Not so Effective (Sometimes)

A couple of weeks ago we had the Elders over for dinner.  We are feeding them many times this month.  They had an object lesson on faith that they wanted to do.  In order for them to do it they needed a tea bag.  I assured them that next time they came I would have one for them.  So last Sunday when they where back I gave them the tea bags I had gotten for their lesson.  The lesson was on faith.  The Elders cut the tea bag in a square and light it on fire.  If we had faith in them we would let it burn on our hand. We were not brave enough so one of the Elders tried it.  It was a little windy outside and before it could burn down the bag blew away.  We went back in for the scripture and lesson then Dave decided to try it in the garage.  It was supposed to burn almost to the bottom and then float away.  We still didn't want to try, so this time Dave got a metal sheet he had and we light it on that.  The tea bag burnt right down to a crisp, no floating away.  We all starting laughing.  So glad that we had not tried it.  Not an effective object lesson.  Apparently I bought the wrong kind.  How was I to know?  I have never bought tea before.  I told them the real lesson was to bring their own supplies for their lessons.:)

Last weeks FHE lesson was a disaster.  Cora was in a very very bad mood from a test she had just taken.  She is usually my very obedient one.  We were trying to get her to mow the front lawn before the rain came.  We knew it was going to be days of rain and it really needed to be done.  She had wasted a long time being grumpy and it was getting darker and darker outside with the clouds rolling in.  We sat down to have our FHE and Cora was on lesson.  She has been dying to tell us more stories from her recent youth conference.  She has told us many but wanted to save some for her upcoming FHE lesson.  Leah was conducting and kept getting very sidetracked.  Time for lesson and Cora says, 'I went to youth conference, we ate, played games, and went home.'  Then she left.  Blake was on prayer.  Blake is usually an amazing prayer.  Very thoughtful, very inclusive, and prays about every little thing going on around him.  Monday it was bless mom will let me play minecraft and bless that I can win wall ball tomorrow.  After Dave and I looked at each other and just burst out laughing.  Seriously not an effective FHE at all.  Later Cora did say she was just so grumpy and that youth conference was the most spiritual high she had ever felt, she thought she would ruin it by talking about it in that mood.  I get that.

We are sitting in church today, waiting for sacrament meeting to start.  We had about 2 minutes before it began when the seminary teacher came up and asked Cora if she was ready to speak today.  Whaaat????  We knew she had a talk coming up.  Seminary ended May 10th.  A week before it was over the teacher mentioned that all the students would be speaking at the end of June.  They needed to pick their favorite scripture mastery and give a short talk on it.  We never heard another word about it.  Silly me, I just assumed the bishopric would extend an official asking of could she speak and actually give her a date.  All she said was, 'Really, OK, how long am I supposed to speak for?'  She grabbed some paper from me and went to sit on the stand to write and give her talk. She did a really wonderful job.  Dave and I where very proud.  We where mostly proud that she just said OK and did it.  Cora was very nervous.  But really a 14 year old to get up unprepared in sacrament meeting and give a 5 min talk.  She is amazing, how did I get so lucky????

The kids had been praying for rain after Dave got the seeding done.  Everyday they would call him and ask if it was raining up there.  Finally the answer was yes.  Dave told the kids that they were such good prayers and had so much faith that they were going to flood the province.

I got released today.  I have been the Primary President in our ward for the last couple of years.  In the presidency for a bit before that.  They wanted to do it before summer, since that is a hard time to fill callings. And we have the presentation coming up right after summer is over. It will be a little weird going to Relief Society again, but I am excited.  Excited and nervous to see what the next step is.