Change of Attitude?

Today my Primary teaching partner and I will meet and "pow-wow" about our first lesson with our new class.  I sent the 6 little girls an "invitation" to join our class on Sunday and a message that we look forward to learning together with them.  I have created a "getting to know you" sheet for each of them to take home and fill out so we know their favorite treats, talents, goals, and struggles and with that knowledge help them understand and know the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

The lesson itself isn't a difficult one.  We are teaching about Joseph Smith's first vision and what he learned about our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus.  Since the whole theme of Primary this year is "I am a Child of God" this is a pretty good starting point.

I remember learning about the First Vision in my seminary class.  I must have been a junior or senior in high school and, while I knew the story and it's importance before, I never had the Spirit confirm it's reality to me like it did that day.  I vividly remember sitting in the classroom, have just re-read the verses in the Joseph Smith history section of the Pearl of Great Price and listening to our wonderful teacher--I believe it was Brother Dickson at the time--bear a sweet simple testimony that he knew what Joseph said was true.  Someone had prayed that morning to begin class that we'd have the Spirit of the Lord there with us to teach us and testify to us.  Like a huge wave of warm water, the Spirit washed over me as Brother Dickson testified to our class.  I knew it too.  I had always known it, but now the Spirit confirmed that belief and made it knowledge.  It was a powerful class period.  And that feeling has stayed with me as I've grown up.  That piece of testimony is the foundational block of the the rest of my faith, belief and knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I admit that when this new calling came, I wasn't thrilled with it.  I really didn't like that first assignment in Primary I had with Genius Golfer the first year we were married.  It was devastatingly distracting and, besides the birth-control factor, did little for my attitude about Primary.  The class was full of a bunch of cute-when-silent-and-still hoodlum-monkeys who were never still not silent.  I don't remember much from that year except the feeling of disliking my time there.

The other 25+ years of adulthood--if you can call it that--I have spent either in Relief Society or Young Women, both places I feel I have some acumen and talent.  I love to teach but prefer to lead discussions and involve the women--old and young--that I teach.  I feel I have been blessed with some leadership skills and have been able to develop those talents in presidencies in both other auxiliaries.  Primary children don't learn the same way as adults--both older and younger sets.  And I feel I have no natural skill set to pull out of my spiritual toolbox with this new assignment.  And maybe that is why I have been so hesitant.

But my feeling is shifting, ever so much, as I inch nearer to our first day of "our" new class.  My teaching partner, Cassie, and I are developing a personal relationship, to which I am really looking forward.  The lesson this week has reminded me of my own testimony development all those years ago in seminary.  And I feel more excited about our little group of junior-aged young women.

From my YW experience, I know that God has saved His most valiant and faithful children to come to earth at this time--to prepare for Christ's second coming.  It can't be long now,considering the messed up world we live in, but these kids have spend their premortal lives learning spiritually all that they will need.  We have the challenge of teaching them, and then keeping up with them.  This year I will just get  moved up in the line of teaching and guiding a little earlier than the 12-18 year old spot.  When I think of it like that, I feel more excited about it overall.

Change isn't easy for me, as it isn't for many people.  But I know this is Christ's church on the earth today and this Gospel is TRUE.  I know it,I live it and I love it.  But wish me luck, just the same.