I love my job, I honestly do! July 12, 2006

I love my Primary children. I know I complain about them a lot on here, but I do want you to know that this is just my way of venting. I wouldn’t trade my job for the world. My husband and I have been married for 4 years (we got married in the Idaho Falls Temple in April of 2002) and have yet to be blessed with any children. Since my family and his all seem to have the goal of single-handedly repopulating the Earth, this makes us feel distinctly out of place at times, like we crawled out from under a rock and was somehow made a part of two families who then had no idea what to do with us. At one point, my sister and my two sister-in-laws were all pregnant at the same time. The only thing Doug and I have contributed to the family tree is two dogs, and despite my best persuasive argument, my parents just don’t see grandpuppies on the same level as grandchildren. I tried pointing out the family resemblance, but for some unknown reason, that didn’t endear my parents any more to the thought.

But despite our apparent inability to have children, I am still okay because I have my kids in church. I have children that I have seen grow up for the last 4 years, and I feel almost like a second mother to them. They run up to me on Sunday and say, “Sister Lyon, Sister Lyon, look at the scratch on my hand!” I ohh and ahh over their scratches and their drawings and their stories about their newest toy that their parents wouldn’t let them take to church, and somehow in the midst of all of that, I have been blessed with the capacity to love them all, even the difficult ones like Christopher. I love to receive drawings on Sunday and big hugs and I even get to enjoy many of the kids during Sacrament Meeting. The kids all know that I carry a huge box of crayons with me to church on Sunday (96 count, no weasely 12 count for me) and that I have an endless supply of paper, so I will usually get 2-4 kids snuggling with me during Sacrament Meeting while their parents get to take a well-deserved break.

I love my job and wouldn’t trade it for the world. Just don’t make me take Christopher home with me.

Hava

Troublesome Children July 12, 2006

What do you do with the children that test your patience to the limits? Not just push the boundaries every once in a while, but out and out push you to the max? I have had the *ahem* great joy of dealing with several children who do just that.

One of my children in Primary that has pushed me past any previously known boundaries is Christopher. Chris is your typical preteen boy–he loves to push the envelope, he loves to cause problems, he has zero interest in the topic at hand, and his pride and joy in life comes from figuring out the absolute best way to wreak the absolute most havoc in the absolute least amount of time. His tricks include yanking chairs out from underneath children as they went to sit down, getting up and stealing the visual aides and running off down the hallway with them, pulling on girls’ hair, raising his hand to answer the question and then instead of answering why he loves Jesus, going off on the statistics that he got on his video game that morning. He would frequently say (usually in the middle of me speaking) “Is it time to go home yet?” He would sing the words to the songs, but not the words that we were teaching him…on and on and on.

My first strategy was to just ignore him. If I ignored him, maybe he would get bored from the lack of attention, and instead find some other way to pass his time. He did, unfortunately, do just that, and the “other ways” that he found ended up being even more disruptive and destructive than his previous antics. Ignoring was not an option.

I tried sitting him in time-out–didn’t work. I tried talking to his mom–she didn’t do a thing. I tried giving him his very own notebook to draw in while the lesson was being taught, and although that worked for a couple of weeks, he quickly got bored and started back into his old habits.

So how did I deal with Christopher causing so many problems? Easy–I simply waited for him to graduate from Primary, thus passing the buck on to the Young Mens. At the time, this was a sound strategy, guaranteed not to fail. Time does steadily tick on, and some day (May of 2005 to be exact) Christopher was going to turn 12, thus advancing him from Primary to Young Mens. Unfortunately, my hubby got called into Young Mens almost directly after Christopher graduated from Primary, dumping the problem entirely into his lap. So now my hubby spends his Sundays complaining about Christopher, just as I used to spend mine. I just nod and smile.

Life is good.

Havs

Times flies when you’re having… July 12, 2006

…well, fun would be a stretch, but how about working your tail off? I think that more accurately describes my current life. I am juggling about 17 things right now, and every once in a while, a plate comes crashing down and hits me hard on the head. I am getting this permanent bruise going on up there, and someday, I’m going to learn to wear a hard hat. Difficult to fit headphones over, but I’ll give it my best shot.

But anyhow, I put some blogs together because I was trying to apply for a job working as a blogger (how great would that be!) but the company has not responded yet, and this was sent into them on Monday. They usually respond within the day. So I think that it’s a no go. But I can’t let these perfectly good blogs go to waste! (Yes, I also save all of my leftovers from dinner, only to have to throw them out three months later when aliens from space come into my kitchen, looking to reclaim their own. What’s your point?) I was putting together blogs about being a Primary President (the blog I was applying for was Families.com and they actually have an LDS section, with a subsection for Primary) and although I wasn’t going to post any LDS content on this blog, I am much too lazy to see all of this work go to waste. For those of you who are not LDS/Mormon, the Primary is simply the organization for the children in the congregation. The Primary President is the person in charge of all of the little munchkins who do their best every Sunday to remind all of the adults that Thou Shalt Not Kill is one of the 10 Commandments. Having said that, here’s the first of three…

When I first got called to be the Primary President, I thought for sure the Bishop had lost it. After all, I had to be one of the youngest Primary Presidents to ever be called–wasn’t there some sort of age limit that kept 22 years old from being Primary Presidents??

Although I was in shock, a small part of me had known this was coming. When my husband and I got married and moved from Logan, Utah to Blackfoot, Idaho, I was called to be the Primary Music Leader within a month of us buying our house. I filled that calling until the Primary Presidency was rearranged, at which point I was called to be second counselor in the Presidency. I was in shock when I got that calling, because I figured only incredibly talented and loving and perfect people could be in a Primary Presidency. Why were they calling me?

I found out much later (when I was being called to be Primary President, actually) that Sis. Yancey, who called me to be her second counselor, had actually had just as many doubts about me becoming her second counselor as I had had doubts about me becoming her second counselor. In fact, she argued with the Lord and told him that she didn’t want me to be her second counselor. And then the Lord told her that I was going to be the next Primary President, and it was Sis Yancey’s job to teach me how to do that.

Luckily for both of us, Sis Yancey kept all of this a secret. I imagine if I had been told that I was going to be the next Primary President when I was being called to be the second counselor, I probably would have gone running screaming in the other direction. I probably would have had my house sold by the end of the week and made the move to China by the end of the month. I just wasn’t ready for that kind of responsibility at that point.

In fact, I didn’t feel ready for that kind of responsibility when I actually did receive the call to be President. Luckily the Lord knows me and all of my shortcomings, and He knew that He couldn’t just throw something like this at me. In the months before Sis Yancey’s move to New Zealand, I would have random thoughts pop into my head: “I will handle that (situation) differently when I am in charge.” Or, “When Sis Yancey leaves, it will be up to me to keep things going.” Then I would draw back and think, “Where on Earth did that thought come from?? I’m not going to be in charge. Sis Yancey isn’t going to leave.”

But she did leave, she moved across the world, leaving a mighty huge gap in the Primary structure. The first counselor moved at almost exactly the same time to Las Vegas, leaving me the only one left in the Primary Presidency.

So when the Bishop asked me to talk to him “real quick” in his office, I had an inkling of what would happen. Deep down, I knew that I was going to be the next Primary President. I just ignored that knowledge and instead clung to the idea that they would magically find somebody else to do the job. Anybody else. I was too young, and too dumb, and too unorganized, and too…everything to do something like this. I had no children of my own–certainly that was some sort of requirement to become a Primary President

And yet, I have not only survived these last two years, I have thrived. Through the Lord, everything is possible, and I am living proof of that.