Seminary

Earlier this year we got a visit from our Stake President. It wasn't entirely uncommon since he is our neighbor, but the private conversation with Jon was odd. There was no church dress involved, however, and no calling extended, so I wasn't quite sure what was going on.

Not too long after, Jon was called as a seminary teacher. I knew it would be a heavy load, but he was already in Stake YM and 11-year-old-Scouts, so I thought we wouldn't have to adapt too much. Ha. Hahaha. 

Seminary is not easy. Class starts at 5:55 am. We can handle the early mornings just fine (we only had to adjust to waking up 30 minutes earlier--not too bad). But due to the time teaching, Jon gets into work much later, which means he either has to stay later or skip out on his Friday off and go back to a regular schedule. We opted to skip the Fridays off, but that was hard, too. We depended on those days for getting housework done and for time to just play with the kids. Plus we lost one Saturday a month to seminary training in DC. 

But that's not all: seminary takes prep time. A LOT of prep time. Especially when you come in mid-year to a class that's about 12 lessons behind. Almost every night Jon would need an hour or more of prep time. Which meant I was cooking dinner, cleaning up dinner and getting babies in bed by myself every night, then immediately heading to bed so we could be up at 4:45 am. 

It was rough. Really rough. We both had to make some serious adjustments to our expectations. I might have cried a few times. But it was only a few months until the year was over. We survived until the end of May (barely). Jon even got to claim his first seminary grad, Ethan (he has a small class: only about 7 kids). 

Jon, Ethan & Calvin (the previous teacher who moved to VA)

Having the summer to prep has been wonderful. We've settled on a few days a week for him to have evenings to prep, plus I give him Sunday before our 1 pm church. He has 19 lessons ready for the upcoming year and will probably manage to plan a few more before the beginning of the school year. We're hoping we can stick to just needing a few nights a week for prep. We can survive that. But what we're REALLY hoping for is a co-teacher! The burden would be a lot lighter just teaching 2-3 days a week instead of 5. Plus he's one of the only ones in the stake without a co-teacher. But we shall see!

After seminary graduation Jon presented me with flowers. I was immediately suspicious as I knew he did not go out and buy flowers for me, and especially not on a Sunday.  All he would tell me was, "As far as you know, these are from me to you." Okay, then. But as my friend (and seminary teacher) told me, "The spouse of a seminary teacher deserves flowers just as much as the teacher does!" I'll agree with that!

Here's to a good year of seminary that (hopefully) balances a little better with our life!