Board's clear! Area's clear!
During the summer of 2009, the teachers and priests in our ward chose to participate in a week-long summer camp at the Boy Scout Claytor Lake Aquatics Base near Radford, Virginia. Activities at this camp all centered on aquatics activities. Our young men participated in canoeing and kayaking, waterskiing, large boat sailing, snorkeling, motorboating, and even a pilot program for personal watercraft (jet-skis). One of our goals for the week was that the experience would provide strong spiritual experiences as well. In order to accomplish this goal, we started the week by challenging each of the young men to look for spiritual analogies in their activities. One example came from a class on the large boat sailing. The youth had learned about a principle called tacking. They reported that if you just try to sail with the wind to your back, you can only go as fast as the wind and would be at the wind's mercy. Sailboats, however, are built with a keel which acts like a sail in