As Old As The Hills

I turned 61 on Saturday.  How did that happen?  It seems I was just a young mother trying to get my kids to finish their school work, to brush their teeth, and to refrain from fighting in sacrament meeting.  Now here I am, one year away from social security.  It hardly seems possible, but then I look down at my hands as I type this or feel the ache in my foot that refuses to heal, and I think perhaps I have miscalculated.  Maybe I’m really 75.  At nights, as I fall exhausted into my heated bed, I fear that I will not be able to get up the next day.  However, when morning comes, I find enough energy to do another day’s work, and these are long, full days.

Each day this past week began with showers at 5:00 so that we could be at the institute building by 6:00 to teach the early morning seminary class for the Riccarton Ward.  Barbara Clendon, their teacher, was attending stake temple week in Hamilton.  She has a class of 20 kids that are wonderful to teach.  The highlight of the week came when we skyped one of Eric’s seminary classes at Mountain Crest in Utah.  The New Zealand kids were so surprised to learn that seminary was a course in school, that there were 1400 students enrolled in Mountain Crest seminary, and that everyone in Logan wasn’t a BYU fan.  Eric’s class was interested in the school uniforms, in the kiwi accents, and in the sports that New Zealanders play.  Te Teira Pitama spoke some Maori for them and Emma Lafaele told about living with earthquakes.  They talked about being Latter-day saint youth in Utah and in New Zealand.  The Christchurch kids loved it and wanted to do it at least once a month.  They didn’t realize that school is almost over in Hyrum, and that next year those students will not be in the same class.  The New Zealand students are only 1/3 of the way through with their school year and they will be together in seminary until they finish their four years.  I loved teaching them last week, but I’m rather glad that it is not something we have to do every day—not enough sleep.

This week was also the first week back from school holidays so online seminary started up again.  With the addition of the five kids from Avonside, I now have 23 students enrolled.  It takes a lot of time to respond to their work everyday, call when they are getting behind, and prepare lessons for our Friday class over the phone lines and computers.  I’m so glad that I’m given the freedom to modify lessons, because I have some students who have minimal knowledge of the most basic gospel principles.  I have students who have very poor literacy skills, and I have some who have very slow computer connections.  These lessons require kids to download videos and music, and each family has a given number of gb’s (is that how you indicate gigabytes, Mike?) they can use per month.  When they are used up, the family goes to dial-up speed and it becomes nearly impossible for them to complete their work. The kids from Avonside are still walking down the street to a large truck for their daily showers and are still living without flush toilets.   It’s a different world down here, and with all their problems, I was pleasantly surprised to see so many of them start right up again on Monday morning. 

We started a New Testament class on Wednesday afternoons.  We have five university students that come and we are having a wonderful time.  Each of these students comes because he or she wants to develop a deeper relationship with the Savior.  With only five in the class we can really have some great discussions.  Last week I tried to set the stage historically for the birth of Christ.  We talked about what took place between the Old and New Testaments.  It’s always amazing to me how many people can’t quite get the whole Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (Israel), and the 12 tribes thing sorted out.  Our class was only supposed to last 1 hour, but some kids stayed for another hour asking questions until it all made sense to them. 

Dallin Caldwell shares my birthday with me and my sister-in-law Marilyn (Happy Birthday, Marilyn).  His new wife, Rachel, threw him a surprise birthday party and they invited us old folks to join in.  I was willing to play ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ and ‘charades’, but some things I just had to observe.

Trevor Anderson bobs for apples as Tui tries to find enough space for her head.  The girls were not as aggressive as the boys and ended up losing.

The winners: Jordan, Jeremy, Maverick, and Trevor.

The losers: Brodie, Drew, Tui, and Dallin.

Jordan and Drew had to retrieve a lolly from a plate of shaving cream, and these little glasses are filled with all kinds of horrible things.  Each person drew a slip of paper telling them what they had to drink.

Maverik and Dallin got the hot peppers.

Alyse drank something with lots of tobasco sauce and Michael drank a raw egg.  My gag reflex was going and I was only watching.

These kids always make us feel welcome and loved.  They were so kind to me on my birthday and Mother’s Day.  Luckily they are all moving to Utah in a year because I would never be able to leave them.

I feel like my commitment has been tested all the way along.  I realized that a mission would involve leaving my children, grandchildren, and my comfortable home.  I went.  The earthquake and all its aftershocks left us shaken and without flushing toilets and clean water.  I stayed.  Darling Sam was born and I couldn’t hold him or kiss him.  I stayed.  I nearly failed this week’s test.  I found the largest spider I’ve ever seen in the bathroom of our flat.  I have heard talk about the Huntsman Spiders of Australia.  They say they are huge but harmless.  Harmless, my foot!  Don’t they know that heart attacks are more deadly than spider bites.  I have vowed never to go to that continent (sorry Barbara and Greg).  This spider was a very close relative to the Huntsman.  I ripped the towel rack off the wall in my haste to get out of the room and to let John in to smash it.  I have been unable to sleep since.  I know that he has brothers or sons that will be out for revenge.  It has been my biggest test so far, but I’m staying.