Duty to God.

John,

Since you were working with the young men before you were called up for deployment you are probably familiar with the Duty to God program in the church.  As you know, it is a six-year program broken up into three sections corresponding with the divisions of the Aaronic Priesthood quorums.  In order for it to work properly, the younger boys really need to catch the vision of it while they are 12 years old.  But let's face it, how many 12 year-old boys have vision for a religious award that takes six years to earn?  With that in mind, I knew I had to think outside the box to get them to work on it from day one when they came into the deacons' quorum.

Maybe it's because I've never really grown up, but I tend to know what it is that motivates 12 and 13 year-old boys.  Among a lot of different things that keep boys interested, knives are near the top of the list.  So I was online one day looking at a lot of different things and came across some swords that were for sale.  They were awesome and reminded me of the Sword of Laban.  So of course I bought ten of them!

I had this idea about calling them the Swords of Laban and told the boys that if they committed themselves to earning the first part of the Duty to God award on their own (a two-year endeavor) then I would present them with a sword as an incentive.  My hope was then and still is now, that once they have committed themselves to the first part that they will be more engaged to finish off the second two parts as they grow and mature.  So far I have presented two swords with another one already spoken for, but more about that in a minute.

So I bought ten of these swords.  They were pretty awesome straight out of the box, but when I got them, none of my boys were even 12 yet and not able to even start working on the requirements.  I soon learned that even once they start, part of the requirement was that they can't finish the first part until they turn 14.  So here I am stuck with ten swords and can't even give any of the away for almost two and a half years!  A little irritated with myself, I started to pack them away, but while I was doing so I took a good look at each one.  Awesome as they were, they had a lot of finger prints on the blade as well as a lot of burs that could easily cut.  The hilt was also more of an antiqued bronze color, which is not very much like the description of the Sword of Laban.  With that in mind I started some online research of the Sword of Laban and came across this artistic representation:

Artistic representation of the Sword of Laban from the Book of Mormon.

Now this is what I'm talkin' about!  Gold hilt, polished bright...I had some work cut out for me.  I took out a file and filed down all the burs on the blade.  Then I bought a bench grinder and put a polishing disk on it (actually three, with different grits and a fourth for final polish) and went to town on the blade. The first blade I worked on took more than twenty hours as I had no idea what it was I wanted the final finish to look like.  I worked it and worked it until all the flat finish took on a mirror-like finish.  Once it was done I then took the hilt and gold-leafed.  Once that was done I took a gold-leaf sealer and started to seal it, but learned you can't just blast it or the gold goes into solution.  I had to strip the entire thing and start all over.  Once it was re-gold-leafed, I spritzed the hilt with the sealer and let it dry for twenty-four hours.  Then spritzed it again, over and over until it had a full coat of sealer on it.  Then I was able to spray it down with five more full coats of sealer.  It took forever!  But here are the results with a sword out of the box along side with one that is finished:

The highly polished blade on the right actually looks darker than

the matte-finished blade on the left.  But in the sunlight there is no

comparison.  The one on the right will blind you if not carefull.

A little easier to see the mirror-finish on the right.

Display box I made to take sword to church

and show the boys on a monthly basis.

The original ten swords.  Two down, eight to go in round #1!

Like I said, it takes two years for a boy to finish the first part of the Duty to God award.  Since the day the above picture was taken I've had two boys finish the requirements and claim their prize.  

Jemesa Snuka claimed his in January of 2010.

                                                             

Kasey Lester got his today, March 28, 2010.

I could not be more proud of these two boys.  Jemesa was the oldest and thus the first.  It is always tough doing something new for the first time.  Kasey was gone from our program for almost a year and had a lot of obstacles thrown in his way.  And he was still able to pull it all together before his birthday.  They are the examples that I will refer to as younger boys come up through the ranks trying to match what they have already done.  

My own son will claim his prize in just a few more months.  I'm going to have to get started on it as soon as possible.  Having done two swords now I've worked out some of the kinks and gotten faster, but it still takes five to six hours from start to finish to work out all the burs, polish, gold-foil, and seal.  And after all the work is done, I always see where I could have done more.  But you have to move forward.

It is the same with these boys.  They are pretty cool right out of the box as they are.  But you start to work with them and see where the burs are.  Those need to be filed out with a firm touch.  Then polish them with test after test after test of Scout advancement, merit badges, boards of review, backpacking and endless priesthood service.  And after all of that work there are still areas you wish you had more time to spend with them, but you can't.  The time comes whether you like it or not.  They have to progress forward and start the next phase with someone new in the teachers' quorum.  And you hope what you have done is enough to make it easier when the next series of tests comes their way.

Ultimately, I tell each boy that the sword is a symbol.  If they finish the award, then it will be a symbol of the progress they made.  If they don't, then it will be symbol for what they started, but never finished.  Hopefully they will take that to heart.

With that in mind, good night.