After an extended vacation, I'm back! I'm still pretty jet-lagged from the trip, but at least getting up in the morning for Seminary isn't a challenge. I'm waking up at midnight and trying to get back to sleep. Rome is 7 hours ahead and it's taking a little time to get back into this time zone.
This morning I woke up early and was so wide-awake that I just gave up and decided to catch up on our shows that were recorded. I watched the first session of general conference. It was great! It was funny to watch the reaction of the people in the audience when they heard the change in missionary age. I am glad that's happening. I know a lot of boys who get into trouble in that year between high school and the mission and end up being farther delayed. I hope this will help them get out on the mission bring them home in a better place to resist temptation. I am also curious about how this is going to affect the marriage age of our young women. I hope that it doesn't adversely affect our girls ability to graduate from college or cause them to delay having children.
I was also touched by Elder Nelson's talk about "Ask the missionaries". Seminary suddenly got more important, didn't it? No longer can we rely on a year or so of Institute to prepare our boys and girls for missions. They could be leaving right after graduation, which puts the onus on Seminary and Sunday School and YM/YW teachers to help our children be prepared for the kind of questions that Elder Nelson was inviting folks to ask our missionaries. It struck me again how much confidence we put in these kids' ability to hear and act on promptings of the spirit. I hope I can help my students in that effort in Seminary.
I taught class on Friday -- it was good to see the students again. I have a new student who is the nonmember friend of a student. Her older sister was friends with a member and was baptized, went to BYUI and is engaged to be married, as I understand it. I'm feeling a little pressured to not screw anything up 🙂
I've got to spend a couple of hours today preparing lessons for next week. Tomorrow is our semiannual Tribal meeting, and I promised to help. I wish I hadn't though. There's a lot of stuff to get finished today in order to get ready for winter and recover from the trip.
Despite the long To Do list, I'm desperately grateful to be home again. Nothing sleeps like your own bed.
