Good evening.

I've been busy, imagine that. Teaching kindergarten and first grade and second grade would keep anyone busy, let alone a first year teacher.

My head has been busy figuring out how to teach small people. For example how do I teach first graders to add doubles and add one when they see this math problem 4+5=9. Sheesh, I think we took at least 4 days on just that concept alone.

But man, when I was looking into their eyes as I was teaching the whole class about the Indians from the Yosemite area and how the white men kicked them out of their homes with guns, it broke my heart because it was breaking theirs. They know it was wrong. I love teaching them about our history and instilling a love in them for nature and culture.

We learned about Moses crossing the Red Sea with the Israelites and how they had to help hold up his arms as he walked. I had the kids hold their arms up for a long time, then they had to help me hold mine up. Then at recess the kids wanted to play Moses and Pharaoh and they took turns holding up Moses' arms! It was classic.

I've been trying to figure out how to ignore the comments about boyfriends and girlfriends yet stifle the comments so they don't become bigger than they already are. Sheesh, THEY ARE 5 AND 6 YEARS OLD! Culture now-a-days. That hurts my heart, I tell them we are all friends and we don't need to worry about things like that until they are older. Then to myself I say, shoot, even when they are older they don't need to worry about those things because trusting God with our futures means we don't have to worry. (it's at that time that I'm preaching to myself it seems)

I've been busy making friends in the church. I've got some good friends my age and some who are my grandparents age. Evelyn Muir (yes she's related to John Muir, by marriage and then by cousins but still a Muir is a Muir ;) she's a new widow and was a missionary most of her married life, so she has become like family to me. I look for her every Sabbath and we sit next to each other in our spot on the pew, two generations of women who wandered the world for God. Another group of people are my new Oma and Opa, they are originally from Germany and are actually the grandparents of a friend of mine from camp. I practice my German with them and they seem to think I am almost fluent in German. (ha, I'm just a parrot who says yes to things I have no idea what I am saying yes to). Then there is my friend Samuel, who to me looks like a Spanish version of the Prophet Samuel (minus the long hair and Ephod). He gave me some persimmons last week along with apples and tomatoes from his garden. So I made persimmon cookies and gave him a few.