the sun is bright, he dons sunglasses. It doesn’t matter to Brother Tolman that the modern glasses don’t match the rest of his outfit. Most mornings he carries over his shoulder a long stick with a big gunnysack attached to one end as he walks east, past our window. Hours later he returns, walking westward, the sack bulging with empty aluminum cans.
Brother Tolman is the proud possessor of Scouting’s Silver Beaver Award and has been a dues-paying member of the Boy Scouts of America for more than fifty years now. He is a Boy Scout who lives the Scout law. He and my son Sam were soon close friends.
A Scout is thrifty …
“People are very wasteful,” he told me one day. “But if you gather aluminum cans faithfully, in about a period of a month and a half you can gather about fifty dollars’ worth of cans. In about four months’ time I can save enough from selling cans for my wife and me to go to Sacramento and back. The pop and beer drinkers pay for it.”
Did he feel it a personal duty to keep the town clean of cans? I asked.
He smiled. “Somebody’s got to do it.”
A Scout is clean …
Frequently, Brother Tolman waxes philosophical. “Let me tell you something about this here gathering cans,” he told me. “If you’re going to be a can collector, you gotta open yer eyes and keep ’em open, and keep yer eye on the can. If you play baseball, or any kind of ball, isn’t that what you gotta do? Keep yer eye open for that ball, every second.
“Same thing with cans. Look out fer cans and nothin’ but. Soon that’s the only thing yer eye’ll stop on. Like Scoutin’ the hills fer rabbits … ‘Cept with cans, you look for every weed and telephone pole a can might be hidin’ behind. And concentrate on what yer doin’. Don’t stop to count how many you got in yer sack or it’ll never fill up. That’s clock watchin’.”
A Scout is brave …
In coldest winter storms Brother Tolman diligently gathers up what cans he can find, kicking them out of the snow while the rest of us huddle inside around a fire.
A Scout is friendly …
We have had flowers and vegetables from the Tolman garden, and so have many others, especially widows. We have had rhubarb tonic (as my husband calls it), raspberry bush starts, and homemade fudge.
One winter morning, years later, as he walked by without his sack over his shoulder, I called and invited him in from the cold. He said that his back was bothering him, so I asked what he would do. “I’ve got to get busy,” he answered. “I’m going to do a little wood-burning. Tell me the date Sammy got his Eagle Award, will you?”
A few days later he knocked again, late enough to be sure Sam would be home from school. He had a glorious smile on his face and was carrying a ten-inch cross-cut slab of red cedar, beautifully varnished. On it was emblazoned Sam’s name, the date he received his Eagle Award, the complete Scout Law and Oath (and everything else he could burn into it pertaining to Scouting ideals: “Be Prepared … Do a Good Turn Daily …”).
This is something to help you remember your duty, Sammy,” Ellis Tolman said proudly. “I’ve made them for my grandsons, too.”
A Scout is …
On and on. There isn’t a Scout Law Ellis Tolman doesn’t keep.
Eleven years have passed since I first found him standing in my kitchen. His step has slowed some, but I still have to pick up my pace to keep up with the aging Boy Scout. Most mornings I still see him in his overalls, thirties-style Scoutmaster’s hat, red bandanna, and sunglasses, carrying a gunnysack on the end of a long stick as he walks downtown to fill it with cans careless people have thrown by the wayside. As he said, somebody’s got to do it.
Discuss the importance of living the scout law and how it can help us live in accordance with the gospel.
Treat
Strawberry Chantilly or Lemon Ice
Strawberry Chantilly
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 cups fresh strawberries
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 2 egg whites
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C).
- Mix flour, sugar and butter until crumbly. Stir in chopped walnuts.
- Press two-thirds of the mixture in the bottom of a 9×13-inch baking dish; the remaining crumble will be used for the topping. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Cool crust completely.
- In large deep bowl, stir together egg whites, sugar (see Cook’s Note), strawberries, and lemon juice. Whip with electric mixer at high speed for 10 minutes.
- In another mixing bowl, whip whipping cream until stiff and fold into strawberry mixture. Spread over cooled crust. Sprinkle with remaining crumb mixture. Freeze for 6 hours or overnight before serving.
Lemon Ice
Ingredients
- 1 lemon, zested and juiced
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 2 cups cold milk, chilled
- 1 (14oz) can nonfat sweetened condensed milk, chilled
Instructions
- In the freezer canister of an ice cream maker, combine lemon zest, lemon juice, milk and sweetened condensed milk. Freeze according to manufacturers’ directions.Note: I churned my mixture in my machine for about 15 to 20 minutes, and while still slushy, poured it into individual containers and placed in the freezer for approximately 2 hours. They came out brilliantly, with no ice crystals, not too soft, not too hard and very, very tasty indeed! Enjoy!
(Recipes From All Recipes)
Activity
Sun Prints or Kid’s Carwash
Sun Prints – Sunlight fades construction paper, as anyone who’s hung a piece of artwork in a window has discovered. Turn this drawback to your advantage by making sun prints that use everyday objects as stencils. Flat objects create sharp outlines, while bulky ones make blurrier impressions. Untreated, the images will fade eventually, but you can protect them with a UV-resistant spray.
Cut shapes from paper, and spread re-stickable glue on the back, then stick them to the construction paper. Tape the paper to a sunny window, facing out, and leave for at least a week (longer for higher contrast), then peel off cutouts. You can also lay three-dimensional objects (try rickrack, toothpicks, or buttons) flat on a piece of construction paper in a sunny place where they will not be disturbed. (from Martha Stewart)
Kids Car Wash – find instructions here
