What We Learned In Primary

As teachers in Primary we end up having a great deal of time with the kids in our ward, and let us tell you, it's been wonderful. And hilarious. Even eye opening, and or humbling. Sometimes sweet, always side splitting, comical, embarrassing, knee slapping, gut wrenching and any other variation on the word funny that you can possibly imagine. It's one of the best callings we have ever been given. And while it makes my uterus glow and gives both Riley and I a case of the "aaaaawe" 's, we enjoy spending the time with the kids we do get, and are holding off on having our own just yet. But in the middle of it all we still get some good, yet interesting learning and teaching experiences. Here's a few.

                    Some of the thing we have learned;

If you want to calm one of your sunbeams when they're running around the room, and will not respond to their name or questions, simply pick them up and place them on your lap. They will snuggle into whatever burrowing points exist on your sitting torso and fall asleep. This may or may not include arms at odd angles, snoring, an unfamiliar hand resting on/ fondling your chest, and lets not forget, drool.

David really was capable of slaying Goliath. As proved by one of our sunbeams, little people are at a rather large advantage against someone four times their height and seven times their weight. Who would have guessed? Well Little Leah took Riley on this last Sunday and these last ratios I stated are exactly the odds they were at. No biggie,right? Wrong. As she was trying to wriggle away from Teacher she wriggled Riley right to his knees and wriggled some odd muscles in his back right into surrender. Tears. Literal tears were coming from that large man's eyes a full two hours after the fact. I now have a stronger testimony of the story of David and Goliath.

Everything must be fair. This or all of life as we know it will fall apart on our heads. Sometimes this results in 4 opening prayers for Sunday school and 3 closing prayers. Hey! More blessings in our Sunday school class. I'm happy.


Some people, mostly children ( but not always) , think "fair" means everyone gets a turn except them. They get three. Then all is fair.

Every child is actually very different. We learned this while practicing operation "place child on lap and commence drooling " on a child other than the one we discovered this apparently flawed principle with. On one occasion  in singing time  another of our kids was in the middle of demonstrating his superior intelligence by refusing to sing the song. In all actuality he is very smart. He learned the song the first time through and then when we were about to start it again he proclaimed loudly " I already know this song, so I don't have to sing it again.". Cute right? Down right impressive! The only problem with this is that the other kids start to copy him and then they don't learn the song. Anyhow, he was in the middle of the superiority demonstration, sitting with Riley because he was acting out, and then suddenly  between notes of  something like  "Follow the Prophet" we hear the fascinated words "Ooh. Blood!", look over and there's our charmer smearing blood from his bitten lip all over Riley's suite coat. Hilarious! But definitely not drool...

                   Things we teach our Sunbeam's;

It's not polite to look under the stall door when your classmates are in the restroom.

What the meaning of fair is.

To be thankful. Thankful for things like our eyes, our ears, our family, for animals, water, and for birds.But when we ask our sunbeams what they're thankful for the most common response is usually toys. We also  always hear Mom, or Dad in there too. Just heart melting :)

"We don't pull our dresses up above our heads, because they belong around our knees. Why? So we can be modest. Plus if that's the way they were supposed to me made they would have wire to hold them up instead of the way they're made. Make them swoosh instead. It's more fun and it's prettier" .

If you're Riley- That the sheep that shepherds watched when Christ was born say "Baa".

How to pray.

How to be loving to others.

But most importantly, and what seems to stick the best, that God is our Heavenly Father and he loves us. And that Jesus Christ paid for our sins, is Heavenly Fathers son and he loves us too. This is also one of the greatest things I've learned all over again. The fact that it is so obvious to these young children and that they understand that our Heavenly Father loves us and watches over us. It reminds me of all the sweet truths I've learned through my life and reminds me that they're real.

So this ends our brief encounter with what Riley and I have learned in Primary. As well as a few of the funnier and more important things that we teach. The primary is a great place to be serving and we love every minute of it.

New Bloom

We finally figured it was about time to start a Monson blog! Life has been mostly uneventful thus far, but even the everyday mundane is something. Better than nothing right?

Well to get everything out and everyone caught up, Riley and I have been married for six months now (leaps and bounds to be sure :) ) and are settling into our life together quite comfortably. To fill in all the spaces from the Start to our current space in the game of life...will take forever. So I hope the major points will do an alright job of painting a semi-similar picture. 

When we began planting our roots together we somehow ended up here, of all places, in Utah! Now that sounds  like we had no idea it was coming, but it actually makes bunches of sense when it comes right down to it. I was attending school in Salt Lake and Riley was coming back up to BYU to continue his schooling. Thankfully I am now finished with school and happily working in the bookstore on BYU campus, doing merchandising and crafty stuff (picture soon to be added). Riley is mostly happily attending school right now and as changed his major from Clarinet Performance to Computer Science. He misses being surrounded by music, but he also LOVES what he's doing now. Sometimes I have to wonder if he would rather spend his time writing code and cooking up grand ideas in his brilliant mind than be with people...which is saying  a great deal just in that!

Outside of all this Riley has also started doing software developing with a company within BYU. He's picking it up quickly and enjoying his colleagues immensely. I just wish I could find something I loved as much that would bring a little money in too. I am, however, working in the Primary Presidency as secretary, as well as continuing to teach our sunbeams. Our ward is spoiling us in that sense. All this time with the kids, man, it's wonderful!

Well, that's about all that comes to mind right now. I'll get more up soon with some actual current and exciting content, assuming we stumble upon something so rare as this. Until next time, take luck!