Conquering Sunday pt. II

Our class was excused to go to our classroom, and my kids hurried ahead while I gathered my gear and the scripture bags and drawings they forgot under their chairs. I watched them from where I was bringing up the rear. Children are taught not to run in the chapel halls - but some of my kids push it as close as they can get.

There was another class gathering at our door. I looked at the teacher - a substitute - and guessed by the look of confusion on his face that he wasn't sure which classroom was theirs. One of his students was insisting that it was the wrong one, but the rest of his class was already inside. He looked down the hall of doors - each one looking exactly like the one before - and sighed. "This is our classroom for today," he said, and ushered the last of his sheep in with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

Still coming down the hall, I saw my students look with confused expressions into their now full classroom. But in the next second, they were lining up with folded arms against the wall of the only remaining empty classroom, and I applauded their adaptability.

I opened the door. They began to take their seats, I began to unload my bags contents onto the teaching table - deciding which awesome thing to hit them with first - and then a small tell-tale voice that pretty much guaranteed things would not go as planned.

"Mom? I want to stay with you today, Mom."

I turned, and Wyatt stood by the door where he had sneaked in with the rest of my group, his huge blue eyes stared up at me in earnest. I sighed. I knew the chances that my little three-year-old would be as engaged in my lesson as the kids twice his age would be were slim. I also knew that with the way things were going today for him, the chances that he would behave in his own class of peers were slimmer. "Okay, buddy" I conceded, and already felt my control of the situation slipping. "But you have to sit in your chair and be good."

"I understand." He said. Which is what he always responds with, and usually means he wasn't really listening. Nevertheless, he hopped into a seat between two of the boys, I took a deep breath and jumped with both feet into the lesson.

The lesson was on how the Book of Mormon came to be - from Mormon transcribing it onto the gold plates to Joseph Smith pulling it from the stone box buried in the Hill Cumorah. It's an amazing story - and a really fun one to tell - and by the time we got to the part where the angel Moroni appeared to Joseph in his room for the THIRD TIME that night, the kids were convinced (as am I) that Moroni and Joseph had a neat friendship.

"So then, Joseph sat in bed, thinking - whoa! There was just an angel in my room again! Okay, so there are plates of gold...history of the people...buried in a hill - and then guess what happens?"


9 voices in chorus, "what?!"


"Here comes a light, starts to fill the room again! Grows brighter than the sun again! And then - guess who shows up?!"


9 voices in chorus: "MORONI!"


After all - if your dad had spent so much of his life transcribing the scrolls onto plates of gold, and then you put forth so much effort in protecting them, writing the last entry on them, and then burying them safely in a hill - wouldn't you feel a strong common bond with the guy who was going to dig them up, risk his life for them and finally share them with the world? And visa versa?

"Mom?"

"...and Joseph works on a farm, and that's hard work! And he didn't have any sleep that night."

"Mom?" (for the umpteenth time)

"...and so he's completely exhausted trying to do his chores, and his dad says, 'Joseph! You don't look so good. Go home and go back to bed'. And so he does, but then on the way home -"

"MOM!"

"Yes! Wyatt! What is it?"

"Mom, can I have a snack?"

"Wyatt, I told you before. We'll have a snack when we get home from church."

"But Mom I feel hungry."

"I know, buddy, but I don't have a snack for you here. But as soon as church is over we can--"

"But Mom, I want the Teddy Grahams in your BAG!"

9 voices in chorus: "You have TEDDY GRAHAMS?!"

...and that was pretty much it for keeping their attention with my storytelling skills alone. Outed by my own son.

Yes, I was going to give them Teddy Grahams, anyway. But I've learned that when you add sugar to the kid equation, they cease to be children and turn into something unholy. So I was going to wait until the END of class...

I held the promise of Teddy Grahams over their head as a bribey attempt to force my way through the end of the story - which worked for only a short time before I noticed they were no longer staring at me with wide eyes and were instead staring at my bag.

So we pulled out the confounded bears and played a game for the remainder of class. Which basically meant I had nine children (plus Wyatt) insisting that it was THEIR turn to go next, and that they NEEDED more bears or would perish! and so-and-so got six bears and I only got five!

At least they all left my classroom knowing Moroni's name.

(outed by my own SON!)