Skating

Last week, I got a call from my friend Scott. He teaches our adult Sunday School class, and his wife was scheduled to have a baby on Friday; he wanted to know if I could teach class for him. “Sure,” I said, and I dutifully prepared lesson 28 from this year’s manual. It was a fascinating lesson on God’s purposes in allowing adversity– something that the early Saints certainly learned a lot about as they moved from Ohio westward to the Salt Lake Valley. Anyway, when we got to church this morning, there was a strong stench of polyurethane from the newly refinished floor in the “cultural hall” (which most of the world would call the gym). Arlene was asked to pinch-hit and teach a lesson on temple marriage to the 16-to-18-year-olds; the original teacher was out sick, and the substitute was feeling ill too. Then we found out that the three kids who were supposed to give talks in Primary weren’t there, so our boys were on tap. Arlene spent much of the first hour cramming with her lesson manual while I tried to alternate between listening to the speaker (we had three excellent talks today) and quelling rebellion in the ranks. We got a last-minute reprieve, though; the fumes were so bad that Brother Czarny cancelled our meetings once Sacrament Meeting was over, so none of the five of us had to teach or talk today. Woo hoo! (I’m sure there will be paybacks next week, though!)

Thought for the day: we’re asked to be willing to serve the Lord. That doesn’t mean that we’ll have to, only that we should be willing to.