I have been a little frustrated with my inability to keep this up any better than I have. There have been some great experiences lately, and some not so great, that I would like to have recorded, but I haven't.
I had a really negative experience last weekend that I would normally have written about in a "real" journal, but because of the public nature of this one, I did not. The writing would have been cathartic, and as I write now, I wish I had written about it in my paper journal.
President Kimball always advised against writing really negative experiences because of their public nature, even the written ones. But he does say that it helps those reading the journals to know of the struggles people have as it makes their own not seem so bad.
I think my life is so easy it might be discouraging to those who read it who truly have trials. Not that I am wishing anything upon myself. I think Heavenly Father knows where my threshhold for endurance is, and He knows when He has pushed me close to it.
In thinking about my negative experience all week, I finally realized today how much of a test it truly was, and will continue to be. My metal, my compassion, has not been truly tested. This will aid and abet that part of my growth.
Last Saturday, I attended the temple with Jac and Bonnie. Alicia was not able to go due to the CLAST which was scheduled for that day. While I really missed her, I was glad we went anyway. It seems the more we try to schedule for everyone, the more difficult that becomes.
On that particular day, the temperature was below freezing. When we woke up, we had no water in the house or outside. Once the temperature came down enough for the pipes to thaw, the pump came on, but no water came up. Later we learned that the pump had lost its prime, which I should have remembered from a previous experience. Fortunately, the pump does not break often enough for us to remember how to fix it each time.
I went on to the temple, and Roger stayed home from his assignment at the home storage center to make sure our pipes had not broken when frozen. Once when we returned home after a freeze, this had happened, and the pump had run non-stop until we turned it off. This is not good either. The pump man who came out primed the pump and made us feel better about the service call by telling us the points were shot too. So he took care of that as well, and we are $144.00 wiser. Well, not that $144 can buy much wisdom with inflation and all.
It was pleasant at the temple as it was not as crowded as it is no most Saturdays. Good for us, but bad for those waiting to have their work done. How difficult it would be to have to wait that long! I wish I were more dedicated to doing more on their behalf.
I was a little off my game in terms of engaging conversation with my daughter-in-laws. I never sleep well when it is cold even if I am not. I don't know why. So I was a little tired and glad to get back home even though I enjoyed the girls so much.
Jac gave us an adorable little initial zipper pull from her trip to New York, but I'm not supposed to tell Alicia before Jac can get hers to her. She said she had an awful time finding something METs for Darius as even the New Yorkers hate them! She brought Roger some playing cards which say New York on them, so it will be nice to use these items knowing she was thinking of us there.
Our chickens have been laying almost an egg every day. We are loaded with eggs, and eat them almost every day. It is great! I was wishing today that I had goats too, but I know that they are a lot more work. I try to give them greens every day; we have a lot of weeds in the yard, so that is not hard. Plus I give them sprouts from the kitchen when they are past their prime. I try to start a new batch of sprouts every other day or so.
My in house tomato plants are doing great too. I will need to get them outside soon. I haven't started my pepper plants yet. I want some cucumbers this year too, but I don't have much luck with them. Maybe I need a different variety as Bro. Hurtado's cukes are fantastic. Last year the corn was horrible; I don't think we got more than an ear or two out of several rows. I think the pollenation was off.
I put a math problem in the message for the students for last month, and we have had two guess the right answer. Yay! Several more have guessed, though incorrectly. Now I need to think of a good prize.
The problem was: Suppose a water bottle is 3/4 full, and you drank 80% of the water. What percent is left in the bottle?
Easy, right? I am going to come up with another brainteaser for this month, maybe not math related this time.
Last Friday, Roger and I cleaned out our food storage shed. We had boxes and boxes and boxes of books in there which was taking up space needed for food storage. I couldn't believe we had dumped so much school stuff in there.
Most of the books we dontated to the Palatka public library for the annual book sale. Some we thought were appropriate for the grandkids were given to Bonnie, and maybe one stack was kept for reference purposes, or were books we know we would use. (For example, I found
the Articles of Faith and Jesus the Christ books given to me by a sister from Canada that I used to visit teach. They are older editions.) There were also a couple of boxes of old church manuals.
I don't know what we will do with them.
We bought 2 shelves at Home Depot to put in the shed where it is now shelveless. We are going to be reorganizing our food storage and making it more shopper friendly, us being the shoppers! We want to keep a week's supply in the house, and then shop from our staples list each week in the shed to replenish what we have used that week. It will also help us be more realistic about how much we need. We have a lot more than we will ever eat at this point in time, but it is hard to know how much we will need to share at a critical time. I guess we will continue to try to follow the spirit in knowing how much we need.
We served at the home storage center today; it was our branch's canning today, and we had 5 people make up orders, but only Graciela went with us. So 7 families participated. Graciela always buys the bulk cartons and bags, plus today she bought a can of vanilla pudding mix. She was trying to figure out if she should buy the rice in the can instead, so I showed her how the math worked out on it, and she bought the box. I asked her how long the food she bought today would last, and she said about 3 months. Maybe some day, I will get them to but 4 times as much so that they have a year's supply. I hope if they ever need it, the crisis will come at the
beginning of the 3 months and not at the end. I bought more oxypacks as I am going to buy the 2 gallon pails on Tuesday. I got my gamma lids last weekend.
I have had a wonderful experience teaching my seminary class. I cannot believe the wonderful spirit that is there. It is the same as when I taught institute, so I guess it is related to the willingness of the class participants. It was rare when I was teaching Palatka early morning for that spirit to be present, maybe once a week or so.
This has been unusual because I have never taught members so recently converted and with so little experience with Church terminology and doctrine. They don't have too much Biblical
background either. Even without me saying, one of the students observed that they were kind of like Joseph Smith: they were learning about the Church from the beginning, just like he had too. I shared with them the "Journey with Joseph" concept we did in institute, and they liked that. One of the points we brought up is that one of the things that helped Joseph be prepared for the part he was to play in the restoration of the gospel was the excellent foundation he had in the Bible from his family's daily scripture study. They realized they were at a disadvantage because they had not been brought up that way. How much we take for granted our blessings!
They have a hard time with the vocabulary, both in the manual and the scriptures. Since their families only speak Spanish, and they aren't very good students at regular school, they are in many ways illiterate. I promised them that if they would study their scriptures every day that the Spirit would help them gain knowledge in all things, not just the scriptures. I know that this is true.
We are learning a Spanish hymn in our Spanish choir practice that is not found in the English hymn book, #190, Bello Hogar. They are doing a great job learning it. We are also singing the hymns of the restoration isolated in the Gospel Principles manual. They are all very anxious to learn. One of the sisters noticed that she could follow my lips to know when to sing what. They have a hard time figuring out when to make a word have 2 notes as they do not know how to read notes. We are trying to teach music theory as well. It is a lot to take in.
Well, as I have written all these great things, I have been able to push the heartache away from the bad experience I had at church last week. I realize my life is very rich and that the challenges are needed so that I can realize how very blessed I am.
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5 comments:
Thanks for the new blog entry. I might not comment on every one of them, but I do enjoy reading them and think of it as a way of staying in touch.
Regarding the seminary students, it is funny to think of the phrase "in many ways illiterate." I think of being illiterate is either "on" or "off," but I knew what you were saying. I noticed you suggested to them to read the scriptures every day, and I agree. I am not sure if you told them to just read or to read out loud, but consider suggesting that they read from it out loud every day. I got really good at Spanish in the second area of my mission (in San Pedro, Coahuila) by reading El Libro de Mormon cada dia por una media hora con voz alta. It was amazing that I could actually sense my progress from day to day. Also, Alicia and I finished reading the Book of Mormon in English last month, so we decided to try it again in Spanish for the second time together. It's awesome how far she has come since the first time we tried this. The first time we started this, she could initially only read one or two verses a day, and it was really strenuous. It usually took a whole half hour to read those two verses because I wanted to make sure she could learn the correct pronunciation from the beginning. As we were finishing El Libro, we were up to a half a page a day. Well, now we read an entire page every day, and she reads rather fast, and with the accents in the right place the majority of the time. However, she still doesn't know what most of the words mean, so we are concentrating on that more this time. After each verse, I have her choose two words: one that she already knows the English meaning of, and one that she would like to learn what the English meaning is. I don't expect her to remember every word we go through this way, but I am hoping that the repitition of some words and maybe some quizzing will help her build up her vocabulary. I haven't taken the time to teach her about the verb conjugation, but I figure when I do, it'll be a simple concept to grasp simply because she's already seen and read out loud so many thousands of conjugations. I think I have "hinted" a few times by saying that most of the verbs that end with the accent on the last syllable. Popular Libro de Mormon past-tense verbs include anconteciO, acaeciO, occurriO, comenzO, with the accent on that "O" of each word since I don't know how to type an accent in here. Fun stuff, right?
That is SO cool that you guys are learning the spanish-only hymns and also teaching some music-"reading" skills to everyone. There is one Spanish-only hymn that I am very fond of, but I can't remember the name right now. I will look it up when I get home.
Oh! Have you been to the Church's music web site lately? They have really put some amazing things on there. You can isolate each of the (usually) 4 parts from each song so that you can practice singing in parts. For me, that is really good, because for some songs, I have a hard time reading and singing correctly the lines of a part I am supposed to sing while other people are singing other parts. I usually have to sit down and "memorize" my line, and then practice singing it while listening to the other lines. Well, now you can do that on the music site. You can even play one or two lines together (say the two bottom bass lines, or your part and the main melody line) and hear how just those two sound together.
http://www.lds.org/churchmusic/
Geez, I guess this was as long as a blog entry... maybe I should get my own space, eh?
That is neat how you read that together. I hope Alicia appreciates what an opportunity that is. I have my Spanish only friends to help me, and they don't tell me why or how things work. They don't even correct me all of the time because they are too kind. They figure if they can understand me, there is no need to correct me. They know how I struggle with it.
I think my biggest problem is with verbs - both the accumulation and the conjugation. I do great with present tense usually, so I use that. This is how I know my Spanish friends are being kind. They do not correct my tense since they know what I am trying to say. I always start with "ayer" "manana" or "hoy" so they know when I am talking about even though I use present tense all the time. I don't know why it is so hard for me, but I think I am just too lazy to study as much as I should. I am noticing in the "Articulos de fe" there is some tense, especially in the one I am on now - all that has been revealed, is now being revealed, and will yet be revealed.
I try to learn verbs that I use more often. I found that "to bring", "tra...something or other" is an important one. I think I say something like "trajere", and they know what I am saying. I have a verb book, and I once set a goal of one verb a week, but I didn't keep up with it. I should do that again. The book is confusing to me, and I have found that if I don't use what I am learning, I
cannot retain it.
The Articles of Faith have been very weird as I work on them before I go to bed usually. Then I find myself saying them whenever I wake up at night, and I fall back asleep saying them. So, naturally, I am making pretty good progress.
I too used to think of illiterate as on and off, but I see it differently now that I work with so many students and their parents. I have come to understand the term to be subjective as far as the needs of the people are concerned. You are only considered illiterate if you cannot function in whatever environment you find yourself in. If your lack of ability renders you impotent, then you are illiterate, at least in that area. Many people function quite well in society with very few literate skills simply because they have learned to survive like that. Of course, more skills would have
given them more power, more success, or more earning power, but they have to be satisfied with the level at which they are.
I have noticed with the Spanish people that everyone thinks if they can speak English that they are totally literate in all ways. This, of course, is not true. It is like when I speak Spanish to someone; they start talking really fast in Spanish assuming because I can say what I did, that I will understand everything else. "Mas despacio, por favor," comes in handy at times like that.
Once you told me you got along better with American companions because you communicated better with them. I have thought about that a lot, especially as I struggle to communicate with my friends who speak Spanish only. It seems that the emotional level of verbal communication is much more difficult to obtain. You can say "Te amo", but that is about it. You can say the words, but you cannot express the depth of your feeling. One thing that helps is that the spirit helps us communicate silently, and because the Spanish people are so receptive to the spirit, they understand even words not said much of the time.
I spent several hours with Graciela on Saturday as we drove to the home storage center and back. It was just us and Roger, so no one was there to interpret. We both were frustrated at our inability to dig a little deeper, that we could only converse, and not really communicate. I don't know if that makes sense or not. Every once in a while, we have a break through, but they are few and far between.
Of course, the desire is there, and both of us know that the other wishes we could better. We both hate that we can't seem to get to that next level.
Regarding the church music site, I have used it many times myself, and told the choir members about it, but many people are still not computer savvy or even have computers. Another obstacle is that the Spanish hymns are not included on that site to my knowledge. If you know somewhere they can be found, let me know.
We have gotten the CD's for most of the members, but it plays all of the parts, and it is hard for new music listeners to pick out the parts.
Re: music site: Yeah, the site with the parts was a major breakthrough for me. If I wanted to isolate the part before, I had to play it by itself on the piano or guitar and then try to repeat it with my singing voice and memorize it.
I can go over that verb book with you if you want. Just understanding the three different past tenses was a chore for me in the MTC, and I think I can explain it to you better than the book does.
Just so you know though, Nick is really good at speaking and understanding Spanish, and he still can't speak any verb tenses other than present tense. There's hope! One other thing he does as a joke, and you might try this with your friends cuz its really funny is anytime you want to refer to a noun that you have no idea of the Spanish translation, you just say "arbol" (which translates to "tree" in English). "Yo quiero ir a un restaurante y comprar un arbol." If they are in on the joke, and they know what noun you are talking about, it can be a way for them to teach you the word.
Oh, and that Spanish hymn that I really like is #153, "Oid el Toque del Clarin." Wonderful!
Thanks for the offer on the verb book. I know that once I get it, I can do better. As much as I like to learn things by reading them, I don't do well with language that way or math. So I can sympathize with my students who feel that way. I'll try to remember to get my book out next time I'm going to be seeing you.
I'm going to look your hymn up next time I'm at church and can play through it. The way we decided on #190 was that Sis. Reyes said it would be the easiest one to sing, and it is a pretty hymn with a nice message as well.
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