For our weekly meetings, very often we were away from the church, usually touring a place where someone in the ward worked. We went to the facilities of a book publisher, a medical research lab, a semi truck yard, the water treatment plant, the sewage treatment plant, or an air force base only to name a few.
I progressed like clockwork through the scouting program. That is, until I ran into a merit badge called Citizenship in the Community. When I made the appointment with the merit badge counselor, I really wasn't ready. But I thought I could talk my way through it. I remember sweating in his livingroom. "Tell me, Billy,” he said, “what steps does the government take to make sure people have clean water to drink?"
"Well, uha, they, uha, strain it.
"I'm sorry Billy, what did you say?"
"Uha, they put the water through a --, a --, filter."
"What kind of filter?"
"Uha, a big one."
"How big?"
"Pretty big."
"You are not prepared to pass off this merit badge, are you?"
"No."
"Come back when you are ready."
I was up against the deadline to have the merit badge count towards my next rank advancement. So I didn't get the rank advancement on time. In fact, it was two more months before I got it. As a result I was two months behind. At the time this seemed to be a terrible thing. How could I let this happen? This would make it so that I wouldn't get my Eagle near my thirteenth birthday. What a disgrace! However, I should have realized that delays were to be expected and okay. After all, the Boy Scouts of America allowed a young man to meet the qualifications for Eagle Scout by his eighteenth birthday.
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