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.

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.

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.

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!

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.