A Primary Chorister & An EQ Sec

A few weeks ago I was given the calling as Primary Chorister. On Sunday Cory received a calling. He was called as the Elders Quorum secretary. It will be a big responsibility for him but I know he will do well. I also think it will be good for him because he will still get to go to Sunday School and also to Priesthood. So he won’t feel isolated from the majority of the ward. Yesterday was the third Sunday that I have done my calling.

The first Sunday I just used bright colored hearts, each heart had a song on it. I picked songs that we had prepared to sing for the “primary program” that we were preparing for when I was still in the singles’ ward. Then I used the magnates to hold the hearts to the chalkboard till it was picked by one of the children. They were really good for me. The SR Primary sang really well, the JR Primary didn’t sing but they were quite and I had their totally attention. Along with the hearts, I also used things like having them hold their finger to their nose, having their hands on their head, and sitting on their hand while they sang the song. They would all do it every time, even when they didn’t sing. It kept them occupied.

The second Sunday I did two different activities, one for the JR and the other for the SR. In JR Primary we only worked on the first verse of ‘When Jesus Christ was Baptized.’ I had a picture to represent each line and after singing the verse all the way through, I picked children to come up and pick a picture to remove from view. Then we sang the verse again. Once all the pictures were removed and we sang the song twice through then I had some children up to put the pictures back into order. It worked really well and they seemed to be getting the song well too. For the SR Primary, since they had already shown me they knew ‘When Jesus Christ was Baptized’, I made a pink flower out of construction paper and each petal had a song to practice from the Primary Program. At the end of singing time all that was left of my flower was the stem. The children seemed to like plucking the flower.

Then this last Sunday, I was going to be given an extra 5 minutes for Singing Time. The primary president wanted to give me the extra time to start polishing the songs for the primary program, the program is going to be Oct 26^th. But between now and then I will be gone one Sunday, General Conference, and Stake Conference. For JR primary I spend the time going over the first and second verses of ‘When Jesus Christ Was Baptized’. I mostly did the same thing I did the week before, sing, take pictures away, then put them back in order. They know the first verse super well. For SR primary I had a jar with all the songs for the program written inside on slips of paper. Each song that was drawn we sang at least two times through. That went well too.

The children are so intimidating. There is one of me and a room full of them (and I do the room full twice). I also don’t have much experience in working with a good number of children at one time. As I said intimidating. I know that I can do this, and I will grow from this experience. I know I will have blessings from it. I will miss going to Relief Society, but primary will be a growing change. I am about as intimidated as I am excited for this new adventure. Many of the teachers in the primary have told me that I am a natural at this, that I am amazing for just starting this calling. I don’t feel like it is coming naturally, or that I am amazing. I have a hard time taking people at their word, I always feel that they are giving me a compliment to try to make me feel better. One of the hard parts is getting past the feeling that it isn’t really my calling. That instead of feeling that the calling is mine, I feel like each week I am preparing to substitute as the chorister. Each Sunday I feel that I just need to make it through this week. I want to feel like I own the calling. That I know exactly what to do in every situation. But I have a feeling that working with children will always be unpredictable and no one ever feels that they own that sort of calling, like being a parent. Each new situation that arises, there is a new choice to make. I get the impression that a parent is a job that is constantly changing and that as soon as you feel like you are getting the hang of that stage of life, the child grows up and you’re the new bee again. I can’t speak with authority because I don’t have any children, I have never been fully responsible for any child, but this is the impression that I have gotten over time. It’s one of the reasons becoming a parent is intimidating for me, I guess I don’t see this calling as too different then being a parent, except parenting is permanent, primary chorister is a calling for maybe a few years. Maybe this calling is to help me prepare for motherhood.

Wonderful place to live, Come and Visit

I had an interview last week. It was for a front desk position at an animal clinic. At first, before I went, I didn’t think I wanted the job. But after going to the interview I really hope I get the job. There is the possibility of moving to the back and doing lab test (mostly microbiology work). So I really hope I get the job. But we’ll see.

This weekend my parents came down to Sierra Vista, for the first time, to come visit us. I hope they enjoyed it and appreciated where we live. I hope they saw why we both like this area so much. I was so worried that my dad would have a reaction to our cat. And I figured that would put a damper on him wanting to come visit us again. I tried so hard to clean up all the hair in our house. I swept the floor and then I vacuumed the entire floor, carpet and tile. I took off our couch cover and washed it. I have decided that I am a fan of couch covers, that fit properly. I can actually wash it and have it all clean. And when all is washed and it is back on the couch it looks nice.

With my parents in town, they arrived Friday evening after going to Kartchner Caverns. We went out to La Casita for dinner. On Saturday, in the morning there was a primary activity day. While I was helping with the activity day (it was a “choose your adventure” made for the average age of 5), my parents drove to Bisbee to spend the day. I still haven’t had time to spend the day in Bisbee. I guess I have the time, but I don’t want to do it all by myself. I mean I have done many things on my own, but I sort of figured that I shouldn’t have to do as many things on my own being married now. That afternoon, after they got back from Bisbee, we picked up Subway sandwiches and drove up Carr Canyon. It’s so beautiful up at the top. For dinner at evening, we went out with Cory’s parents to Outback. Sunday my parents came to church with us and then had dinner with us before they had to head back to Mesa.

We were so happy to have them come. We love having people come to visit.

Sickies flock together

I hate being sick. I have been sick to a more or lesser extent for a week now. My husband has been sick also. Sunday we went to bed at 8 pm. Monday he stayed home from work because he wasn’t doing so well. But he went back to work Tues and Wed, but each day he came home miserable and sick. Wednesday night Cory was doing so badly that he didn’t get any sleep. Instead he was coughing all night and he was having trouble breathing, either way it added up to no sleep for him and only a little bit of sleep for me. So Thurs morning Cory calls in sick and we went to the local Urgent care. I had already decided I was going to go on Thursday. I figured that I wasn’t getting any better on my own and as much as I didn’t want to resort to taking an antibiotic, but it was time. We went to the urgent care, go looked over. I am sure we, or at least I, have strep throat. I obviously don't have the supplies to do an laboratory test, but I have many symptoms. The biggest of the symptoms is the plentiful white spots on my tonsils. The doctor thinks we had bronchitis, it could still be strep, but it doesn’t matter because both are treated with antibiotics. Last night Cory took the drowsy inducing medication he was given and went to be at 7, and gave in and went to be at 8ish. When it was morning, Cory felt wonderful and went to work. I on the other hand still felt absolutely miserable. I slept in until 10. All that sleep and the antibiotics and I don’t feel any better yet. Guess I just need to give the meds more time.

Camping, Mountains, and Serenity

We went up to Mesa and then up to the Canyon Creek on the Rim to go camping with my parents. Almost immediately upon reaching the Phoenix Valley, Cory and I started having congestion problems. But we decided to still go camping. We had fun camping. It was our first chance to use the camping gear that we got for our wedding. We sat up our tent, and found out that it was smaller than we thought and that the air mattress we got is too big for our tent. It’s not so too big that we can’t get it into the tent, instead we filled it and it pushed on the side of the tent, good thing it didn’t rain on us. We also got to use our sleeping bags that zip together, along with our Coleman lantern. The weather was perfect. It was just cold enough that I was happy to ware a jacket and not too hot or cold for sleeping. Saturday morning we had breakfast and then went up to the fish hatchery. I love just enjoying the mountains. The trees, the wild flowers, the breeze. Besides being on a cruise, I know no other place where one can completely relax and ignore the world outside of where you are. On occasions I feel that way while in the temple. But not every time. I can feel that way every time I am sitting in the calm of the mountains. The mountains are a blessing.

Lisonbee Reunion and LDS Funerals

We went up to Mesa this weekend in order to attend my Grandpa Lisonbee’s funeral. Cory was given a day for bereavement, so we left to head up to Mesa Friday morning. It was disappointing that the temple was closed, all this extra time in Mesa with nothing to do… or did we really have nothing to do. We filled the time with 1- going to thrift stores to see if we could find a suit vest for Cory that would go with his khaki trousers. Just like I love vintage clothing, my husband likes classy cloths. Yes we are a good match. This trip we didn’t find any vests, maybe another time. 2- We used the last AMC gift card we have to go see Wall-E (there is no AMC in Sierra Vista). It was such a cute movie, we really enjoyed it. So cute, so funny. Even with doing all that we still had plenty of time to visit with my family.

Friday night was a family only viewing. Grandpa requested not to have a public viewing. He did not want his dead body to be “on display”. I guess I can relate to his wishes. After all no one looks good dead, you don’t want people’s last memory of you laying in a coffin. But even being family only there was a ton of people there. Grandpa had 8 children with his first wife, my Grandma Margaret Lisonbee (passed away while I was on my mission in 2002), after they divorced he married my Grandma Dorothy. She had 4 children from her first marriage. All the children were there, along with most of their children. It is sad that it takes a death in the family to get us all together. A lot of family got together for my wedding but it was nowhere near this much family. What we need is a huge long termed planed family reunion that no one could pass up. The viewing was so nice to talk and see all the family. So many relatives that I had not seen in years, like since before my mission and some even longer than that. I think that many people would have been surprised to see our viewing happening. There was much joy, laughter, talking, smiling. It would be hard to even believe that we had gather because of a death in the family. Cory, being a convert to the church had not been to a LDS viewing. Having a Irish Catholic background he has been to a few Wakes. Before we went we discussed the differences. Afterwards there was some family discussions that the only differences between Our viewing and a wake was the body was there, and there was no alcohol.

Saturday morning we were to be at the church at 8:30, and the funeral was at 9:30. I am always frustrated with how much pressure they put on family to be there so early before the funeral is to start. All you do is end up sitting around, talking, and what else till it is time. And all that time would have been so nice when sleeping, eating, and getting ready is needed. Grandpa had requested that his funeral didn’t last longer than an hour. He didn’t enjoy attending long funeral. There was an attempt at keeping his wishes. But with all the stories and life accomplishments being spoken of, we went 1.5 hours. So not too over. Grandpa had made almost all of his arrangements a few years ago. He pre-paid for his gravesite and other arrangements. He had already made the request of who was to do what. So there wasn’t a lot of planning on Dorothy’s part and of the children. I think they appreciated it, but at the same time felt a little frustration trying to give themselves closure they way they wanted to and still follow his wishes. I hope he was happy with the outcome.

To use the rest of the afternoon Cory and I went to do some errands. We had some gift cards to use and some items we needed. We also found out that there was a family swim party at my aunt Kathy’s house. We had not brought our swimsuits. So we went to Target and found Cory a new pair of board shorts (good thing because his old swimsuit was really old and super faded). We found me a new suit at Marshalls. I had bought a new suit before we got married, but I really regret the purchase. I hate the suit, it looks sick on me. I am really grateful for the suit we bought. It looked ugly on the hanger, but being a good priced one piece, I tried it on and it actually looked decent. There were two suits I felt comfortable with how they looked and I took the back out for Cory’s advice (he only saw them on the hanger) there was a tankini turquoise and this olive one piece with a gathered polka-dot bust. Cory picked the olive because he said he thought the color would look better on me- I have a husband with good taste. It has been a really long time since I felt this happy with a bathing suit.

Sunday- Cory stayed home from church because his uvula was super swollen and red. It was so big that it was touching his tongue and kept choking him. I felt so sorry for him. He gargled with warm salt water, spayed Chloraseptic, and drank throat coat. He is feeling much better today, but yesterday he was so miserable.

We are back home now. Next weekend we have plans to return to Mesa but then onward to go camping up on the rim. Have a great week everyone.