Smoke? Fire? No problem!

5th Ward YM at the FirehallOur visit to the Cardston County Firehall engaged our young men in ways we were not expecting.  Donning SCBA's to check out a smoke filled room, throwing on complete firemen's gear, and putting out a real diesel/gas fire with a fire-extinguisher were some of the highlights.  Ironically, the smoke alarm went off early in the evening due to the smoke from the smoke machine setting off the alarm.  (Who do you call when THAT happens?)  Our thanks to the dedicated firemen who were so willing to let us actually use equipment and experience first hand some of the challenges of fire fighting.  What was supposed to be a routine tour of the firehall became an introduction to firefighter training!  Enjoy the photo montage provided by Bro. Millward's iPhone.

Past Events and Helaman's Encampment

Over the last few weeks, the young men have been challenged in various new ways, from braiding 4 strand cord to make slings, to fire starting without matches, and to utilizing GPS units to locate markers at night.

Thanks to Bro. Jeff Mackenzie for his efforts in acquiring a unique design for a sling and teaching us how to braid 4 strand cord!  And thanks to Bro. Curtis Spencer for acquiring fire-starting materials for our future survival kits (based on Neldon Hatch's charred denim recipe) and for setting up a GPS course.       Many of our activities are purposely designed to prepare the young men and their leaders for Helaman's Encampment.

Reminder:  All young men who are committed to attending the encampment need to bring their $25.00 encampment fee to the young men leaders by Sunday, March 20.  This encampment is a once in a lifetime activity!  Besides challenging and engaging activities each day for scouts and ventures, the evening firesides involve prominent LDS athletes, Young Men's Presidency leaders , and a general authority on the Friday evening fireside. Speculation about the possibility of President Monson attending remains speculation, but a possibility nonetheless.  Assembling over 3,000 young men and their leaders will be an experience to remember.  Visit the website at www.helamansencampment.com to view video and learn more about the encampment.   

Scratch and Mailing List

Tonight we will learn about Scratch. You can freely download Scratch for your computer. To start learning how to use it:

1. Here is the getting started guide.
2. Take a look at the sample projects (choose File -> Open, and click on the Examples folder on the left)
3. Go through the Scratch Cards.
4. Follow along with these screencasts.
5. Take a look at the 1.5 million projects on the Scratch website. If you sign up (get parental permission first), you can download the source code and upload your own projects. (See Brother Blackmore's projects.)

Lastly, we've created a mailing list for the fifth ward young men's. Please sign up:

E-mail:

Annie Jr. and Elder Schow

This week our young men enjoyed watching the Cardston Jr. High production of Annie Jr. along with our young women.  We were impressed with the individual performances by Dalys and Abbey.  It was easy to see that the cast and production crew had worked hard to produce some quality entertainment!

Speaking of Abbey, her brother, Elder Schow, is one of our ward's missionaries serving in New York.  Elder Schow has been directed by his mission president to operate a blog as a missionary.  Click here www.elderschow.blogspot.com to view this blog or click on the link on the side menu.  Our young men can learn of his mission efforts first hand as well as read his testimony of the Lord's work.  Elder Schow's example reminds us of the opportunities we have to spread the gospel over the internet.  We look forward to following his experiences and comments online!

Rocket Building and Launching

January 11 - Rocket building and launching kept us all busy on this week's activity.  Hopefully everyone had as much fun (or more) building the rockets as they did launching them.  Unfortunately, we were all pre-occupied with launching our rockets that we didn't get any pictures of the launching.  (Besides, there wouldn't have been much to see as the glow sticks on the rockets weren't bright enough to see in the dark.) However, Bro. Hardy included some video from a family rocket launch so you can get an idea of what it might have looked like in the daytime.

Thanks again to Bro. Bridge for letting us launch rockets onto his roof and for warming up his pool table afterwards.

Rocket Building and Launching Video