Scout Advancements

Caleb and Cayden  had a Court of Honor on Sunday October 25.  They are both doing really well in their progress. Cayden got his Star rank and 7 merit badges and Caleb got 4 merit badges.  Caleb only has to do his Eagle Project now and he will be finished.  Cayden worked really hard at scout camp over the summer and was diligent in going to some merit badge pow wows the ward had put on so he was able to pass off a lot of stuff.  I am very appreciative of the our boys scout leaders who are so diligent in helping them get these badges and progress.  It is a monumental task!

Connor is 1 merit badge away from being totally done with scouting.  ONE!!!  He did his Eagle Project last December while he still had a few merit badges to work on.  He loved doing the project.  If manual labor is involved that kid is in!  His leaders in 1st ward have worked very hard to get him to complete these remaining badges.  The last merit badge is either hiking, biking or swimming.  He started the biking a few years ago and never finished it because of the last few rides that were 20 or so miles long.  He started swimming last year and never finished it because he would never go swimming with us-because he always wanted to work.  He started hiking in September and did 3 ten mile hikes in about a month but since then he has flat out refused to go hiking.  He still needs 2 more 10 mile hikes and a 20 mile hike.  His dad has planned several time to take him but Connor always has a reason to not go and if we push him like we did a few weeks ago it ends up backfiring and he goes to meltdown mode.  I have been so frustrated about the whole thing because he is so stinking close to being done with this and so many people have worked so hard to get him here.  He is not the average scout and so it has taken greater effort and more time and many more people to get him to this point.  I have been praying about what to do about this because we are down to less than 2 months to get this done.  All merit badges and the project have to be done before the scout is 18 or it doesn't count.  My answer was to go back and get the swimming merit badge.  He had worked on that previously and it would only require 1 outing and not 3 like the hiking would.  We figure that we can drag him if we have to 1 time to the Mesquite pool and that would be much easier than trying to get him on 3 more hikes in the next 2 months.  Hopefully this will be over soon so we can stop worrying about it!