B.O.O.T CAMP!

This year I feel like I've gone and am going through B.O.O.T Camp. I may not like it but I do appreciate it. It's not a bad idea time to time to back to basic training.
We do things to maintain our homes by keeping things cleaned and repaired. Same thing with our vehicles. We do daily maintenance on our bodies by bathing, dressing and feeding ourselves. How often do we take serious thought about doing this with our spirits? Our spirits are used everyday just as our homes, vehicles and bodies. I dare say we spend very little, time if any each day doing those things that would help maintain a healthy and clean spirit. Are there not times when our souls hunger for peace, love, and joy? These things help to nourish out spiritual selves.

How often do we find ourselves rushing out each day forgetting breakfast and finding ourselves famished by the time lunch comes? And if we happen to forget lunch too, we surely make a point of having dinner or something before we hit the pillows at night. How often do we lie down at night with a famished spirit? It may not leave us with an immediate physical ache or gnawing as a hunger pang. It may not cause you to limp, or need a band aide or get the flu, but eventually it does it's own damage.


I'm ashamed to say until recently I haven't really done those maintenance things that a spirit needs to be healthy. Ok I've done some things but not to the extent as should be done. Looking back I'm surprised at how often I've become upset for not having those spiritually things I've felt I've needed and then having the nerve to neglect doing the maintenance needed to have those things. There comes a time when you have to look at your life, where you are now, where you want to be, and where you've come from and think..... "I really need to get myself together. There's no excuse. No justification. There's no reason why I shouldn't have a better handle on my spirituality."
I really do need to get myself together. Late last year, I felt I needed to get back to the basics of the Gospel.
BASIC TRAINING!

I put myself into B.O.O.T Camp!
When I was girls camp director in the Bonneville 1st ward we had a military theme. Our T-shirts were Cami Green. On the front left side was a picture of a boot and underneath it said "B.O.O.T Camp"
B.O.O.T meant Building Our OWN Testimonies: We can only believe what we hear and what we're told for so long until we need to know to our own knowledge of things.

The back of our t-shirts had the following logo: Br*A*T*S.
Br*A*T*S meant Bringing it All Together Spiritually. Because our purpose was to get ourselves together spiritually. We called our week at camp "BASIC TRAINING." Doing those basic, yet important things that will help us continue to nourish our spiritual selves. The basic stuff is easy. It's just a matter of getting it done. Taking the time to get it done.
The basics are pretty easy:
Prayer
Scripture Reading
Fasting
Attending Church meetings/renewing our sacrament covenants
tithing

Not so bad, is it?

Really how hard is it to pray each day?
It's not really that difficult to pick up the Scriptures and read each day either especially with as much time as we spend on computers, tv, and electronic gaming devices.

Attending church meetings is mainly one day a week. The Lord asked for 1 day out of 7, is it really so hard to oblige?

He asked us to fast 1 day out of at the most 31. We usually don't die from such a request.

Tithing is the one a bunch of us have issue with, myself included. "What? You want me to give up 10% of my pay check? ARE YOU CRAZY??" *sigh*
I've learned that paying tithing have very little to do with how much money you have. It has more to do with how much faith you have. And this year I've learned a few things of faith. In regards to tithing, I once head it put like this... If you pay it first thing, it's only 10% of what you have. If you wait to put it off, It may be 100% of what you have left.
The Lord had provided a way for us to obtain 100% of what we have. 10% is a drop in the bucket, it's the least we can do.

Hey, I nobody said it would be easy. But hopefully with a desire to do these things they become automatic. That's really what I want, for these things to be automatic, no second thought to doing them. I was much happier when I was doing these things. I was more grounded. Less mean and angry. My soul was more at ease.
As a parent we must take our children to Basic Training. We must be the examples of what we want to teach them. We will be responsible and accountable for whatever foundation we lay before them and the example we are to them.

B.O.O.T camp is HARD. Ask any military personnel how it was to go through those first few weeks that laid the foundation of discipline for them. That's exactly what Basic Training is supposed to do: ingrain in us those things that should be a standard for our lives.

I look around me at those people who are close to me or who I would like to be close to me and I see them struggling. I want to take them to B.O.O.T Camp. I want to remind them of the eternal plan that Heavenly Father has for us. The blessings of being with our families and having a mansion prepared. I want to remind them of the feelings of peace, comfort and home that can be found in doing the Service in our temples and our churches and our homes. We are to stand in Holy places and be a light unto the world. I fear that many of us have become bland to the promptings of the spirit to be in better places and associate with better people. I'm in no way suggesting that better people are ONLY member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints because this is in NO WAY true. I'm suggesting to realize the blessings that you want, the places you want to be in your life and where you want to be after this life and surround yourselves with those things and people that are headed that same direction. We get so caught up in what we want right now. Hoping things will work out or eventually meld into the things we really want. Only to realize after much time and effort, that we're either going to settle for what we want right now and make the best of it, or get a grip on reality and work towards that eternal goal.


It really is time to get ourselves together. Get back to basic training and b.o.o.t camp. Relearn and practice those basic principles that will lay a stronger spiritual foundation. Spend some time in silence and get in tune with your spirit. Is is starving? Is it ill and in need of nourishment? Sometimes just being alone in silence allowing ourselves to think and feel will put us in tune with our spirit and our heavenly Father. I know for me it's been those moments of silence. Sometimes even hours that have broken me down to hear my soul crying out like a lost child looking for a loving parent. You cannot run away from yourself.
We ARE indeed soldiers on the battlefield of our Lord. And for any soldier to enter a battlefield without basic training and b.o.o.t camp is suicide.

You decided your final destiny with each choice you make.