A place for all things I love...

Sunday, January 16, 2011

New calling = chaos

So I thought I better document the fact that Jeremy & I have new callings. Though Jeremy was really "trying out" to be in the branch presidency, he did make young men's president which consists of about 7 active young men. I got called as the primary secretary. I was semi bummed when we got our callings because I knew that meant less traveling on weekends which meant more time in Mexico, which is exactly what I didn't want!
 I thought Jeremy's calling would be very hard & time consuming while mine sounded like it would be a walk in the park since I do enjoy kids, and the job description they explained to me was that I was to take roll, be in charge of copying things & materials, as well as keeping the children in their seats.
Man was I wrong! Jeremy's calling is SO easy! All he does is hang out with boys about his same maturity level. He does a short lesson sunday but mostly just arm wrestles & goofs of with the boys. That and every tuesday does an "activity". Last week they played wii & ate pizza, the week before that they played soccer. Really inspirational if you ask me..
(These are a few of the kids in the primary)
Being in the primary is so difficult! The primary president only speaks spanish & the 2nd counselor & I only speak english.  Right now the system is to stick around 20 kids ages 5-11 in a big room for 2 hours. They are supposed to split into 2 classes older & younger, but the teachers keep not showing up & then there is often times not another open room to take the kids too. It honestly is pure chaos most of the time.
It seriously takes me almost an hour to do the roll right now. The kids each have four names on the role including first, middle, mom's last name, & dad's last name. So scanning thru to find there name is near impossible since even when I ask them their name half of them only know their first name! Plus of course there are a ton of repeats like jesus, fernando, ivan & jose. The kids are cute but most seriously lack discipline, especially the younger ones who have never attended school, daycare, or any structured setting. It is so frustrating.
Last week the primary president started bawling at the end because she was so overwhelmed & stressed. I had to run & get Jeremy because of course none of us knew why she was crying. Last week we attempted to have a presidency meeting bringing Jer along to translate. We ended up having to have our meeting in the car because our Primary presidents electricity had been stolen. I felt so badly for her but she acted as if it was no big deal. We gave her our flashlight to help her out until they got their power back on. It also made me so mad that someone would do that, probably a neighbor even because they must have known they were out of town to pull out their wires why they were cold.
Jeremy has also become the ward translator poor kid. Sacrament, primary meetings, & even translated an interview last sunday while someone was confessing. 
We do love our ward, it is definetly always interesting with the grouchy old people mixed with the young mexicans when neither understand each other. I can say even though my calling is really tough I do enjoy it & the feeling of helping/serving.

2 comments:

  1. Cas- in case you were wondering, i find your blog and life in mexico quite interesting. i opted not to take my 4 mo old to mexico this week on vaca with the in laws and my hubby is quite upset about it...pouting actually that he is not relaxing on a beach right now. anyway....that does seem like a tough ward situation. the language barrier would be difficult! good luck:)

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  2. we just got called as the ctr 7 teachers... let's just say I really enjoyed not having a calling for the first 4 months we were in this ward! tyler i think was thinking to himself the whole time- don't kill them, don't kill them.. we seriously have the WORST behaved kids I have ever seen. It's awesome. Still- I think I would take my calling over yours! I went to church with tyler once in mexico and it was awful not understanding anything... i can't imagine trying to keep track of all the little mexican kids!

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