Scout Camp Week

Our Scouts are at camp this week (yes, in this HORRIBLE heat....).

In the October 1993 general conference, President Gordon B. Hinckley called Scouting
"a program which the Church has sponsored for eighty years, to the blessing of hundreds of thousands of boys and young men."

President Monson:
Twenty-five years ago my wife Frances and I were on an assignment in London,
England. One afternoon we walked from the sunbathed street into the semidarkness of
Westminster Abbey.
A reverence filled this world-famous edifice where kings are crowned, royalty wedded,
and rulers whose mission of mortality has ended are honored, then buried. We walked
along the aisleways, thoughtfully reading the inscriptions which marked the tombs of the famous. We remembered their achievements, recalled their deeds of valor, and marked their well-earned places in the world's history.
Eventually we walked toward the doorway. The immortal words of Rudyard Kipling
coursed through my mind and spoke to my soul:

The tumult and the shouting dies,
The captains and the kings depart;
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart;
Lord God of hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget.

One final marker to see, one more inscription to read. As a Scouter, I wanted to view the plaque of honor dedicated to the memory of Scouting's founder, Lord Baden-Powell. We stood before the magnificent marble memorial and noted the words:

Robert Baden-Powell, 1857–1941
Founder of the Boy Scouts
Friend of all the World

I pondered the thought, "How many boys have had their lives blessed---even saved---by
the Scout movement begun by Baden-Powell?" Unlike others memorialized within the
walls of Westminster Abbey, Baden-Powell had neither sailed the stormy seas of glory
nor founded empires of worldly wealth. Rather, he was a builder of boys---one who
taught them well how to run and win the race of life.
The boys of today will become the men of tomorrow.

Nobody knows what a boy is worth;
We'll have to wait and see.
But every man in a noble place
A boy once used to be.