Week Ending November 9, 2013

Sunday we were up and ready to get to seminary early. On the way out the door we realized we had not changed our clocks for Daylight Savings change and we had another hour before seminary. We decided we could study at the church as well as at home. It worked out well because I was able to get quite a bit done. I gave the Basic Doctrinal Assessment. I was surprised that it took the students so long to do the assessment. My Tohlakai students were all done within half an hour—these kids took about 40 minutes. Surprising to me.

After church I worked on seminary until we left for the CES Fireside. The fireside speaker was Elder Russell Osguthorpe, the General President of the Sunday School. It was excellent. He and his wife had written a song called “I’ll Give Myself to Him”. He talked about what the song meant. It was basically about giving our entire will to the Savior. It was really good.

Monday Ted took the car to get the check engine light checked—again. The tests indicated that it needed the catalytic converter replaced, so they ordered the part. Ted has had a toothache for several nights. Last night I suggested he take the allergy medication the dentist recommended when I had a toothache and it seemed to help. I got him an appointment in the late afternoon with the dentist just to make sure there was nothing more serious. There was nothing wrong and the dentist suggested the allergy medication. He felt much better.

We had our bi-weekly get together with the other senior couples. We had a brief visit and spiritual thought then we ate. When we had finished eating we headed to the seminary building for family home evening. We had a good time playing “Spoons”. I think that is their favorite game. One of our students is almost ready to turn in her mission papers. Her brother is also getting his mission papers ready. She is trying to get a job to help out with family expenses and help pay for her mission. It would have been good if she’d done that in May, but better late than never.

Tuesday we woke to a light dusting of snow on the trees and roofs. It had rained and snowed all night. We walked at the church for the first time in several days and it felt good. I spent much of the time today working on seminary, but I found it difficult to come to any concrete idea of what to teach this week. We are in Jacob 5 which is the Allegory of the Olive Tree. As I’ve studied the teacher’s manual and the online classes there is so much more that I understand now than before. It is really a very touching story of Christ’s love for His people and all the efforts He makes to gather His people in. Ted and I had a couple of good discussions about it. We’ve tried to sync our classes so we are working in the same basic scripture blocks and that helps.

It has been so cold here. I sit so much that I get chilled easily. When our heat kicks on it gets almost unbearably hot. It’s back and forth all day.

Wednesday Ted took the car in to have the catalytic converter replaced. He was gone all morning and half the afternoon. My lesson finally gelled for me and I spent a lot of time putting together a lesson for this afternoon and for the online class on Thursday.

We drove to Tohlakai for seminary and arrived just in time to see the other couple leave. They were picking up my two students that have had a transportation problem. I felt so elated. One student had run overland, dropping and scratching his glasses in the process. The other two students had texted me that they wouldn’t be there due to a basketball game for one of them. It just doesn’t seem to work to have everyone together. Maybe now that the other couple is here we can have a real class again.

I handed out grade sheets and it made me sort of sad to hand them out to the two students. They have been in class less than half the time and done only one assignment each. That’s pretty discouraging to get hit with that when you are finally making a comeback. We talked about the Allegory of the Olive Tree and I think it went well.

It is so dark coming home. There are no street lights for most of the trip so it is pitch black. It is rather scary. I’m just grateful we are quite familiar with the road so we don’t end up on the wrong side.

Thursday we had two ladies at our quilting class. One lady had a friend come later. She wanted to see what we were doing and seemed to be impressed. She said she’d come back next week and select some fabric for a project. When it was time for seminary I couldn’t believe it—we were all online and connected by 8 minutes after, even with one girl who had to change over to her mom’s computer. We had a bit of a squeak on the line off and on, but we were able to talk most of the meeting. We had some good exchanges and I was very pleased with the way class went.

I really only have three students functioning in the class. I’m not sure if they will want me to keep the class or move the students out to other teachers. One more may be back if they get a new computer. Two young men can’t get on at school as they had planned, although I think it is more them than the school. One girl is too busy to really be part of it all. And one dropped out. So, of my eight students, three are really doing the work online. We shall see.

We had three students at institute. Actually we had a fourth, but he opened his hymn book for the opening song, then he took off out the door. I thought he’d decided to make a call or something, but he never came back. (It turned out he had gone for a drink and while he was gone he had a call from a missionary companion in the Phillipines.) The lesson went well and I enjoyed it, but I felt such a disappointment that there were so few students that came. We have invited and so have our other students. It is sad. One girl came for the second time. She is being baptized on the 16^th. Very exciting. The students decided not to stay to play games, so we got away the earliest ever.

The sky was so beautiful when we got home. It is so dark we can see lots of stars. I wish it weren’t so cold so I could really make a study of them and figure out some of the constellations, but it is beautiful to look at anyway.

Friday I swept the front walk and cleaned out the rain gutter. When I finished we ran some errands in Gallup. I spent some time in the afternoon trying to figure out some things with my quilt blocks. While I was putting the fabrics away a lady called from Las Vegas from the Area CES office. She wanted to know what our assignment is, what we do, how much our fixed expenses are, how much we spend for food and how much we spend for gas. It was totally off the top of my head, so I need to correct some information I gave her. She was very sweet and we had a good chat.

Saturday we stopped at a craft fair in Gallup to get some ideas. There were a lot of beautiful things—wood laminating, carved wooden toys, quilts, and, of course, jewelry—but not many things I think we could do in our classes.

We drove to Sheep Springs to spend time with Elder and Sister Ashcroft. They are senior missionaries there. They teach seminary as well as many other things and had some questions about materials and how things work. We had a good visit and a good meal. I had a good visit with Sister Ashcroft about seminary and gave her some ideas. They aren’t doing the full program, so some of what we do doesn’t make sense. They sure do a lot of other things though. After we ate, the men watched BYU football and the women visited for a while before we joined the men. It was fun and good to get away.