One of my callings at church is youth Sunday School teacher and holy moly it's fantastic. Sometimes I worry about being too outwardly thrilled about it because I worry Heavenly Father will be like, "Hmm, Jana seems pretty happy and comfortable in that calling, and I'd like to see her grow and learn more, so let's switch things up a bit" buuuuut then I remember He also knows the thoughts of my heart not just the ones I vocalize, so I might as well vocalize away :). I seriously love my calling and the lessons I have the opportunity to study and especially especially the youth I teach.
I'd been praying and pondering how to connect with them better and received some pretty great inspiration - one on one time with the girls in my class, outside of the church setting. I call it an 'adventure' and find a time they're free and I'm free and we jettison off to exotic locations around Nampa and get a bite to eat or a snack or a treat and chat about whatever on earth they want to. Do you even know how fun and enlightening it is to tell a 15 year old girl to just talk? So great.
My maiden voyage was with Kiki. We ended up with kind of a hat theme as we perused Savers and Target - I mean, who are we to fight the fact that all three of us look amazing in fedoras??
We talked and laughed and loaded up on clearance Easter candy (for Kiki) and peanut butter M&Ms (for me) and diapers (for Carma, she may have gotten the short stick...). Kiki has had my heart ever since I met her on our Oregon coast youth trip a couple of summers ago and it was so great to enjoy her giggliness and fun spirit for a couple hours. Such a doll.
A few days later an opportunity popped up to sneak out with Braenna for an adventure! It was good timing since there was randomly a standoff in her neighborhood and police were encouraging people to evacuate their homes... so off we went! We hit up Savers where a couple large polar bears were hanging out in the entrance way and Braenna proceeded to break all of my animal safety rules and just went up and touched one.
Things may or may not have gotten crazy after that; there was a parking lot demonstration of Burpees that was pretty stellar, and then I had to force Braenna to order an orange creamsicle shake so that my apple turnover wouldn't be lonely, and then we DROVE THROUGH THE STANDOFF AREA because "someone" was "sure" it was "over" and then we hung out in the dance studio parking lot and talked in depth while also scaring Llyam to death. Braenna has a lot in common with me circa the year 2000 (aka when I was 15) and it was so great to have a chance to really talk about life. Love her.
My super cute Michael from Sunday School finally remembered to tell me when his band concert was, so I got to sneak over to that one night. In the lower left picture, he's the kid second from the left playing the... brass instrument... (man I wish Chuck was here, former band geek that he is...). Michael was awesome and the other Cunningham kids came to sit with me and we had all sorts of fun!
And finally, Chuck and I got a date night out on the town in mid-April to watch Jared be awesome in Hairspray! Very well-done community production, and as a bonus it was choreographed by Ashlee Christensen, who the boys started piano with a couple of weeks later. She's amazing.
[i don't want to alarm anyone, but we are just cruising through april. Chuck counted out the months for me earlier... on his fingers... to lovingly point out how far behind in blogging i am... which i'm taking as carte blanche to ignore laundry until i'm at more respectably behind ;) Let's do this thing! ]
2 comments:
I'm with Chuck on this one. If you are caught up by the time you come to see my next week, I will make ANY dessert you want for you. Seriously anything. Even brownies from a box.
Again, those kiddos are lucky to have you guys! Seriously. You're both amazing...and fun!
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