My name is Amy. I was called as the Primary President in May 2014. I was sustained on Mother's Day. I have to admit, I was completely shocked when I received the call. I fully expected to be called to be a Primary teacher when I was called into the Bishop's office, just 4 months after we moved into the ward. Because that is how it seemed to always happen. We arrive in a ward, I get put in the Primary for a year or two, thus making it difficult for me to get to know any of the adults. It was a pattern, and I found comfort in it. I love teaching Primary. The kids are delightful and usually leave me laughing. If not laughing, then learning something. It is a nice cooshy job for me. President was the last thing from my mind. I have never even been in a presidency. Not since I was in Young Womens, anyway. Somehow being the Laurel Class President didn't seem to count. And so, with much trepidation and fear, I began on this little journey as Primary President.
Once I received the call, I immediately felt the mantle on my shoulders. It is very real. I was surprised how real it is. As I walked through the grocery store, I could feel it. As I cleaned my house, I could feel it. As I went about my life in the usual way, everything somehow seemed altered. The children in my ward became very important to me, although I had not met most of them. I learned that my Primary has less than 20% activity, and so, with my new counselors, we decided that would be our focus. To assist the teachers in their endeavors to bring all the children under their care to church and into the fold. We decided activation would be our motivation, and so, we figuratively rolled up our sleeves and set to work.
The first thing we noticed was the lack of reverence in the primary. Now, I need to emphasize, I think the previous presidency did a fantastic job. I will never ever say anything bad about how they ran the Primary, or how things worked with them. They were valiant, and faithful, and honestly, had their hands full. Because less than 20% activity, remember? It is daunting and overwhelming to look at the less active list. But the kids who were attending were learning, and the Spirit was there, and they were just fabulous! I really admire them and hope to live up to their legacy.
That said, we decided to gut the primary and change everything.
My first week, we learned that there were four classes. The Sunbeams, the Ctr 4-5, Ctr 6-7s, and the Valiants (8-12). Also, all the children were meeting together. Because there were only about 20 kids in attendance total. So I can see why they did that. It makes things easier to have all the kids together. And the presidency before that did the same thing, back a couple of generations of presidencies. It had just always been combined like that as far back as anyone could remember, and so everyone just passed it down like that and didn't change anything. Also, it is very hard to find people in the ward who will accept a calling to serve in the Primary. Which is another reason things were done that way.
After our first Sunday, my counselors and I decided it was too hard for the teachers that way. They seemed to be doing a lot of crowd control, and rather worn out by the end of Primary. So we decided to split the classes into each individual age group minus the Valiant class. Although the Valiants are the biggest class, only about 5 kids show up. On a good week. It took a long time, and lots and lots of reminding the Bishopric that we needed new teachers, but we eventually got them all. And then, beginning last week, we decided to split the Primary into Junior and Senior. I was the lucky one who got to teach Sharing Time this week, so I was sort of the guinea pig. But it was amazing! The older kids, who previously had sat in the back and looked bored out of their minds were actually participating and joining in the discussion! Since we usually only get 6 Senior Primary kids, I make them all sit in the front row and their teachers sit behind them. They grumbled at first, but now they seem to really like it, and I can see that they are learning, and the Spirit is there, because there aren't little wiggly kids sitting in front whispering and distracting. It was glorious. And Junior Primary! That was also wonderful. I was able to better teach on their level, and engage them completely, rather than trying to teach to both and not engaging anyone. The Junior Primary was as interactive as ever (because little kids don't care if it isn't "cool" to raise their hands) but it somehow seemed to flow a lot better. I love the split. It is such a difference.
Now that we have things split up, we are working on going out on visits with our teachers. We have each been assigned to a teacher or two (depending on the amount of less actives in the class) and are going to go out this week to hand out invitations to the Ogden Temple Open house to the less active children. The ones who haven't been coming to church and so might not know about it. I am excited to meet them and hopefully be able to discern who is ready to come to church. The next step after that is to set up a car pool system with members of the ward so that if the parents aren't ready to come to church, at least the kids will still be able to go.
I am trying to work with the local missionaries. I asked them if they were teaching any families with Primary aged children. They are not teaching families, but they are teaching a primary aged girl right now and so I am trying to set up a time when I can go with them to the lesson. She has a baptism date set, and so I am going to try to get as many Primary kids to her baptism as I can. For fellowshipping, yo. I want to work closely with the missionaries because I feel they will be key to our plan of filling the empty seats in our Primary. I will update as I go.
I had the idea tonight to call the ward missionaries and see if they are working with anyone, and if they are, to see if they have Primary aged children, and to see if they need fellowshipping as well. I have high hopes that this will be another way to help those children come to Primary and learn and be loved.
I am excited to have this calling, overwhelming though it may be, and be able to get to know all these wonderful giant Spirits that are in our ward. What a unique blessing and privilege I hold, and I have absolutely seen the Lord's hand in this work so many times! I am humbled and thrilled to have the Lord's trust in this calling, and know, with His help, we can work miracles!
On this blog I plan to share any ideas I come up with. I will be posting my Sharing Time ideas (hopefully far enough in advance that anyone can use them for their Sharing Time), our goals, and anything else I think is pertinent to Primary. I hope that this little blog of mine can help other presidencies out there in teaching these wonderful children the gospel of Jesus Christ!
No comments:
Post a Comment