The True North, strong and free

This is one of my favorite Canada Day cartoons, and I think it bears repeating — especially on this Canada Day Eve!

Let's be careful out there!

Uphill both ways

Earlier this year I was contacted by a representative of the Surprise Stake from Surprise, Arizona. They wanted to know if they could use some of my trek cartoons to help publicize their youth pioneer trek.

Why not? I love it when people ask!

As a result, I was looped in with a backstage pass to see how they got the kids ready. It was fun to see the different activities they had: a pioneer fashion show, square dancing lessons, tips for packing and preparing physically, "family" home evenings. It almost seemed like it would be a fun experience!

When our stake did their first trek many years ago, fun was a little further down on the agenda. They wanted the kids to have a real pioneer experience — right down to real pioneer food! They drew the line, however, at being chased out of town by an angry mob.

A pioneer trek can be a cool experience, and helps put the whole westward exodus in a different perspective. Trek on!

Check out the Surprise Trek site. It's pretty awesome! And thanks, Sis. Crockett, for asking to share my cartoons!

Game design

And it was good.

Sizing up the contest winner!

Congratulations to Tim S., winner of our caption contest!

There were lots of great entries — our esteemed panel of judges had a hard time making a decision. Some of the suggestions may wind up in some other cartoons in the future!

As the lucky and talented winner, Tim wins a collection of my missionary cartoons.

Thank you for your continued readership. Thank you to everyone who entered!

When your stake president boldly goes where no stake president has gone before

Poor guy got the red shirt!

Sketchbook: Called to serve — except for that!

A large part of missionary work is service, and when you're a young man who is all about service it seems like you can do anything.

Maybe not!

Remember, there's still time to submit your entry for the caption contest! The winner will be announced Wednesday!

How does your garden grow?

Jacob has lots of good ideas about gardening!

What about the seismic retrofit?

That's what happens when you use the low bid system.

Blues for baby and me

Kind of exciting news to hear that the hymn book is getting an update!

Truth be told, the singer here should probably be about twice his age. There's a whole generation of people who think of the green hymn book as the "new" hymnal!

What?! It's a caption contest!? Oh, my!

It's time again for another caption contest! Come up with the winning caption for this cartoon, and you could walk away with a semi-valuable prize!

Simply send in your proposed caption — by comment, email, snail mail or in person. If your caption is selected by our esteemed band of judges, not only will you get to see your name and caption in print (WOOT!), but you could win a prize from our great big box of stuff (HUZZAH!)

Multiple suggestions are OK!

The winner will be announced one week from today. Could it be you?!

A still, small, cool voice

Sometimes the spirit works in logical ways!

Sketchbook: If you have to ask...

A couple of things I found intriguing about the social media fast — one was how quickly other people picked up on it. It wasn't just Mormon kids who attended Pres. Nelson's fireside. Another thing was how Apple announced that in the next system upgrade, it was going to be a lot easier to control how much screen time you're actually using.

Maybe the prophet is on to something here?

And do us the good we need

I don't know about you, but when I have something questionable on my plate, that's what I pray for!

It's crystal clear

Somebody recently asked the question, "Do you remember what thoughts filled your mind after you were baptized?"

He went on, ruthlessly

Sometimes these cartoon ideas come to me while I'm teaching my Sunday school class. It's a little awkward to pause in the middle of teaching to write down a gag!

Go forth an proclaim my word. Carefully.

This was from my sketchbook when we dropped our son off at the MTC. Mom was just a little...anxious.

Ready to take the dive

Welcome back!

I'm reluctant to say much about the seven-day social media fast, but I think it was a great experience. It's the longest that this blog has been idle in more than ten years!

When I've taken time off in the past, I've either worked ahead or filled the space with reruns. Seven days off was a good, refreshing break.

Meanwhile, we're back at it, ready to dive in again. Enjoy!

Sketchbook: Movie night!

Saturday was our Missionary Movie Night. It was amazing! We had a great turnout, and there were many wonderful testimonies shared through the videos. Some were touching, some were funny, and all of them were built with the intent to show what the Book of Mormon is all about.

We helped the missionaries make a few videos, and we entered a few ourselves. We have our videos posted on YouTube — we hope to have the rest posted soon! Please view, and feel free to share!

And, in the spirit of following the prophet, Pres. Nelson challenged us to go on a social media fast for seven days. In support of that, we'll be going quiet until next Monday. See you then, and keep the faith!

Blockbuster season

Normally I wouldn't run two Mission President cartoons in one week. But this is kind of an exception: tonight is our ward's missionary movie night! Ward members were asked to come up with a short video — most are between 30 seconds and one minute — that describes a verse in the Book of Mormon. The missionaries have received about 26 of them (at last count), and they each offer a unique perspective of the Book of Mormon. Some are very professionally done, some are...less so. Yet there's a great spirit about them!

Come on by and join us! It starts at 7 at the stake center. Bring a dessert and share some scriptural insights!

Following in their footsteps

There's a very good explanation as to why this looks suspiciously like my son's room. Well, except for the Osmonds poster.