Sunday, February 22, 2015

Wild Times

I got a call last night saying that my secretary is sick and wouldn’t be at church today.  Her husband brought the agenda and roles over last night so that I had them.  Then, this morning, I got a text from my 2nd counsellor saying that her kids were sick and that she wouldn’t be at church.  That was fine, conducting doesn’t add too much to the plate.

I headed up to church early for Ward Counsel and thankfully got out early enough that I could go set up the Primary room.  I got everything set up and just sat down when Lennard arrived with the kids.  I had bought a pop up tent for nursery last night and Lennard had dropped it off in nursery.  I decided I’d better go down and let them know where this random tent had come from and it was a good thing I did!  No leaders were in Nursery!  No lights on, no toys out, and one little visitor!  While her mom was still there I raced back to the Primary room and grabbed my keys so that I could unlock the toy cupboard.  Before too much longer I had about seven little ones and no teachers.  I couldn’t leave the kids to let my 1st counsellor know where I even was or that no one else in the Presidency was going to be there!  I finally snagged a sister that was in the hallway to stay with the kids while I raced back to Primary to let Jen (my 1st counsellor) know what was going on!  Thankfully, she’d found the agenda that I’d set out and had started Primary without me.  I told her what was happening and headed over to Relief Society where I begged for volunteers!  I then headed back to Nursery to relieve the temporary sister.  It was another ten minutes before the scheduled sub arrived (I’d got a message earlier in the week telling me that one of the Nursery leaders wouldn’t be there but that she’d arranged a substitute.).  She panicked when she realized that she was the only leader so far!  Just as the volunteers arrived from Relief Society, the other couple called to Nursery finally showed up!  Thankfully, they were good to take over.

I got back to Primary only to discover that one of our other teachers was sick and the other teacher was trying to teach a large class of 4 year olds by herself.  I left Primary and headed in to her class to help out where I could.  After about 15 minutes there, I realized that I hadn’t taken attendance yet!  I popped out of her class, which she had under control, and headed back in to Primary.  I didn’t make it in to the Primary room before the substitute Nursery leader brought one of the kids to me to find his parents!  After interrupting two Sunday School classes I finally found his mom!  Getting in to the Primary room, I got the role done and then realized that a few kids that we’ve been trying to get pictures of were actually at Primary today!  I grabbed my camera and made my rounds into the classes to get the last five kids that we were missing photos for.  Once that was done, it was time for Senior and Junior Primary to switch places.  I waited with the CTR4 class while the other teacher did bathroom runs with kids and then it was time to go in for Sharing Time.

I managed to conduct this time!  The kids were very restless and quite busy.  I don’t think any of them heard most of what was being said.  Ben had a talk, so I helped him with that.  The rest of the time was spent getting attendance done, getting the Great to Be 8 invitations ready to be handed out, juggling Emma and Ben as they were back and forth from their seats to me and back again.  Both of them were complaining that they were thirsty, or hungry, or tired, etc.  Whatever excuse they could come up with… they did!  We had half the junior primary in tears when they didn’t get to have a turn or get an invite.  It was quite the show!

Finally, Primary was over!  We got the chairs all put away and we headed in to Sacrament meeting.  The second we sat down, the kids were asking for treats or coloring books.  Since we are ‘mean parents’, they had to wait until after the Sacrament was passed before they could have anything else.  Oh joy!  In and amongst all this, I realized that I had two new teachers called to Primary!  (Didn’t know that was going to happen today.) 

After an excellent Sacrament meeting, I had the kids stay with Lennard in the clerk’s office while I went to be with the new teachers while they were set apart.  One teacher looked like he wanted to be anywhere but in Primary… too bad.  His son is the biggest reason he got called to that class!  His biggest thing was asking if he had to be in Primary every Sunday.  When I said yes, I got an eye roll and a huff.  Yikes!

When I finally got to head home I was more than a little relieved!  Lennard had put dinner in the crockpot for us.  The kids went off to play with their toys, and I am going to curl up with a good book and enjoy the rest of my day!  Oh, the joys of being Primary President! 

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