winding down

Not much has happened in the two weeks since I last posted. We're still enjoying our summer but we're starting to wind down now. Nearly every day for the last week Christie and Jordan have reminded me that "after this week we'll only have one week to get ready for school". I have quite a list of "back to school" things that need to be done--go through the closets and dressers; remove outgrown clothes; inventory what is left; make a list of what is needed (I know for sure they both need lots of pants); make a list of school supplies needed and purchase said school supplies.

Today Christie and Jordan went to the hearing ward Primary. They've started going once a month. I like it because it helps them become better acquainted with the other children in our neighborhood. Christie goes to Activity Days with the hearing ward and also with the Deaf ward (once a month). When Jordan turns 8 and goes into Cub Scouts, he will also go to the hearing ward Scout program as the Deaf ward doesn't have any kind of Scouting program in the Primary. The hearing ward meets from 9 am to 12 noon and the Deaf ward meetings are from 11 am to 2 pm, so Steven and I went to Sacrament meeting together then he ran home during Sunday School to meet the children, give them a little snack and then they came back in time for most of Sharing time and class time. Good thing we only live about 2 miles from the Deaf ward building or this would never work. I'm not sure how we're going to work it out next year when the hearing ward moves to the 11 am time slot. We (Deaf ward) don't change our meeting times.

Well, anyway, the music leader for sacrament meeting wasn't there so I filled in at the last minute. Not a big deal as I know most of the hymns, from my previous experience in the Provo ward. In the SLC 2nd ward, we have a computer hooked up to the organ that plays the music then there's a computer program that has a little cursor that shows how fast/slow the music is going. Sort of like karaoke. Anyway, the computer does not--I repeat--DOES NOT like me. The last three times I've subbed for sacrament meeting music, when I try to close the opening song to get ready for the sacrament hymn, somehow the program gets messed up. Grr.

My Deaf kids weren't in church today (I teach the Deaf Valiant class and right now I have only two kids--brother and sister) so I sub taught one of the CTR classes. We had fun. I modified my Valiant lesson to fit the CTR kids. The Valiant lesson was about the importance of building our foundation on the rock of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon story was of Nephi and Lehi in Helaman 5. I was able to borrow a big bag of blocks from the nursery and I had the children break into groups and build houses with the blocks. Then we talked about how each house was different but they all had one thing the same--they all had a block (or two or three) to support everything that was on top. We sang "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man" then I told them the story of Nephi and Lehi. Then we talked about how we can follow Jesus (build our foundations on the Gospel). It was a good class and I enjoyed it a lot.