Week Ending September 28, 2013

Sunday I had six students in my class. I had a discussion with them about what time they had for seminary on a daily basis. When two told me one hour and one told me half an hour I was incredulous. There is no way they could not get the work done in that amount of time. I calmly told them to take 5-10 minutes each day and read their scriptures. After that they could work on the current lessons. If they still had time they could do prior lessons. The problem is not the time available as much as the desire to do it. That makes me sad.

After seminary we drove immediately to Tohlakai. When we arrived they hadn’t started so I was able to meet a couple of people I’d talked with on the phone. One man is going to talk with the person in charge of the computer lab at the high school to see if he can get things set up for us to do the online course. I talked with a girl there who started our seminary class last year. She is in the dorms at Wingate High School. I told her there was a possibility of online seminary and she got excited. I really hope it works out so she can attend.

Pres. Curtis presented the certificates for seminary completion to the students during Sacrament Meeting. I was a little perturbed with one mom because she felt like her son’s learning style requires things to be fun and exciting and seminary is hard for him to relate to. I realize it is hard, but I’m not sure how they can get it if they don’t try. At least the ones who try get something out of it. I firmly believe that a student’s success or failure in the seminary program is heavily dependent on whether the parents take an active role in following up with them. Parents have to help them realize they need to do the work on a regular basis. It just doesn’t work otherwise.

After church I fixed a nice meal for Ted for his birthday. I spent the evening setting up my seminary for the coming week. I had a good conversation with the mom of one of my students. She felt like her daughter had just not fit in with the traditional seminary mold and it had been frustrating for them. They were going to start to use the online program for their family scripture study. I enjoyed visiting with her and hope I can have a good relationship with her daughter. She is a sweet girl.

Monday we were up early to take the missionaries to the Snowflake Temple. We had to be there at 7:30 AM for an 8 AM session. I really enjoyed the session and felt a strong spirit. Afterward we went to the Holbrook Stake Center for a lunch and brief visit, then we headed home. It was about 3 PM when we finally arrived home and we were exhausted. In the evening we attended home evening for singles. It is really just a socializing occasion for the young people, but they have a good time and we enjoy it.

Elder and Sister Roeth and Snowflake Arizona Temple

Tuesday we had our monthly inservice training at the stake center. It was a really good meeting. There were two teachers in attendance. We had some good discussions. I really wish I could teach as well as our supervisor does. He is very knowledgeable and is very good at letting the discussion go where it needs to in order to meet the needs of the group.

After our meeting we visited with our supervisor a bit longer then ran some errands. It was late when we got home so I worked on seminary. I stayed up way too late working on seminary in order to prepare the assignments for my students. I still need to prepare my lesson for this week, but at least I had the assignments ready to pass out.

Wednesday I worked on my lesson for the afternoon. We went to the senior center for lunch and spent time visiting with the people there. We met two sisters of one of the men there and had a good visit with them. One lives in Albuquerque most of the time but she comes here to get her check once a month. They were unloading a huge container of shampoo that was almost empty. Apparently, it came in earlier than we thought it would. They gave us four bottles for us and four for the elders. We took some bottles to them in the afternoon for them to fill.

We spent the afternoon preparing for seminary and adult education at Tohlakai. My class went well. I spent part of the time talking with the kids about what we can do to get on track. They all agreed to ½ hour a day. We talked about several scriptures and what they taught. They all came back to holding fast to the word and asking the Lord for help in order to draw closer to Him. It was a good discussion.

Thursday I got everything ready and started to the church for the quilting class. A sister drove up just as I was leaving to say they were repaving the parking lot. I walked around the church to talk to the workers to see if they really were going to repave, but there was no one there. The trucks were in the back with motors running, but no live bodies. I told two ladies there was not going to be any quilting. I put a sign on the fence and got my stuff out of the church.

I had made soup to take to quilting so we had a nice warm meal for lunch. Since I had the morning back I decided to make bread. My mixer had been acting funny, so I decided to make two batches. As it turned out, neither batch was stellar. I had more bread dough than pans, so I made cinnamon rolls with part of it. They turned out OK, although it is not really a cinnamon bread dough.

I spent some time doing some additional preparation for my class. When I signed on there was no one there. I sent out reminders and called and finally got two of the girls. Another one got error messages when she tried to sign in, so we started without her. She was able to get in later and joined us just after the prayer. A third student was not home. We had a good discussion. One connection was difficult to understand so she had to repeat the things she said quite often. I didn’t feel quite as stressed after that meeting.

In the evening we had institute. Ted had asked our supervisor to give the lesson so we could see how to develop the scripture levels. He did a really good job and there was good discussion and a good spirit. Once again, I wish I could teach like that. We had fun playing games and visiting afterward. We were able to get home at a fairly good hour. It is getting colder and it felt good that it warmed up.

Friday I spent quite a bit of time grading my online students. There are glitches in the program and it hadn’t told me they were done with one of the lessons so it hadn’t been graded. We had a good teachers meeting and a good discussion. It was mostly about grading so I had a difficult time with it. I had thought this was a pass/fail thing. I have to produce report cards 4 times during the year. Yikes.

It rained early this morning and really cooled the air. As I sat at the computer I was freezing cold. Ted tried to turn on the furnace and found the pilot was already on. He got the landlord who had to replace some wiring that had burned that was causing the furnace not to ignite. When he finally got it going it felt nice and toasty. It doesn’t last long though. It is still cold and windy.

In the afternoon and evening I sewed fabric strips together for my pieced quilt. I spent time pressing the seams and cutting the pieces into 12 1/2” strips. We decided since it was cold and miserable outside that we’d stay inside and watch a movie. I continued to work on my quilt top and Ted watched the movie.

Saturday we went to the flea market in Gallup in the morning. It was fun. We found a man who made flutes out of cedar. They were beautiful. I had a difficult time deciding between a round one and a square one. I really liked the square one, but it was more difficult to hold so I got the round one. Both had really pretty tones. We enjoyed the morning there and saw several people from church.

In the afternoon I worked on seminary for a couple of hours. The Relief Society was meeting for dinner before going to the General Women’s Broadcast at the stake center together. I picked up a friend and we met the Relief Society president at Sizzler. We were the only ones that came, but we enjoyed it. The broadcast was good, but it was so sad to see Pres. Monson. His wife passed away earlier this year and he looks like he is not doing well. He mentioned her several times while he spoke. He looked like he had aged several years and lost some weight. It was heartbreaking.