Helamans Encampment

From July 4-9 the Church held Helaman's Encampment. It was to commemorate 100 years of Scouting in the Church in Canada. There was 2000 young men and 1000 leaders and adult volunteers. This was a type and shadow of the 2000 stripling warriors lead by Helaman during the wars with the Lamanites in the book of Alma. Our troop, consisting of Ian Isackson, Richard Bennett, Vince Holland, and myself as leaders and Howard Choi, Curtis Venance, his cousin Jared Mckay, Shaun and Seth Cousins, Jamie Repp, Micah Jensen, Tyler Holland, Jayman Bendixen,and Lehi Bacanawa as the youth, that left with us, left Lloydminster sunday afternoon after church and a small pot luck lunch provided by the boys moms.
We rented a 15 passenger van which pulled Vince's candle trailer full of gear.

We drove to Calgary and stayed with parents of a member of our branch(the Swendsons) they were very kind and packed us all in their basement for the night. We got up and left there by 630 and ate breakfast at McDonald's and gassed up for the last leg of the journey.

We arrived way earlier than we should have but got in luckily and got our gear set up and camp site prepped for the long week ahead.

Alex Rugama and his brother Daniel arrived via their grandpa, and also Brad and his son TJ arrived on their own.

Each Stake was joined with another stake in sub camps like military organization, we were camp Nephi. There was camp Ammon, Alma, Teancum, Moroni, Helaman, and on and on.

At the end of each day at 8pm there was a mass fire side set up on a hill were all of the "troops" gathered and enjoyed much spiritual enlightenment and the vision of what 3000 warriors look like. It is no small crowd.
Even Helaman was there and he looked great. he challenged the boys and leaders to push ups and arm wrestles. He did very well all week however there were times he came up a loser.

Elder Melchen of the 70 was the guest speaker

A quick idea of how heck-tick our mornings were... 545am get food if it was there start cooking breakfast and making lunch for all 20 of us and be done eating and cleaning up by 745 so we all could get to our activities for the day. Clean up was a must as threr was a lot of bears in the area so all our cooking pots needed to be cleaned and all dish water taken to the gray water disposal and garbage taken out of camp. This made for a lot of yelling and motivating boys to move move move

Tuesday our group which was sub camp Nephi and the Kin of Zoram or Zoramites was scheduled to do the wilderness adventure, in which we hike for 4 km to learn how to build a tower and make arrows to cast at our enemies, and build rope bridges. Our group of venture Lloyd boys and one vermilion boy did very well in all the events except the arrow casting in which Howard Choi Cut his thumb and required a medic, Geeze Howard.
The fire side was a NFL'er offensive lineman Ed Mulitalo he played for the Baltimore Raven's and he did a wonderful job

Wednesday we were doing man tracker. We had a few GPS units and we were given a list of points that we had to find and not get caught by the men on horses, and we had a time limit and we had to make 3 points for sure. We got caught 2 times and avoided them 3 or 4 times after that.
This was kind of showing us the story of Alma in the wilderness leading the people out of bondage from the Lamanites.
No Injuries to report
The fire side was another great one, the guest speaker was Gifford Nielsen quarter back for the Houston Oilers from 78-82 and he also had a great talk.

Thursday was our hike up the Mountain. Our Venture company rode a bus to the back side of the Mt and started our hike just after 9am. The hikes elevation was very steep and fast. It took a lot of effort for us to make it up. The sights were breathtaking and the what a great accomplishment as many of these boys will never see those sights from any mountain ever again. It was no small feat as this hike lasted till 6pm. Some of the boys were very exhausted and so was I.
The weather was amazing the whole week and as we got back to camp the clouds came roaring in and it looked like we were going to be in for a good rain storm.
we ate our diner and got on all our rain gear and brought tarps up to the hill to listen to our fire side. We got there and assembled and the stake president in charge told us to go back to our sub camps and pray to have the weather break. We did so, and with in moments the clouds broke and we were all called back to the hill. The Lord did hear our cries and answered them.

That night the guest speaker was the former General Young Mens President Charles W. Dahlquist
THis night each young man received a letter from his mother, I received one from Kalinda and if the boys had a letter like the one I received they would have all been in tears.

Friday was our day on the waters. Our troop (symbolizing the family of Lehi had to find timber to build a ship and kindling to build a fire and coordinates to find the ore to put the ship together.
our troop was great. As this was the coldest day of our journey they braved the cold water and we lite our fire first. It was very windy and hard to paddle on the waves but as a team we moved the raft quite well.

the last fireside ended with the Current General Young Mens President David Beck
all the firesides were filled with inspiring messages.

Also each night our stake got together to talk and pass on house keeping items. At one meeting there was a fellow that would just not let off the complaining and murmuring about the rules and how strict they were. President Christensen asked him to wait and discuss later, but he would not. Finally Vince ask him,"how old are You?" the man threw down something on the ground and stood up and called Vince a punk, I tell you it was like the scriptures say the warm contentions that arose. The night ended and no one got injured.
Saturday we got out of dodge by 730 and landed in Calgary for peters drive in at 1130. and almost ran out of fuel by Wetaskawin but made it to a husky gas station in Leduc.

what an amazing week, I am glad I got to go and I am glad it is over.