A timely kick in the pants

After an AMAZING, best-ever semester teaching the young single adult institute class, I'd been dragging my feet on the upcoming class material.  We just spent 14 weeks covering one of the new core curriculum classes, I'm sure I've mentioned it before, called Jesus Christ and His Everlasting Gospel.  The material for that class was a joy to cover and consistently brought the Spirit into our class each week.  I just loved it!

The next two semesters I'd planned to power through the Old Testament, and I have NOT been excited about it.  The complexity, length, and sometimes weirdness in this book of scripture made me nervous.

But I got some help today.  Before anyone else woke up, I grabbed my scriptures and the institute student manual for the first part of the Old Testament and started to read.  I read some very helpful things in the student manual, and then I opened up my old scriptures.  The first thing I saw was the title page to the Bible:

Here's a plug for marking your scriptures--they will help you one day!  There on that title page, I'd written some tips from an Ensign article back in January 2002, from President Eyring, about how to study and teach from the Old Testament.  I'd forgotten that I'd written that!  I immediately looked up the article, and let me tell you, it was just what I needed to focus and guide my preparation, and, most importantly, change my attitude about it all!

I'm looking forward to a new adventure in institute and hope I'll remember to focus on finding Christ, Jehovah in the Old Testament, and not get caught up in the dramatic stories and unimportant details.  I'm thankful for the word of God in the scriptures that brings comfort, answers to prayer, and helps us come closer to Christ!  

Gospel study

I've been teaching Institute since the end of May, and I'm learning quickly that in order to stay on top of my game I need to take time to study every single day, among other things.  I haven't had that habit for a long time, and it feels good to make it a priority.

Especially during this week, when I just finished a lesson last night, have to start preparing for next week's lesson, and have to give a talk in church on Sunday.  I've felt like I've been juggling lately and having a hard time keeping everything up in the air, haha!  Thank goodness I have time to figure this all out before school starts next month when our schedules--school! seminary!--get busier!

I'm also thankful for the Church's Notebook feature on lds.org.  This morning I spent about an hour and a half reading scriptures, reading talks, making notes, and highlighting important things, all online.  And I discovered that I can print all of my notes and highlights when I'm done--GENIUS!

Windshield analogy

Last night I had a little inspiration for today's lesson in Primary Sharing Time.  It may not make much sense to you and seem a little silly, dear reader, but it worked really well in Primary!  I felt that the kids really understood what I was trying to say! :)  The theme this year is "I Know the Scriptures Are True," and I used our hazardous drive this past Thursday from Utah to Ridgecrest as an analogy for how the scriptures can help us.  Here it is, or what I can remember:

"On Thursday our family drove back to Ridgecrest after spending Christmas in Utah.  Some of the drive was very scary where the roads were icy, snowy, and rough.  (the kids laughed when I told them about getting all tensed up, making noises when I saw accidents on the road, and how Jason finally said, 'You are NOT helping me by doing that!')  The worst part was that the dirt and grime on the road would kick up onto our windshield, and because our windshield wipers weren't great and the windshield wiper fluid was frozen solid most of the drive, they'd just smear stuff around instead of clearing off the glass, making it really hard to see out the window sometimes."

(Our red van was GRAY after the drive.  I didn't take a picture, but here's a good approximation of what our windshield looked like at times, found off of Google Images:)

(Then I talked about the scriptures).  "The scriptures are like really good windshield wipers, that clear away the dirt and grime so that I can see where I'm going.  When I read the scriptures, I feel my testimony grow, and I feel safe!"

Then I challenged the kids to read their scriptures every day.  We handed out these cool mini-calendars so that the kids can (hopefully) check off the days that they read.  I could not have asked for a happier Sunday and a better start to the new year and theme!