Guest Author

Becky informed me today that I was in charge of doing the blog post this week. I grumbled, and frowned, but she held her ground. It’s not that I don’t like the blog, I love it. Becky does such a good job with it and nearly every time we talk with family they tell us how much they appreciate it. It’s just that I don’t know what I would say. I guess I’ll just tell you about my life. Tomorrow is a big test for me. It covers material for almost the last 2 months, and believe me, it’s a lot of material. I’m in a special track at med school called Problem Based Learning (PBL). If you’ve ever watched House, that doctor show on one of the cable channels, it’s similar to House. Instead of sitting in lectures all day we are put in small groups to learn the material on our own to “solve” the cases that the faculty gives us. It’s a little bit more than that, but that’s the jist. Anyway, each of our test questions is written by a different faculty member with a different field of expertise, and they are all essay questions. That means that we might have to go on for a page or more about each topic. This test will be unlike any I’ve ever taken. For the last week I’ve been waking up to study at 4:30 just to get ready for the test. It’s been hard, but I think it has really helped me.

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I teach a class of 8-11 yr. old boys in church. I have to prepare a lesson for them each Sunday that lasts between 40 and 50 minutes. Sometimes it’s a challenge, sometimes it’s a joy. Today we had a really great lesson. The main topic was the Mormon Pioneers who crossed the Great Plains to the Salt Lake Valley back in the 1840s-60s. They sacrificed so much because of their faith in God. It is an inspiration to anyone who studies their stories. Near the end of the lesson I asked the boys if all the pioneers were dead. They were smarter than I thought and said no, some people today are pioneers. I told them that a pioneer is anyone who prepares the way for others to follow. Then I had an elderly gentleman in the ward, the grandfather of 2 of the boys, come in and talk about what the Church was like when he was young. When he was young there was no meetinghouse in this area and they met in people’s homes. He was baptized in a creek up in the hills outside of town. He helped dig the footings for the first LDS chapel in White Sulfur Springs. It is still standing, but the LDS church sold it to another church when we outgrew it. He talked about the members donating labor and money to build the meetinghouse. He talked about what it was like to be one of just a handful of members of the church at a time before satellite broadcasts connected us all. At the end of his talk he told the boys to always trust in Heavenly Father because no matter how difficult life was He would help them. There is something different when an older person says that. An older person has lived it, and knows it’s true. When I say the same thing I believe it, and I intend to live it, but I haven’t lived it. The spirit in the room was strong as he admonished those boys to be faithful. The boys were mostly quiet, and mostly paid attention (hey, I’ll take what I can get).

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Becky also taught a lesson in church today. She teaches the nursery class (15 mo. – 3 years old). She made a turkey out of construction paper (I named him Toby the Turkey). She prepared little pictures of toys, clothes, families, Jesus, the temple etc. and used them to show the children what Toby the Turkey was grateful for. She said that the children kept scooting closer and closer to her as she talked and she took that as a sign that they were paying attention. She does such a good job with the little kids. When we see any of them outside of the normal church schedule they always get excited and say hi to her and hug her leg.

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We wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving! I’ll be giving thanks that these tests are over. We hope you have plenty of things to be grateful for as well.