Spiritual Crocodiles
by Patti Hosford / ga01302007

I did a really nice fireside a few months ago and the youth loved it. I took Elder Packer's old talk (1976) "Spiritual Crocodiles" as the theme for the fireside. I had chairs in a big circle around the gym and in the middle I had all kinds of obstacles (chairs, shoes, tables, plants, etc.)   On each item I had put a 8x11" picture of a crocodile. At the beginning of the fireside I had several youth try to navigate the obstacles with a blindfold. No one could do it. Then I had the youth still blindfolded hold the shoulders and walk behind a guide. Some still bumped into things but for the most part they made it through the crocodile swamp without getting eaten. There were some nips and bruises.

One bright young man brought up the point that at the beginning everybody saw how the obstacles were situated and each person thought they'd be the one to make it through the crocodile pit but none of them could do it alone. It's like sin in the world we all know it's there because we see it all the time but can we walk around and away from sin without getting caught in it? One wrong move can be deadly... spiritually in our case.

We likened it to all the dangers out there that our youth face. We even put new titles on each crocodile. We talked a lot about spiritual tools that help us maneuver the dangers out there.... scriptures, seminary, prayer, good friends, family, following the prophet, obeying commandments esp. the Word of Wisdom, etc. It was very oh... hands on ... not quite the right word but the youth were very involved.

I had found wooden alligators at Michael's and painted them green and put a magnet on the back for each youth. I'm usually not into crafty stuff but I couldn't refuse these... 25c each. Maybe 2 hours to paint 40. Well maybe 4 hours.  After we had "mud pies". It was something different for a fireside.