You can do anything for...

I remember my mother saying that a lot when I was younger. Hate your summer job? Well, you can do anything for 5 more weeks! I hated it.

So of course that's what I've been telling myself for the past month. And of course, it worked. The semester is over, grades are in, and I even managed a B in the stats class that was killing me. Financial aid for summer and next year is all straightened out. I have a dissertation committee chair and most of a committee (just need to find that outside member). And I even have the next 4 days completely off before summer term kicks in! I do have stuff to get done around the house, but with no school obligations to interfere I can kick back and do it leisurely. My favorite method is to intersperse 15 minutes of cleaning with reading a chapter in whatever book I'm on. (However, today I've read about 5 chapters and haven't done a lick of work yet!)

I "volunteered" to help with a primary activity recently - my friend Heidi (aka primary president in her ward) would be so proud of me for saying yes immediately and with a smile. :) So we had a missionary training day. First the bishop extended a mission call to the kids, split into groups by how many "missions" there were, and then every 15 minutes they transferred to a new mission. We had two RMs that served English speaking missions, so the primary presidency had given one the responsibility to talk about preparation (basically study and prayer) and the other about proclaiming the gospel. The "proclaiming" mission was great - he had someone come to pretend to be an investigator and the kids got to practice a door approach for tracting. Then there were two of us who served a foreign language mission, and they asked the other guy to talk about learning a different culture/food/etc. and me to talk about learning a different language.

I thought mine was awfully fun. I taught them to introduce themselves and say they were members of the church. They thought it was funny that the boys had "o"s at the end of miembro while the girls had an "a" for miembra instead. Then we were practicing individually to see what they could remember (with a lot of help!), and one of the boys who is about 6 got stuck at the part where he was suppose to say his name. He did great with "Hola, me llamo..." then just stopped. So I prompted him, this is where you say your name, and he looked at me all sad and serious and said "But you didn't teach me to say Dillon in Spanish."

All in all, it seemed like a fun activity for the kids. All the RMs worked hard at making their stuff fun. Even the "study and pray" - which I was glad I didn't get because it seemed like it would be hard to turn into an activity. The sister who did that one explained to them that when you know your scripture stories you can help people with their problems by sharing a good story, then had a bunch of examples the kids worked out - like if an investigator was worried about the word of wisdom, the missionary could tell them the story of and not eating the king's rich foods. Then she whipped out a good old-fashioned flanel board and the kids practiced telling the story. I was glad I had a chance to participate in it.