Is It Naptime Yet

I am a Gospel Principles teacher for my ward. In this calling I teach investigators, new members, and returning members of my church. This year we got a new manual, or really revised one, and the class right after mine is also teaching from it. It’s not too bad because they teach from it only twice a month, the second and third week, and we teach from it every week. The problem we encountered was I was sick the very first week and asked a brother in our ward to teach for me. He wanted to leave the lessons for me so he did a discussion on the Articles of Faith the first week.

So I taught lesson one in my class the second week of January, and my friend’s husband also taught lesson one the second week in his class, which is directly after mine. I taught lesson two the third week and lesson two was taught directly after my class once more. I knew this might happen, but it was interesting to see how the sister taught the same lesson as me, only different.

So the fourth week of January we were set to have lesson three taught. Our Sunday school presidency is offering other classes, one about marriage the other about teaching, along with the regular Gospel Doctrine and my class, Gospel Principles. The Sunday school president called me up and said he would teach lesson three for me and I could then go to the class about teaching, being taught by Brother M.  So I didn’t prepare my lesson and enjoyed the week off.

Fast foreward to this past Sunday, or the week I was suppose to have off.

The girls and I got to sacrament meeting a little late. Partially because my neighbor got pulled over by a police officer right in front of our house  and blocked my driveway and I had to ask the police officer if my neighbor could move his car so I could go to church. As I’m sitting in sacrament meeting I do not see the Sunday school president so I read the lesson, just in case I need to wing it. After the sacrament is passed and finished I see the the Sunday school president come in with his family. I’m relieved and I enjoy the rest of sacrament meeting.

Then after sacrament meeting I start talking to the Sunday school president.

SSP: So Brother M’s wife had her baby this week so I’m showing a movie in your class.
Me: My class, as in the one I’m going to today?
SSP: No your class.
Me: My class? The one your teaching?
SSP: No, I’m showing a movie in your class.
Me: Which class? The one I’m going to or the one I teach?
SSP: The one you teach.

After this very fuzzy conversation I get a little nervous. He hadn’t prepared a lesson because Brother M was going to help him, since our own Sunday school president doesn’t teach. Bro. M’s wife had her baby last week and due to the chaos Bro. M hadn’t been able to help him prepare and thus gave him one of those  Living Scripture movies to show in my class.

I was slightly annoyed, but mostly just worried. I needed to stay on schedule so the lessons could start being farther a part between the two hours where we use the same manual. I also didn’t want to miss a lesson since we have exactly the number we need to teach for the year, minus one, but since we started on the second week we need to stay on track.

When explaining why I was there, yet we would be  watching a movie anyways, one of the elders jokingly mentioned how he would even teach the class because having the same lesson twice in a row on the same day was “boring”.

I decided to man up and teach the lesson.

Then the Stake President walks in.

My stomach starts to shake and I get as nervous as I get when I need to give a talk in Sacrament Meeting. Those symptoms include, but are not limited to: a rapidly beating heart, butterflies in my stomach, noodle legs, shortness of breath, unclear mind, and my whole body shaking so hard that those sitting behind me think I will literally shake out of my boots since my knees are knocking so loudly that I lose my balance while speaking.

I explain the situation,  apologize, try to hide my wildly shaking hands as I read from the book, and get on with the lesson.

At one point we read a scripture and I get the doctrine completely wrong. Well not completely wrong, just mixed up. The stake president then raises his hand and I call on him “I believe in that scripture our first estate is pre-mortal existence and our second estate is our earthly bodies. If I’m wrong someone can feel free to correct me doctrinely.” (I had said the first estate was our earthly bodies and the second was everlasting life. What a great teacher I am.)

The Stake President also called me Lacey throughout the lesson, which in turn my new teaching partner, who just got called and this was her first time in the class, started calling me Lacey, and our relief society president who also attends my class, and it happened last week when I was asked to give the prayer in relief society by one of the counselors. Why can’t I just be Sister Blake !?!

Jon says I should start calling myself Sister Lacey, then I said what happens when someone asks me my first name and I say it’s Lacey and then they ask “Your name is Lacey Lacey?”

Sorry, family joke. Your parents named you Harvey Harvey?

So class ended and I didn’t do too bad of a job teaching a lesson I hadn’t prepared. The elders said I did a great job and our Sunday school president said I bailed him out big time. (Can you imagine putting on some scripture movie because you hadn’t prepared your lesson and then the Stake President coming into your class? And the scripture movie isn’t approved church teaching material and you’re the Sunday School president so you should know this, and so should your counselor who gave you the movie because he was just in the bishopric?)

Anyways, I think the class went pretty well, despite not preparing the lesson a head of time and I saved myself and those in my class from watching a movie from a company whos business I think is run in a very annoying matter.

It’s all about the principles and the lesson.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 4:55 pm and is filed under Craziness, Faith. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.