I am knee deep in trying to organize our tax information for 2012, so I haven't really had the time to post much that is going on in the Blau family life these days. Lots of time I have wanted to, but sorting through accounting numbers all day long sucks all of the creative juices right out of me. Our financial life is so ridiculously complicated that it takes all of my brain power just to figure out which information is relevant to our accountant who is actually going to prepare our taxes. When I get that information to her ... eventually ... I have a ready made post about my accounting adventures that I'll post. Oh how I hate the tax code in this country!!!!
Anyway ...
Yesterday Laney bought her first investment property. That's right. Laney is now a home owner. At eighteen. Craziness! When I was eighteen I was struggling to find money to keep my car gassed up even though I had a good after school job. Thinking of my financial future? Not so much. Luckily for Laney, Herman is her parent, not just me, so she has someone there who gives her ideas of how to maximize her potential for income even at this relatively young age. I don't know many high school seniors who are home owners, so this is a strange thing that Laney has done.
Here's how it happened.
We already are in the investment property market as a family. Herman is constantly looking for low priced homes that our two investment companies can purchase cheaply, but these homes are also homes that have a high enough market value that he starts out already with lots and lots of equity in the homes as well. Then, after fixing them up a bit we rent them out, and the renters actually pay the mortgage for us. Eventually (hopefully in the next two to five years) we'll have these properties paid off, and that rental income will be monthly security income for us. Barring something drastic like Fort Leonard Wood being shut down (a possibility, but highly unlikely) we should be set all through our retirement. (And even if the post closed, the worst thing that would happen would be that we would have to start over investing since we would not hold any loans to default on).
In the process of looking for these good deals, Herman found a five year-old trailer being sold. The guy selling it had just gone through a nasty divorce, and he just wanted the thing gone. Herman made an offer with the promise of being able to close quickly. Since we have a good personal relationship with our bank, we could make this happen, so the guy agreed. He was able to purchase the trailer on a large country lot that actually has hookups to add a second trailer if we want for only $20000. A steal really. The land itself is worth that much. At that price with the potential equity, Herman thought that it would be the perfect property for Laney to buy for investment. She had the money saved to use as a down payment, and because we would co-sign for this first property, she would be able to get a loan relatively easily.
Yesterday Herman and Laney headed to the bank and closed. I wanted to get a picture of them closing, but Minsy was asleep at that time, so I stayed home. But Herman got a picture of her at the front door of her new investment.
Isn't she cute?
The trailer really is a cute little place. She'll be able to charge enough rent to make the payments as well as pay our property manager to manage it for her while she is away at school or her mission. The loan is actually a five year loan, so she won't really be able to make enough income on it to pay for her mission since the payment is so high, but it'll be paid off by the time she is 23 (maybe sooner!), and after that it will be pure profit for her. Hurray!
Herman's plan is to help each of the kids do this if they choose. It was so, so hard for us to get our first home loan. Really it was hard for the first two. We struggled. We didn't have any help from anyone. It all worked out, but it does not have to be that difficult. We have years of experience to guide us now, and we hope to help our kids to gain that knowledge sooner, rather than later. We didn't pay for this house for Laney. She is responsible for payments ultimately. She paid the down payment and will pay the management fees. The advantage for her will be that she will be using her money in a way that will ultimately benefit her. She will be gaining a good knowledge of how credit works. Hopefully seeing her money potential grow will help her to make good financial decisions in her future as she plans for how to use her money.
I am super grateful to be married to a man who is basically smart about money. Not perfect. We have made some missteps along the way, but ultimately our decisions have been made in order to better our financial outlook in the future. These properties that our companies own will give us the financial freedom to do whatever the Lord has in store for us, and I say, the sooner the better. This path has been a long time in coming. We have had enough ups and downs along the way to last a lifetime, but we are in a good position, and that gives me peace in a world that seems to be falling apart around us. Thankfully (and hopefully) our kids will be able to benefit from the knowledge our experiences have given us and get on the path to a solid financial future much sooner. Life is good!
When I was in fifth grade my teacher loved to have us do grand science projects. I remember two in particular. We had to create a mostly-to-scale project showing the planets in our solar system and their relationship to the sun, and then we had to put together a rock collection. I worked hard on these projects. REALLY hard. I loved science at the time, and I was particularly interested in astronomy and geology, so these projects were right up my alley. For my solar system I decided to paper mache balloons to scale and then paint them the color of the planets. That took a bit of time. Once I was finished I hung them off of a giant black umbrella. I took a big piece of cardboard, painted it yellow, and put it on the underside of the umbrella to represent the sun, then I measured the right distance for the strings to be so that the planets hung where they needed to on my umbrella sun. For my rock collection I walked up and down the abandoned railroad near our house, finding all sorts of fancy little rocks to add to my collection. Then I took a cardboard box, lined it with cotton, covered that with fabric (Holly Hobby fabric that I thought was super, super cute), and then lined the rest of the cardboard with aluminum foil. I added the rocks and their labels to the fabric by using some sort of super glue, and turned in my creation. Needless to say, these projects looked absolutely horrible. I wasn't artistically talented, and my family didn't really have the means to head to the store and buy lots of fancy supplies to make these projects look amazing. My parents didn't help me out much on these projects. This was my project. Maybe they should have. I don't know, and I certainly didn't hold it against them then, and I don't hold it against them now. But, I was the one who needed to learn the information, and the best way for me to do it was for me to do the project myself. And I did learn a lot. In fact, I really did enjoy collecting the information and creating the final product.
But I distinctly remember bringing both of these projects into school. I was pretty darn proud of what I had done. I had no illusions about it being a masterpiece of art and design, but I did recognize the hard work I had done putting it together, so I wasn't too embarrassed to hand it in to my teacher. But as I looked around I noticed what everyone else brought in. Those other projects were absolutely stunning. I remember one solar system in particular. Some fellow student brought in a solar system mounted on a gorgeous stained piece of wood. The planets were wooden balls which had been painted so beautifully. It looked like a professional solar system you would buy at the gift shop of some planetarium somewhere. It was gorgeous. I found the same situation when we turned in our rock collections -- beautifully mounted collections in wooden boxes with wooden dividers and beautiful labels. And that was all fine. Really it was. Except for this ... when we received our grades for those projects I remember (because my cursed brain has to remember all sorts of stupid things like this from my past) that those projects got extremely high scores for being gorgeous, and my projects were graded poorly because they weren't so pretty. Now, it all turned out okay. I managed to graduate from high school and college. I didn't end up destitute, living on the street, because of a poor grade on a science project. My life was not ruined. But I developed a deep, deep dislike for these major school projects that are, in theory, student projects, but end up being parent projects instead.
Which brings me to today. The annual science fair. Oh how I hate the science fair! Our kids have to do a project each year from fifth to eighth grade. That means, by the time I am finished with this ridiculous rite of passage with all of my children, I will have been involved in creating 28 science fair display boards. 28!!!!! Twenty-eight times for me to rant about how these displays are doing NOTHING to further my children's intellect. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain.
I think that the idea of students doing big science projects to learn about the scientific process is wonderful. Our kids need to understand that knowledge doesn't just come about because somebody out there sticks it in a book for us to memorize. It is there because people do experiments. They have hypotheses that they test. They try and try again until they learn the knowledge for themselves. Science projects are an excellent way to learn this. Katie is in fifth grade this year, and her class does little science experiments all the time. She LOVES these, and she often tells me about them on the way home from school each day. Those are the things that stick with her. So I am all for these kids having the chance to test out their own hypotheses and see what happens. No problem.
What irritates me is the second part of the process -- the display board. Truly I don't have issues with the display boards at all ... if there was the expectation that all boards were to be constructed by the kids. Here's an example of what I find wrong:
This handsome young cub scout is a third grader standing in front of his science fair project display. Look at that board. There is no way on earth that that little third grader put that thing together. Yes, he might have helped glue things on. He might have actually done the experiment. But there is NO WAY that he created that board. That is his mom's creation ... 100% (or maybe 99%). By the way, this was just one random picture pulled from the internet about science fair boards. There are hundreds of pictures just like it out there.
I'd like to think that when these projects are judged, the judges are totally judging based on the merits of the experiments. But, let's be honest. Judges are human beings, and most of us as human beings are more drawn to pretty things. Data is boring. Colors are not. Two equal projects will end up being judged based on presentation more than content, I'm afraid.
But the world does not revolve around who wins or loses the science fair competition. That's not really my issue. My issue is how these things are graded. Spencer was told this year that half of his grade for the semester was dependent on this display board. Half. Not on the experiment. He could do the experiment and turn in his results, but without this display board, he would probably fail science. Herman, who has quite an unconventional view of education in many ways, thought that Spencer should purposely not turn it in so that we could make a big stink about how ridiculous it is that such a strong emphasis is placed on a project that more than half of the parents are actually doing for (or at least with) their children. If this is meant to be a student project, then let's let this be a student project. If the object is for students and parents to somehow bond as we create the project together, then let's call it what it is. Pretending that these boards are somehow indicative of how good of a science student the students are is somewhat dishonest. It is more of an indication of how artistic someone in the family circle is. I just don't think that so much emphasis needs to be placed on this part of the process.
Anyway, I couldn't let Spencer fail, even to prove a political point. So I sat down for the second time this year and helped put together a display board last night, this time for Spencer's project.
This is my story ... with the help of some movie clips. Just because.
It's hard being a mom sometimes. Things can get busy, especially with seven kids in all stages of development. It's winter. The days are short. The nights are long. It's cold and windy outside. Schedules are hectic with activities pulling us all over the planet. So right in the middle of all of this comes the annual science fair ritual ... as if the universe (or the district science fair committee) is saying to me:
My kids are pretty good about doing their experiments on their own. They collect the materials, do the research, and record the data. They do their best at writing up the various processes of the experiment in the way that is needed for the project. But then it is time to do the display boards. So they sit there. And sit there. And sit there. And sit there. They just don't know how to make it look the way they want for it to look. They've seen other science fair projects. They know what is expected of them. They just can't pull it out of them. They need help. They want to win (maybe), but they've got to bring in the big guns:
So I guess in that clip, my kids would be Adrian on her sick bed. I would be Rocky, and Herman is Mickey. It works.
Luckily the dirty work has already been done, mostly. I just have to pretty it up a bit. Unfortunately in my case that only really involves putting nice colored cardstock around the information to make it pop out a bit, changing the font on the info to make it prettier, and taping it all over the board. Seems pretty simple, right? Well, it takes awhile. A long while. I've been up since 4:30 in the morning, taught early morning seminary, driven my kids all over the universe to school, tried to organize our tax information (which is another nightmare that will receive its own blog post in the near future), cleaned, cooked, studied, and parented all day long. Now my eyes are bleary, tearing up with exhaustion. This relatively simply project is going to be the death of me, I'm sure.
But OH NO, I will finish this. If it is the last thing on earth I do, I will finish this. And so I press on.
An hour and a half later my eyes are bloodshot. My fingers have probably been stripped of their prints because of the cursed double stick tape that I have been using without mercy on this blasted project. I'm starting to have visions of taking these display boards to the schools and stomping on them in front of the entire junior high student body.
But I am finished. I did it. I finished.
I may be bloodied. I may be weak. I may have a horrible take on the English language. But, by golly, I did it!
So today Spencer proudly carried his science fair board into the middle school to enter it into the district science fair. He did the experiment. He collected the data. He gained the knowledge. For that I am grateful. For now, I'm off to dream of a magical utopia where moms and dads of the world are not bloodied up creating masterpieces for their children's education ... all in the name of science.
From the moment we first laid our natural eyes on Minsy we have wondered about her age. No matter how official a Chinese document might look, no matter what the 'experts' say about the likelihood of those documents being absolutely true, no matter what ... we just could not believe that this little tiny girl was actually the age that the Chinese claimed her to be. If she was super tiny, but acted older we might have been able to wrap our heads around the idea of her being an amazingly small child, but that was not the case. We had a girl who looked about two and acted about two, but who was officially four. Since that initial meeting Minsy has grown, both in size and in intelligence, and yet she still doesn't look like the five year-old she is supposed to be.
So we've headed to specialists. Specialist after specialist after specialist ... and gotten widely different opinions about what Minsy's age might actually be ... sometimes opposite opinions from the same exact doctor! Check it all out here, if you're interested. Crazy! ... Frustrating.
The latest medical opinion is that Minsy has the bone age of a three year-old, with an actual body size that is still on the low end of the scale for that age. If she is five, she doesn't even measure on the chart -- technically < 1% (that symbol should be a 'less than' symbol. It has been WAY too long since I have taken math). So she is super small. Our pediatric endocrinologist suggested that we just go ahead and change the age, and as long as he knows what we have done, he can be aware of any abnormalities in growth that might show up with a significant change in age. This (of course) goes in direct opposition to the advice we got from the pediatrician in St. Louis who is an expert in international adoptions. We either keep her age the same, or we move it back. Basically it was going to be up to us to decide what to do. Ugh! The pressure!
Well, it appears as if we finally have found a reason to make a final decision ...
The school system!
Minsy has been attending the PACE preschool provided by the Waynesville district all year. Despite her official age of five, she has been attending the three year-old class. In that class she is definitely behind the rest of her 'peers.' She has not mastered or even begun to master any of the age appropriate skills that her class is working on. They love her in that class, and she has learned so much. The difference between Minsy in September and Minsy today is amazing, but she is extremely delayed compared to other three year-olds. They allowed her to stay in this environment because there was some belief that some of Minsy's delays might be due to language issues, but according to our pediatric specialist, that should not be much of an issue after being in the US for over a year now. So language is not the problem.
We needed to get Minsy started with Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, and Speech Therapy through the district, so they needed to do a complete evaluation. This would finally give us some baseline information about her cognitive skills as well as physical and social skills. That took place at the beginning of the month. Legally, the school had to test her at her official age, so she was tested as a five year-old. And she scored really, REALLY low. I could tell that the school personnel were trying to break the news to us gently. Her IQ tested at a 59, which is barely a functional level. That is super low. And frankly, I don't believe that at all. Not at all. Do I think that Minsy has significant cognitive issues that will need to be addressed? Yes. Is it possible that she has significant learning disabilities? Yes. Do I think that she is only barely functional? NOT AT ALL. No way is her IQ that low! No way. They explained their tests. I can appreciate their tests. I am sure on the average (or not-so-average) kid those tests would be fairly accurate. But I am not convinced that Minsy is able to work with test administrators in such a way that would give an accurate picture of her abilities. So many factors, including her ability to trust others, that are present because of her adoption could make those tests a bit inaccurate. So I wasn't buying these results at all.
But really, that diagnosis was neither here nor there. Whether the scores were accurate or not, it is still apparent to everyone that Minsy needed more intensive educational experiences than she was receiving through the PACE program. She was going to have to move to the ECSE (Early Childhood Special Education) program in the same building. Basically it is the same sort of preschool, but she will be in a class of six with a teacher and two para-professionals. The learning will be individualized to go at her pace. She works on something until she masters it. Then she moves on. That is exactly what Minsy would need. So whether her IQ is 59 or 79 or 99 ... it doesn't matter. What matters is that she needs extra help, and she's going to get it.
But here is where the age question finally got answered for us. If Minsy is actually five, it means that she has to enter kindergarten next year. Well, she doesn't have to. Legally we don't have to enroll her in kindergarten. And there is always the option of home schooling if we want. (But we don't. I know that that is not the right answer for her). But the main point was that she would not be able to continue to receive early childhood special education services through the district, even if we wanted to get them. Once a child turns six they are ineligible to receive that assistance through early childhood ed. She would only continue to receive assistance if she was in kindergarten. So the choice basically was to send a tiny, tiny child with the skills of a three year-old (on a good day) to kindergarten or keep her at home with me (and although I don't mind hanging with Minsy all day, I don't think that that is the best way to maximize her intellectual growth).
But there was a third option.
We have been toying around with the idea of pushing Minsy's age back two years since she has a made up birthday anyway, making her officially three and a half. This would give her two more years in the ESCE program ... two more years to grow physically, emotionally, socially, and intellectually. If her IQ truly is low, it will still allow her to have those extra years to maximize whatever potential for learning she might have, even if she never gets to the point where she can progress at a normal rate through school with her peers. BUT, if she is only delayed a bit, having the extra two years of early childhood intervention could be the difference between her failing miserably in school because of beginning kindergarten woefully unprepared, and having a more successful experience because she is entering school with the skills needed to succeed. As we sat with the district assessment team to talk about what would be best for Minsy, all of us agreed that the best option would be to change Minsy's age officially. They even went back and rescored her tests with the new age and found that although she would still be significantly delayed, all of the sudden it was within a more workable range, if that makes more sense. There was now hope that perhaps she could get to a point where she could succeed in a regular school environment. Now, of course, all of the improvement in the scores, will mean nothing if she truly is five and the test results are accurate. It could be that we are only delaying receiving the same exact outcome when she is retested in three years. But, worst case, she still receives two extra years of services from the district, giving her two extra years to get the most from her education as she prepares for life outside of school.
So we're going to do it. We're going to make her three officially. I think that we'll wait until we see the endocrinologist in March, just so we get that medical okay that will make me feel better at least. I feel really good about her entering the ECSE classroom. Her teacher seems wonderful, and it seems like she will have an opportunity to really learn a lot once she gets comfortable. Minsy really is a pleasure to have in class because she is generally happy and loves to learn. She has an enthusiasm for learning new things that makes teaching fun. I think that the district will be surprised at the progress she makes in that environment. Minsy is already showing a bit of hesitation about changing classes, but hopefully we can ease her into the change. She doesn't have to start the new class until after President's Day weekend, and her teacher, Mrs. Cobb, is bringing down to her new class for a few minutes each day, so that she can get ready to come to Ms. Shawna's class. It should be okay. I hope.
Now that we have made a final decision about Minsy's age, I feel a certain amount of peace. There is still a great deal of uncertainty about the future, especially regarding Minsy's ultimate capacity to learn. Those questions will begin to become more clear in the next two years as she becomes more and more comfortable with speaking the language and expressing herself. We still have a lot of adventure ahead of us, but at least, finally, we can move past this age issue and get on with the business of living. I'm super grateful to be living in a place with such a wonderful school district. I'm grateful to be married to a man with an intimate knowledge of how the education system works. And even more so, I'm grateful to have such a loving, happy little girl with us in this adventure. We may not know how this journey is going to turn out, but we know that we'll have lots of joy taking it!
Herman always tells me that January and February are, without question, the hardest months for an early morning seminary teacher. It is dark and it is cold every morning, and all of us would just rather stay warm and cozy in our beds than wake up and head to church each day. Last year I didn't really see that since I was a mid-season replacement teacher. Everyone was still jump-started into enthusiasm with the change, so I never really saw the mid winter doldrums. Well, let me tell you, they are out full force now. We are dragging. I mean, we are drrrrrraaaaaaagggggging. But I have some ideas to change things up a bit starting tomorrow, and we'll see how it goes. I have a good little class, and, for the most part, they are happy seminary students who want to be there each day.
But 6 am is EARLY!!!
REALLY early!!!
Well, in the middle of our winter of our discontent I do have a bit of happy news -- the kind of news that reminds me why I get up every single day before the crack of dawn and head to church to teach the youth. Like I say, we are in the middle of winter doldrums, and I can be affected by it as much as the youth. Over winter break I was looking over the attendance records of my class. A third of them were not receiving credit. In order to receive early morning seminary credit all you have to do is show up 80% of the time. That's it. No tests. No quizzes. No participation points. You just have to show up and warm up the seat underneath you. Obviously that isn't the ideal way to head in the direction of true conversion, but as far as credit goes, that's the way it is. So anyway, a third of my class hadn't met that threshold. I needed to encourage them to catch up. They can easily receive credit for lost classes by completing a makeup assignment that involves reading a block of scriptures and doing some introspective thinking about the principles found in the scriptures. I say easily, but in reality it is like pulling teeth to get anyone to actually turn in makeup work. I remind ... and remind ... and remind ... and remind ... every way I can think of, but I have never gotten any of my students to turn in a makeup assignment. Never.
So, so frustrating.
Well, over Christmas break I got the idea to go do some visits with individual class members who were behind. I planned to sit with them and do a couple of one-on-one lessons with them to get them on the right track. I had six kids lacking credit, so I ranked them according to how far behind they were. (Don't judge me too much about ranking everyone. I had to start somewhere). I would go after the kids who were only slightly behind and continue to work down the line until I got everyone. Seemed like a decent idea.
And here is where the Lord took charge.
One Sunday I was waltzing down the hall during class time, and I noticed one of my seminary parents in a primary room, preparing for her class. In my class ranks Rylie was #5. Only one student had missed more days than her. She has received credit for her freshman and sophomore years, but that was when her older brother was bringing her along. Last year she fell apart and missed a ton of classes. This year she wasn't fairing much better. She was so far away from receiving credit that it didn't even cross my mind that she would be receiving any credit. My plan was just to tell Rylie that we were going to count the previous semesters as the past and just start fresh in January. Forget the failings of before and simply forge on ahead, ending the year strongly. That was my plan. But as I spoke with Rylie's mom I got the impression that I needed to go a different direction.
Rylie is home schooled this year due to health concerns that prevent her from regularly attending school. I found myself offering to drive by her house every day after I dropped all of my kids off at school. We could sit down and do a few lessons together, and I would be able to catch her up on her New Testament assignments in no time at all. I have to admit that when I threw it out there, I didn't really expect Rylie to jump on the opportunity. But she was pumped up when her mom told her what I said. The next day I saw Rylie, and she was ready to get started right away.
Well, we have been working hard all month long. Every school day I teach seminary, run home and drive Team Blau all over the countryside to their four separate schools, and then I head over to Rylie's house where we complete two (and if we are on a roll, three or four) lessons. We breezed right through our makeup lessons on the New Testament, so we decided to keep going and catch Rylie up on her Old Testament lessons. And we are almost caught up. If all goes well, I think that Rylie should have all of her Old Testament makeup lessons done this week, putting her on track for graduation. And when she walks across the stage to receive her diploma, she can know that she really, truly deserves the recognition. We aren't sliding through these lessons with minimal effort. We are taking the time to really study and examine the doctrine in all of the scripture blocks we study together. It isn't as hard as waking up early to get to class, but there is still difficulty because there are no other students to act as a buffer. If an answer was going to come, it had to come from Rylie.
If graduation were the ultimate goal, then (Hurray!) we were doing great. But I have to say that I have noticed even better blessings from this experience than a slip of paper at the end of the term. It has been amazing to see the transformation in Rylie. She had been a seminary student who dragged herself into class twenty to thirty minutes late each day ... if she even showed up at all. Once she was there, she would open her scriptures and follow along, but she would freeze if I ever asked her a direct question. She just couldn't answer it, no matter how simple the question would be. She had absolutely no confidence in her own spiritual insights. But as we talked one-on-one I could see that she had lots of experiences and ideas that were relevant to the things we were studying. After a bit of coaxing at the beginning she began to see that in herself as well. She started to read the scriptures with confidence, and during class she was even raising her hand and offering comments unbidden. AND she was showing up every single day on time. It was amazing! Rylie has been transformed. As an added bonus, I feel like I have been able to form a special bond with Rylie. I even told her my Angel Moroni story! I haven't told anyone that story outside of my family. And sorry. I'm not going to tell it here. Let's just say that it involved a warm summer evening, a lightening bug, and a young girl with childlike faith in direct revelation opportunities. I can't say more than that. Let's just say that it is a hilarious story that I can't bear to share with anyone. Except my family ... and Rylie.
I was talking about this a bit to her mom, and Tami told me that Rylie is the type of girl who gets easily frustrated if a task is before her that seems too difficult. With seminary it seemed to her as if there was no chance for her to ever catch up, so she just gave up. It was like she was six feet under water, and she saw no way to get back to the surface, so she just stopped swimming. When I started working with her, all of the sudden she saw the chance to make it back. And she grabbed it with both hands. Just showing her that she had potential was all that it took to get her back on track.
Last week I was ending our time together, and I told her that she only had about a week of makeup left to complete. She was super happy, and she looked at me and said, "I'm your seminary miracle, aren't I, Sister Blau?" Maybe. ... Yes. Yes, I think she is. But for me, I think that she is more of an example of how the Lord loves ALL of us, individually. He knows who we are, and He knows what we need. And in Rylie's case, He knew exactly what she needed to get back on the right track, not just in seminary, but in life. Rylie's favorite story that we read as we did our makeup assignments was the story of Jesus as the good Shepherd found in John, Chapter 10. She loved learning about how shepherds care for their flock and how that related to how the Savior cares for us. Today she got up in church and bore her testimony about how grateful she was for a teacher who went after the lost sheep and gave her a chance to succeed. Awwwww! That right there made all of my winter blues melt right away.
Unless someone out there can develop technology that will allow me to clone myself two or three times over, I don't think that I can do this for every single one of my students. I just don't have enough hours in the day, and by the end of my service all that would be left of Sister Blau would be a giant puddle of goo, undulating on my front porch. No one wants to see that. And, to be honest, I'm not exactly sure that the approach I took with Rylie would be the best thing for every student. I will need to find the best way to make a difference in their lives, and it will probably vary with each one of them. What I do know is that this was exactly what the Lord wanted me to do for Rylie. It was exactly what Rylie needed at this time in her life. I love the chance this calling gives me to see how well the Lord knows each of us. And how much He LOVES us. Such a sweet tender blessing in the midst of a sometimes difficult calling.
So, tomorrow I continue. Herman loves to say that seminary is a marathon, not a sprint. It isn't about hitting a home run every single time, but it is about constantly pushing forward, knowing that in the end it is going to make a difference.
But, I have to admit ... sometimes I feel like my teaching days go a lot more like this:
"It ain't an easy job, but when you bring a herd into town, and you ain't lost a one of 'em ... ain't a feeling like it in the world."
'Nuff said.
MY MONDAY UPDATE: Rylie had a crazy bad last week. Crazy bad. I won't go into detail, but it was just bad. Today I stopped by her house after dropping the fam off at school, and she told me a wonderful experience she had. She told me how she had been so upset and angry last week. She left home to stay with a friend. She didn't come to seminary. I didn't meet with her at all. Things were not going so well. But she told me today that in the middle of the week she had an experience where she looked over the way that she had been feeling during this past month as we have been studying the scriptures together. She thought about how much she missed going to seminary when she wasn't there. And she thought about how much she really missed and valued her family. She knew that she needed to make a course correction. So she made one. She told me today how grateful she was for those feelings she has discovered through studying the scriptures because it gave her a solid foundation to turn toward when she realized that things were not feeling quite right with her life last week. She said that the experience was like her own personal Road to Damascus experience. So, you know what? Maybe this intensive week of Rylie training and scripture study had nothing to do with getting seminary credit for graduation. Maybe it was just the Lord's way of preparing Rylie both mentally and spiritually so that she could face this trial and have the right tools to get her where the Lord wanted her to be. Who knows? I'm just happy to have had the chance to see another example of the Lord's tender mercies in the world around me. Life is good.
