The main distraction from all of that partying was that I had been asked to give the lesson in Relief Society today. I actually enjoy teaching, but this was a bit nerve racking--more than normal. It was tricker to prepare even though I had like 6 weeks notice on what the talk was to be discussed. Part of it was teaching a group of 50 women--all serving full-time missions and basically all over the age of 60 is somewhat challenging. There is so much life experience in the room and most of them are great teachers themselves. But also we really don't know each other very well. I don't know them and they don't know me.
The lesson was from Elder Ballard's talk "Lovest Thou Me More Than These?" One of the things I did was read his biography which was excellent. I encourage anyone who would like to learn more about him to read it. At the beginning of the lesson, I did a brief summary of his life. I had gotten this book, because several of the mission presidents we have interviewed had served under President Ballard when he was mission president over the Canada Toronto Mission in the mid-1970s. Their comments made me curious about him.
These are items I used for my lessons. Different from talks, I usually write out my outline for a lesson by hand often in a legal pad like this.
I gave each class member an index card and asked them to write down a time when they put Christ first over anything else--What choice had they made? Why did they make it? What was the outcome? As full time missionaries, they all have made a choice to put Christ first for this time in our lives. But how can we always do it? What does that look like in our every day lives?
The class then divided up into six groups and discussed practical ways to increase our love for the Savior including favorite scriptures, quotes, spiritual practices, and stories that keep us focused on letting Christ and God prevail in our lives.
It went fine and got done on time which is good!
I am not sure exactly how it happened, but now I have a devotional message to give on Thursday of this week, the following Monday--an hour workshop on "communication", and then the following day I lead a book club discussion on the book "The Witch of Blackberry Pond." Fortunately, they are mostly different groups of people so no one person has to hear me four times in 10 days.
