I had the opportunity to take my son Jacob this Friday to attend our Ward's Fathers & Sons cam pout at Christopher Creek, which is actually a celebration of the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood to the earth. At first, Jacob was a little hesitant to go, lamenting that he wanted to take "Mommy and Hailey... and Ben too!" In the end though I think he had a really good time. I know I thoroughly enjoyed the one-on-one time with him, talking and playing, and enjoying the outdoors.After setting up camp, we decided to hike along the nearby creek. We sat down on a rock next to a natural pool and talked about how Christ organized and created this earth...and after about two minutes of quiet reflection, Jacob informed me that he was now bored and wanted to go back to camp.
Later that afternoon we met up with one of Jacob's friends and his Dad (Schmitz) and we tied hunter's tape to twigs and sticks and raced these "boats" down the stream.That night we roasted smores by the fire, which I had never had before, but Jacob really only wanted the marshmallows. Jacob kept asking if he could go to bed starting about 7:00, and anybody who knows him knows that this was out of the ordinary, so about 8:00 I let him go into the tent for bed. We had a fireside that night about how the Aaronic priesthood was restored in 1829 through John the Baptist to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. I do not know what was keeping me up, but I slept maybe two hours total that night. My mind would just not rest, with no particular thought preventing me from doing so. I am paying the price of that today though. Saturday morning came and the High Priests Group provided a delicious breakfast for us, comprised of pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns and orange juice.Jacob and I went for another short hike that morning to float some more boats.
Afterwards, we headed down the road and toured the Tonto Fish Hatchery, and then drove down to a private fishing pond called Rancho Tonto so Jacob could experience some "real" fishing. All it was, was a stocked pond in the middle of their property but it was nicely groomed and landscaped. Jacob caught three fish and I caught one, mostly because I wanted him to experience the thrill of the catch, but also because they were so concentrated that you could reach down and grab one with your bare hands. The rule is that you keep what you hook so we decided that we would catch four fish to take home. Well, as I was unhooking one fish from a line, Jacob decided that it was easier to just put the net in the water. When I looked up he had a couple fish in the net already before I could stop him. Seeing as how we were already spending $40 bucks for four fish, I couldn’t very well keep these so we just let them slip through the holes in the net when no one was watching. After all, we didn't actually "hook" these so I felt we were still following the rule.
As I was paying for our catch on the way out, Jacob looks up at this woman who was probably late forties or early fifties and says, "who is that old lady?" Mortified, I apologized to her and bent down and instructed him that was an impolite thing to say to a lady. He reflected on this for a moment and then replied, "Why? How old is she?" To this I let him know that again, this is a question that is never polite to ask, regardless of her age and let him know that that topic would most certainly lead him into trouble so it would be wise of him to avoid it altogether in the future.
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