Michael for Secretary

When you are in fourth grade at the kids school, you get to run for student council.  There are three offices: President, Vice President, and Secretary.  Michael decided that he wanted to run for secretary.  Unfortunately, a few days before the elections we realized that an alligator hunting trip that he had been scheduled to go on with his brother and father was the same day as the speeches.  He may have been able to run without giving a speech, but surely he wouldn't have had any chance of winning.  We made him decide on his own, and he decided to stay home from the hunting trip to give his speech and run for secretary.  There were 22 kids running for president, another 10ish running for VP, but luckily, only 6 for secretary.  Michael wrote his own speech, and then practiced it a few times.  We told him he should do something to draw attention to himself like walk on his hands to the podium, and he totally did it!  After all of the speeches, Michael was the last speech (which probably really helped him to win), and he did a great job speaking.

 Here he his with his friend, Alexander, who ran for President.

I went to the school later to read for Nate's class, and they were quick to tell me that Michael had won!  I was pleasantly surprised.  His duties include helping with things like food drives and sining valentines, but more importantly, he gets to help with the morning announcements.  They do it with a video camera that is broadcast to all the rooms in the school and he gets to help with the computer images they put up and also running the camera.  He doesn't actually have to be in front of the camera.  I'm really excited for him.

Alligator Hunting

My dad heard about Joe's gator trip a couple of years ago, and so he wanted to go too.  He thought it would be fun to invite the older boys to go with them, so Joe set up a trip with my dad, brother and Adam and Michael.  A few days before the trip, we realized that Michael was planning to run for student council and the speech was the same morning as the hunting trip.  We made him choose between the two.  It was a hard choice, but he stayed behind.

 

Everyone else had fun on their trip.  It was forecast like an 80% chance of rain, but somehow they missed the rain.  They went the night before and helped the guides load chicken livers onto the hooks.  Then the next morning, they went and looked for which chicken livers had been swallowed.  Then they slowly pulled on the rope attached to the chicken livers, and when the gator's head popped out of the water, they shot it.  They were able to shoot 3- 8 footers.

Since Joe got plenty of leather and boots out of his old gator skin, he didn't keep his gator this time, but Adam did keep two of the claws.  They are sitting  in a jar on his dresser.  YIKES!

Young Women

A little over a year ago, after a few month stint as Young Women's camp director, I got called to be the Young Women's president.  Our ward had just been split and I think there were a lot of callings that needed to be filled, so I got called to this one.

 

It has been a HUGE adjustment for me and my family.  At first, I just felt overwhelmed with the whole thing.  There seemed like a lot of tasks to do, a lot of meetings to attend, and I didn't even know some of the things that I needed to do. Over time, I have grown to figure out how to do all of these things.  I have been surrounded by great leaders, who have helped me out along the way.

 

The cute Young Women at camp: 

We had a night where the girls did their mom's hair like they would for school now, and the mom's did their daughter's hair like we would have when we graduated:

We even let them do our hair:

I think the hardest thing about this calling is that it is such a huge amount of time away from my family, which is fine, but it would be so much more meaningful if I had a daughter in Young Women's.  I think the reason that youth programs work so well is because they take a lot of time for the youth and they help them to forge friendships with other youth and they keep them busy a lot of time so there is less time to slowly drift away.  That being said, it takes a lot of work to create that kind of program.  I think it will be better in a few months when Adam turns twelve, so at least one activity a month I am there with him.  I am also sure that one day in the far future, Ellie will be in young women's and I will be in there with her, and that will be great.  I think I will welcome this calling again when that day comes. 

Overall, it has been a great experience for me.  I have learned a lot about being a leader, and I am trying to learn how to delegate and to let others take responsibility.  I also am learning how to work with others limitations, and work with other's strengths.  Since I have been in for a year, I am now trying to learn how to let the youth take control, and plan their own activities.  It seems like it would be less work, but overall, it is more work to let it go that way.

I am sure at the end of this experience, I will have learned so much and be sad to let it go, but for now, I am just enjoying the ride.