Mystery, murder (of the hamster variety) and scripture

It's been a kind of crazy week. My good friend Karen got into a pretty bad car accident. She is also the jr class seminary teacher so when she asked me to sub for her, even though I knew it wasn't going to be an easy week, I said yes. Because that's what you do. I do like teaching seminary. It's hard and early though. Today we were in 2 Nephi 4 where some beautiful ideas are discussed. We talked about the importance of scripture study. Nephi said his soul delighted in the scriptures, I am not always there. I do honestly love them but sometimes my reading is mechanical and obligatory. Sometimes I forget all together. And sometimes it's a delight. I am trying to tip the scales more and more to the delight side of the spectrum. 

We talked about the importance of letting go of our sins and our past and putting our trust in God's plan. Nephi eloquently described this process as he talked about feeling anguish at his wretched soul (he as a little hard on himself...like we all are) and the peace that he feels when he forgets himself and remembers God's goodness and grace. This is one of Satan's most effective traps. He wants us to get so down on ourselves that we don't forgive ourselves and move on after we repent. There are two voices in our heads: one that says "you are not good enough, you can not be forgiven. Everyone is better than you and if they really knew you they wouldn't like you". That is Satan's voice. Christ's message is the opposite. He says "I atoned for you, personally, so you don't have to keep suffering. Believe in me and in what I can do. Do your best. You are good enough." We have to choose Christ.

The last concept we covered was personal prayer. This chapter has a beautiful, heartfelt prayer in poetic prose that can't help but touch the readers heart. It also schools us in what elements we should have in our prayers. To introduce this idea I brought a bag full of random things: a flashlight, a can of soup, a name tag, etc. The kids pulled an item out and said prayer is like _________ because __________. They came up with some great ideas. 

It was a fun morning except Grace tried to FaceTime me like 6 times. Finally I became concerned that she was trapped under something heavy or the house was flooding or something so I gave Kelly the phone and told her if Grace called again to step out and talk to her and to give it to me IF it was an emergency. 

It turned out that Sophie was eating her babies. All but 3.  Gross and vicious and upsetting. Yikes!! Ugh! 

I have also been subbing a lot this week so I have to rush home from seminary grab Grace, who is supposed to get ready while I am gone, but who so far has not, drop her at  school and rush to my job. It has been a little too rushed! 

One more day! I can do it.

This month it was the Laurel's turn to plan the combined activity. They wanted to do a murdur mystery dinner. We invited the Somerset ward and had almost 50 kids there!

We went early to set up and brought Noah and Rylie with us. Everyone helped and it looked great.   We had a 3 course meal with an introduction to set the scene and then clues revealed at each courses. In the end several kids figured out who the murderer was.

After everyone's guesses I read a wrap up that basically said: this wasn't taken from a modern day drama but from the greatest book in the world "the Book of Mormon". We took the story from Helaman  1 & 2 about the gadianton robbers, the murders of Pacumeni and Pahoran and the traitorous attempt at  Helaman's life.   The evening was a big success. The kids enjoyed it. Were surprised at the connection and listened with rapt attention to the scriptures to find out what happened. Also the dinner was good :)

Also, in the middle of all that Rob is on a camping trip with Wes and Larry and Marc. Hope they are having fun. It's supposed to be pretty cold where they are (in the high 20's at night and 50's in the day).  I'll be happy to hear all about it when they return.