Seminary vs. Institute

I learned something last week. I substitute taught seminary on Tuesday morning—the sophomore class, which is usually the last class that anybody wants to substitute for, because everyone knows that sophomores in high school are generally the most “annoyed” of all high school students. The kids I taught, though, were actually very good. Half participated, and most of the other half listened, which is good for 15 year olds who had to wake up at 5am to be where they were. I pretty much marked it a success when I finished my lesson and nothing had been thrown at me, and they seemed genuinely interested in the John Bytheway blip that I had with me (I'm pretty sure his talks have saved many a seminary teacher from pulling their hair out). I also learned that if you give teenagers a task to do, they will not do it; however, if you say the words “Ready…Go!” they immediately start. It’s like a magic phrase. My Dad says that it makes them feel as though they are in competition with each other.

Anyhow, that’s not necessarily what I learned. The realization didn’t actually come to me until Wednesday night, while I was sitting (as a student, this time) in my institute class. I was watching Elder Thomas stand there telling us stories about Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold B. Lee, and I realized that as members of the church taking time out to attend an institute class, we aren’t really half as engaged as we should be. Shouldn’t we be jumping up to ask questions and find out more? I don’t think most of the people in my class even cracked open the lesson manual before they came; they came simply to have the information downloaded into their heads. Isn’t that sort of…inexcusable? I mean, the kids that I taught seminary to are angsty teenagers, so they have an excuse when they sit there staring slightly blindly at me. And they didn’t even really sit there staring blindly at me. They actually participated and asked really good questions. So, shouldn’t the people my age (remember, I’m an adult) be a little more engaged? We’re not computers. The gospel isn’t something you download. It’s something you do. Something you have to apply.

Broken Birthday Cakes

We decided on Friday night that the best birthday cakes are the ones that you completely demolish. Friday was my Dad’s birthday (consequently, my sister Rachel pointed out that my Dad, who was born in 1952 turned 55 this year, and last month my Mom, who was born in 1955, turned 52. Fun trivia). My brother, David, works at Cold Stone and has therefore been in charge of purchasing the birthday cakes for our family since he started there last spring. So after all the presents were opened, Dave went into the kitchen and put two “5” candles on the top. He lit the candles, and then carried the cake in to the family room where my Dad was sitting. We sang, Dad made a wish and blew out the candles, and we all cheered. Then, as David was turning around to take the cake back into the kitchen he must have tripped on something, because all of a sudden the cake ended up face down on the carpet. Whoops =[ We picked up the cake, still intact due to the hardened frozen ice cream inside of it, and took it to the kitchen. It took a bunch of dumb jokes and some hugs to convince Dave that he had not, in fact, ruined either the birthday or the cake. Luckily Cold Stone puts at least an entire inch of icing on the tops of their cakes, so I grabbed a large butcher knife and used the blunt side to scrape a good layer of icing off the top and the sides. Good as new, and with a bunch less calories! I then proceeded to tell Dave about the time that Rachel and I made Mom a birthday cake (we were probably 14 and 12 at the time) and decided that we wanted to make it fancy. We tried to tip the cake out of the 13x9” pan so we could ice it all the way around; unfortunately the cake ended up breaking in half. So Rachel and I decided we should glue the cake back together with icing. Well, it ended up looking ridiculous, and I’m pretty sure that when Mom and Dad got home they found the two of us standing laughing over the gross particles of cake that were still somewhat edible. And we ate that one, just like we ate Dave’s cake. Besides, Dave’s cake was chocolate chip cookie dough. It had to be done.

The USS Midway, on a good day

On Friday, I took four of the kids that I work with to the USS Midway. As the Activities Coordinator at a clubhouse for young adults, I get to go and do a lot of things around San Diego. This last year alone I've been to the Wild Animal Park, the San Diego Zoo, a bunch of the museums at Balboa Park, hiking at Torrey Pines State Reserve, boating out at Santee Lakes, taking a tour of San Diego bay on the Hornblower , horseback riding (yea! I finally reached one of my life-goals!); I've visited cat shelters to play with cats, and the Helen Woodward Animal Center, where they have all kinds of animals that you would never have suspected, like llamas and deadly snakes. I absolutely love the opportunity that I have had to rediscover this beautiful city that I grew up in. It's really quite amazing. The only problem is that the entire time I'm on these great activities I have to practice Prof. Moody's "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!," making sure that the group I am accompanying doesn't cause any devious mischief; especially mischief of the vandalizing or fighting or harassing sort. Most of the time they aren't bad at all, but there are times when my patience is greatly tried, such as our trip to the USS Midway on Friday. Separating people from fighting is not one of the highlights of my job, but sometimes it has to be done. I just wish that fights would not occur on the deck of an almost 60 year old aircraft-carrier-turned-museum; especially near the railings of the flight deck. But I suppose as long as they don't actually start hitting each other, and the buttons they randomly push don't actually ruin the ship in any way, I should count my blessings. Besides, I can always visit the museum on some other day, with my family or something. These kids might not ever get the chance to go again. So I suppose it's worth it.

Graduation

Okay, here are some rather interesting graduation pictures of me. The first is me at the bell tower, overlooking campus; the next is my Mommy, Daddy and I after the school commencement on Friday, and the last is my Mom, me, Britte, my "little" brother David, and Rachel. It was a fun day--except I had some tooth and jaw pain because the dentist did something weird to me (he didn't grind my teeth down enough, so my jaw was all off-set. I'm better now. I went to the dentist on Tuesday, and he fixed the problem). Love your guts!
=] Bekah

US!!!

My Dear Roomies