First Day

Today was the first day of Seminary and only 159 days to go!  I kid.  But seriously, things went as well as can be expected especially since I don't feel like I am quite in the groove yet.

I arrived early and began setting up only to realize that I had left my nicely typed lesson plan at home along with other things I was going to chat with the students about.  FAIL.  But I wrote a few things down quickly and figured I could probably wing it pretty well.

Some of my favorite things that happened:

One student wanting to stand for the class.  I made him sit down with the rest of us.

Two of my freshmen who like to giggle like girls--together.  They may be getting separated one of these days.  We will see how tomorrow goes.

Singing "As Zion's Youth in Latter Days" with Zion's youth.

Talking about becoming a Zion class.

I think its going to be a great year and I am looking forward to many more adventures in the coming weeks.

One week more..

of sleeping in
not preparing lessons every day
not thinking about Seminary 24/7
being submerged in the scriptures.  Oh wait.  Already doing that.

Seminary starts in exactly one week from today and I am kind of freaking out.  Will the kids like me?  Will their parents?  Will they learn what they need to learn?  Will I be a good teacher?  How will I adjust to teaching in a home instead of teaching at the church building?  Who will come?  Will they stay awake?  Can I make the Old Testament exciting, interesting and new to teenagers?  ACK!

AND I have to still assemble lots of things and get things ready and I feel like its going to be here before I know it.  Parent meeting on Sunday. I will keep you posted.

The Seminary party

I am sure all of you are waiting on pins and needles for an update about the Seminary party. Today is your lucky day! Here for your reading pleasure are all of the juicy details.



I got off work on Saturday, ran to Target to get some junk food and then ran home to get ready. The house really didn't need cleaning since we have to keep it clean right now but I needed to be clean after a long day at work.



Around 6:30 my first guest arrives and he helps me decide how many and what kinds of pizza to order. In hindsight, I ordered too many so I've learned my lesson on that one. We ordered cheese, pepperoni, sausage and one with lots of stuff on it.



At 7:00 the rest of the crew starts to show up and we talk and laugh and just enjoy each other's company until the pizza arrives.



7:30 The pizza arrives and the students proceed to eat lots and lots of pizza and I was glad because I didn't want any leftovers. They drank pop and ate M&M's.



8:00 or so we start our first game: Celebrity which consists of each person writing down as many celebrity names as they can think of. After you put all the names in a big bowl, you divide teams and each team takes a turn, using words, trying to get everyone to guess who the celebrity is. It was HYSTERICAL! We played girls against boys and the boys were so funny. Telling me they were "not competitive" and everytime they got one right, leaping from their chairs to do a happy dance around the room. I was cracking up. So cute.

9:30 We finally decide to start watching a movie and end up watching Serenity which is one of my all time favorites.

I think everyone enjoyed themselves, especially the part where mom and dad came home with a cake and all my students sang Happy Birthday to me a few days early. That was great.

Love those kids.

A talk on Sunday

I have been given the GREAT opportunity to talk about Why Seminary is important in sacrament meeting this Sunday. I am excited to have the opportunity to address this because I think Seminary is so important when the youth are going through High School but its amazing how many parents don't think so.

Here is where you, my dear friends, come in. If you went to Seminary, would you mind leaving a comment about how Seminary helped you or what you learned or what your favorite thing was about it?

That would be fab.

Thanks bunches and loves!

Games teenagers play...

I am hosting our Seminary party this Saturday and need some help from you, my faithful readers. We are going to possibly play some games and then watch a movie while we eat pizza and other junk food. It will be fun.

Here is my problem. All of my board games are currently in one of two storage units and not easily accessible. I wouldn't even know where to look. I need some ideas of easy games we could play together but that the children wouldn't think were LAME with a capital L!

So leave me a comment with an idea or send me an e-mail if you have that.

Thanks!

Seminary kids make me laugh

Yesterday we were talking about the book of Revelation and talking about the seven trumps. When the second trump is blown, it says all of the sea creatures will die.

One of my funnier students said: "Good-bye Shamu" in the saddest voice.

I laughed for like 5 minutes.

Then I told my brother about it and we laughed again.

Maybe you had to be there. But trust me, it was funny.

Its 2009

That rhymes. How fun.

Anyway, I have been reading lots of my friends blogs about resolutions etc etc and I have figured out over the years that I am no good at making or keeping those.

For instance at one time or another I've vowed to get organized. I buy cute day planners and they last through February. So I've quit doing that. (Until today when I found a cute tiny one at Target)

I also have said I want to lose weight. Who hasn't made that resolution at least once or 500 million times in their life? I know that I keep making it and breaking it. I've also said that I want to exercise more regularly and get in better shape. Does that mean I'll be a size 2 anytime in the near future? No. Never happen.

So I wanted to share some of the things I plan on NOT doing this year.

* I am not going to obsess over my marital status nor allow it to color my daily life. I'm going to live my life and see what happens. I am however going to try...as soon as I have the courage to do it.

*I am not going to obsess over trying to be the perfect Seminary teacher. I have good days and I have bad days. But at the end of the day what is really important is that I love those kids as much as if they were my own and that is perfection to me.

*I am not going to stress out about things I cannot control. (Perhaps vent about them to others..of course!)

*I am not going to beat myself up if I miss a day of exercise, scripture reading or some other thing I am trying to incorporate into my life this year.

*I am not going to be unhappy. I am going to be happy with me because then you can share your love with everyone around you.

See ya around 2008.
Here's to a great 2009.

Seminary is going swimmingly

So to update all of you on the Seminary front everything is going as well as I expected. I even got an addtional student I wasn't expecting. He hasn't been in Seminary for the last two years but one of my other kids lives close to him so they bring him. Its great. My poor girls though. I have 3 girls and 7 boys. I do love them all though. They are so great to get up so early and I really respect my 3 other siblings for doing early morning Seminary because it is a sacrifice.

Today we played "Do you love your neighbor?" Just to get to know each other and have a fun day. We will have to highlight our Scripture Mastery's another day. :-)

Seminary rocks!

And So it begins

I am sitting here at 5:35 am for five more minutes before I have to leave for the church and for Seminary.
I had nightmares all night that when I got there my room wouldn't be set up anymore and that I started yelling at some other teacher. I had to teach in a crappy trailer but the kids didn't care because I brought pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I had never had a nightmare before but the CES director said, at our last conference, that he never felt like he was ready until he had one. I just wish I would have had one the night before since I got to sleep in a bit.
Wish me luck! Report later today!

A new book

Life has been crazy the past little while since I am back at work. I am preparing for Seminary and still feel like I am not ready for it to start again in only a few days. We are back at it again on Tuesday, August 12th. Goodness.

I had my parent meeting on Sunday and it went very, very well. I am so glad for the supportive parents I have and for their thankfulness for my teaching their children.j

I also have a new book. I am sure most of you can guess which one it is. Its great. Love it.

That is all.

Prep for Seminary

I started doing more serious prep work for Seminary yesterday. I had a few housekeeping things I had to get done so I finished those. I made my schedule for the parents and students with the reading assignments for each week, I wrote my agenda for my parent/student meeting and I updated by student list with addresses and phone numbers etc. I am getting more and more excited about Seminary and looking forward to getting started.

I still have lots to do. I have about 8 more videos to review and read the New Testament. Only 5 weeks until Seminary starts and I can hardly believe it. But still so excited to be teaching the youth of the church. They are the best!

Seminary Graduation

Tonight was seminary graduation and I had the priviledge of watching 3 of my kids graduated tonight. It was a very nice meeting with some great talks from the graduating seniors and one was one of my students. What he said at the end of his talk summed up perfectly the year.

At the beginning of the year I told them I wanted us to be Zion, to be of one heart and one mind and just to be one. He said even though we were small we were Zion. It made me cry it was so sweet and exactly what I'd hoped they would learn. Then the Stake President had the teachers stand and face the audience and had us look at the parents of our kids. He told us to look for the gratitude that was in their eyes. I cried again. It was so nice to be appreciated for a calling that doesn't always get the thanks that we, as teachers, deserve.

I am glad this year is over but I will sorely miss the three that graduated tonight and I will be forever greatful for my whole class and the lessons they taught me.

Who can I teach but my friends? I truly love all my students and I know we learned from each other.

Seminary Gems

I can tell that the school year and seminary year are rapidly coming to a close because I am having a harder time keeping the kids attention. Consider this comment from one of my students on Wednesday (May 7th)

G: Can you draw a magic dragon on the board?
Me: Maybe after class, you know I can't draw.

This occurred in the middle of the lesson. I think they all have end of the year fever.

Parents?

I have this dilemma with a pair of sisters in my Seminary class. They like to talk and they really like to talk about their parents and what is going on at home. I don't discourage this because I feel like maybe they need someone to talk to who isn't their parent.

Today I was talking to them and one happens to be a Senior who is going to the prom this Saturday. The parents had bought a dress but were forcing her to "lose weight" or they were going to take the dress back and she'd have to wear something else. They tell her not to stop or limit eating but to "eat differently" when there isn't anything in the house to accomplish this. She can't use a measuring tape or a scale to track her progress and this morning she was very hungry. The parents told her that she had to lose weight because she would "pop open the seam" at the hip and she had to go on a diet or she couldn't wear the dress. They make her try it on in front of them and then they criticize her.

To me this is not cool. But then again, I am not a parent so maybe this is normal? Would some of you who are parents please enlighten me? Would you EVER do this to your kid, much less your teenage daughter? And let me also say that this girl isn't large by any stretch of the imagination. My question is why didn't they buy her a dress that fit in the first place? Wouldn't this be a tad bit detrimental to her self image?

I personally think it is ridiculous but this particular set of parents do a lot of things I don't agree with and I am usually at a loss of what to say when the girls are telling me what is going on at home.

Any thoughts?

Success!

Isaiah was a success to teach! I really enjoyed teaching and studying to teach it. The kids enjoyed it as well. I asked them yesterday what they liked most about Isaiah and these are a few of their responses:

"It was eye-opening and it applies to us today."
"I love Isaiah!"

The second one really warmed my heart because I was so unsure of myself I didn't know how the kids would react to Isaiah but they managed to do a great job and pay attention more or less.

Awesome!

Isaiah Chapters 1 and 2

Today we started our 3 week journey through Isaiah during Seminary. We did chapters 1 and 2 today and the lesson went really, really well.
Basically in chapter 1 Isaiah is telling the people that they are corrupt and they are performing the ordinances without their heart being in it. We talked about repentance because there is a great verse in that chapter verse 18 that reads: "Come now, and let us reason together saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool." We talked about how repentance and partaking of the sacrament makes you clean like you were just baptized. It was a great discussion. In chapter 2 Isaiah talks about our latter-day temples and how the temple is a house of learning.

I had a great time starting Isaiah and I hope the rest of the 3 weeks goes as well. I am sure it will if I study hard and teach by the Spirit.

I also wanted to tell you about fast and testimony meeting yesterday. On Friday I challenged all of the kids to bear their testimonies during the meeting. I was met with wide eyed stares as I assured them that I would go first. Sunday morning came and when the 2nd counselor sat down from bearing his testimony myself and all my students who were there went up to the stand and we all bore our testimonies together. It was so neat. I just have the best kids ever.

The Old Testament and Isaiah

Hello everyone out there in blog land. I am trying to do better and blog more often but sometimes life just gets in the way. There are some choice High School yearbook stuff that I want to reproduce for your enjoyment so I think I will work on those this weekend.

Although, I may be busy for the next three weeks as I am starting to teach Isaiah to the children for the next 3 weeks. Next week we are doing Chapters 1-23. AHH!!



When I knew I was going to teach Seminary again I was nervous because OT isn't exactly my favorite subject and I don't know a lot about it. Church History is my passion and most would say I am obsessed so I knew that the switch from that subject to the OT would be a hard one. I didn't expect it to be this hard. All year I have struggled with the material and with the urge to teach everything that I read. There is so much information and I have had a hard time separating out what needs to be taught and what needs to be left for them to learn in subsequent years and classes.



So here comes Isaiah and my stress level is rising. Until today. I had some downtime when I first got to work so I was eager to get a head start on my studying for the next few weeks. I currently have the OT Institute manual and if you don't have one I highly suggest that you purchase one at your local Distribution center if you are interested in learning more about Isaiah. Another book I would recommend is "Isaiah for Airheads" by John Bytheway.
I am really enjoying reading and thinking about Isaiah and what his message to the children of Israel was then and what his message is for us today.

One of the things that John Bytheway said that really struck me was "We are children of God with the gift of the Holy Ghost. We should never be intimidated by scripture." I really like that because it changed my attitude about studying Isaiah.

If anyone has any advice or insights they have learned as they have studied Isaiah I would be more than willing to listen!

A Mother Heart

I have been thinking about this topic for a few weeks now since I returned from spending Christmas with my cousin in Savannah. I loved being with her and being with her family. What was amazing to me was her patience with her kids. I find this to be true in all my interactions with people with kids. It is so cool to be how you can be so patient with them and kind and loving. I love kids and I hope to have my own someday and this brings us to the topic of this blog.
The title is taken from a talk given by Julie B. Beck in General Conference when she was the first counselor in the Young Women's presidency. She talks about how we can all cultivate a mother heart. I think it is interesting that we can all develop a mother heart whether we have children of our own or not.

Sister Beck says:

"What is a mother heart and how is one acquired? We learn about some of those qualities in the scriptures. To paraphrase Proverbs: “Who can find a … woman [with a mother heart]? for her price is far above rubies. … She … worketh willingly with her hands. … With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. … She stretcheth out her hand to the poor. … Strength and honour are her clothing. … She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness” (Prov. 31:10, 13, 16, 20, 25–27). A woman with a mother heart has a testimony of the restored gospel, and she teaches the principles of the gospel without equivocation. She is keeping sacred covenants made in holy temples. Her talents and skills are shared unselfishly. She gains as much education as her circumstances will allow, improving her mind and spirit with the desire to teach what she learns to the generations who follow her."

I really like that she quote Proverbs 31 because it is one of my favorites about women and our influence in this world.

Sister Beck also says this about those who do not currently have children of their own:

"In my experience I have seen that some of the truest mother hearts beat in the breasts of women who will not rear their own children in this life, but they know that “all things must come to pass in their time” and that they “are laying the foundation of a great work” (D&C 64:32–33). As they keep their covenants, they are investing in a grand, prestigious future because they know that “they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever” (Abr. 3:26)."

This quote and the scriptures that she uses to support it give me comfort and helps me realize that even if I don't have children of my own I am still a mother.

Everyday at 6 am I am a mother for an hour as I teach the gospel to my Seminary students. Perhaps I don't have the same impact or influence as their parents might have but I may say something or encourage them in a way that is truly unique to me.

So here is my question to all you mothers out there. How do you do it? What does having a mother heart mean to you?

A conversation with a teenager

T: Sister K how is that guy you are e-mailing
Me: Fine
T: So what's going on?
Me: I'm playing hard to get
T: Sister K, that's the LAST thing YOU need to be doing

Deer and Hunter

Yesterday I decided that today in Seminary we would play some pioneer games. Of course we started out with stick pulling. The response from the kids was Ok..it wasn't the lamest thing I have ever thought of. Then we played a version of Blindman's bluff called Blindman's stick. You blindfold one person and then give a stick, or in our case one of Grandma's canes, to another person. The blindfolded person has to guess who is on the other end of the stick. The information I read about the pioneers said that the children would mimic animals to try and trick the person guessing. It was pretty funny but again not a big hit as far as I could tell.

THEN...I decided to try another game that I had read about but had never played or seen played. It is called Deer and Hunter. You blindfold two people and put a table in between them. In our case through the process we used 3 small classroom tables placed together but making a wider area for the "hunt". One of the blindfolded people is the deer and the other is the hunter. The point of the game is for the hunter to "catch" the deer. The information I read online said this was a popular game and that children enjoyed watching this game as much as playing.

Knowing my students I figured that there was NO WAY they would enjoy watching it as much as playing it. It was pretty funny and we all laughed so hard as the hunter tried to catch the deer and the deer tried to avoid being caught.

One memorable round was between two of my boys who are good friends and about the same height. They both hopped on the table but they didn't know the other was right next to them. We were all laughing.

I think I succeeded in not having this activity turn out lame. My students crack me up!