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 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!