Seminary

So this post is a rambling of my thoughts, but I wanted to write them down for my own records...

I got called as the early morning seminary teacher in our ward.  My bishop had warned me the week before I was called that he submitted my name to the stake for this calling (it's a stake calling apparently), so when the stake guy called me in before church one day, I was ready and waiting with a whole speech as to why I didn't think it would be a great fit for me right now.  However, that morning they were running behind and I literally had less than 30 seconds before sacrament meeting (which is when they wanted to sustain us) to talk to him, so I didn't get to get into any discussion whatsoever at all.  The only thing I got out was "well, I'm having a baby at the beginning of October and I don't see how it could work for me after that," to which he replied, "Oh.  Wow.  Hmmm.  Okay.  Well if you get into it and it something doesn't seem to be working, you can let us know.  Now the meeting is starting, do you accept?"  I wasn't super happy but I was caught off guard and didn't know what to say.  Anyway, I'm just rolling with it right now, which is turning out that this is quite the full-time job!  I've already had 3 5-hour Saturday meetings, a few shorter ones in between, and have hours more that  I need to spend getting everything ready for our first day.  The other hard part is that because Ryan has to be out the door for work early each morning, we have to start seminary at 5:45, which is one hour earlier than they've started in the past because their high school doesn't start until 8.  Needless to say, we aren't getting much support from the parents on this one, which makes it kind of frustrating.

Anyway, I have been trying to have a good attitude about this calling, but it's proven to be very difficult for me and causing way more stress in my life than a calling ever has.  In all honesty though, I know my limits and even if I have the easiest baby in the world here in a couple months, I just don't think I will have it in me to continue on with this (how will I even have time to prepare a lesson each day let alone be up all night and then out the door at 5:20am?!).  So with that being said, I really am trying to do as much as possible now at the beginning so that things will be set up and ready for someone else to smoothly transition into my role.

As a side note though, some of these meetings I've been to have really been enjoyable and I've learned a lot that I know I will for sure use in the future!  And the other seminary teachers... they sure are dedicated to this calling and really, truly make it a full-time job and I was really inspired by many of them.  Their students are lucky!  I've always thought that this would be one calling that I would NEVER in a million years want, and while I won't ever beg for it, I've actually discovered that I would probably really enjoy doing it at some point faaaar in the future, like when my kids are in high school. :)  So I'm glad that I've at least gotten these few things out of it so far.

These are the materials I walked away with after our first meeting.  That's too many, in my point of view, and they've only doubled since then!  I come home with new stacks of stuff every time!