Primary

We are so excited for the new year! My biggest reason is Primary. Not only do we get a new class, we get to teach the Book of Mormon. I love the Book of Mormon. There's just so much to read and learn. I feel that I get to know the Savior Jesus Christ better in the Book of Mormon and the people of that time also. I guess it feels more personal. I love the Bible too and there's some great things to be found in those scriptures, but it's like the 8th Article of Faith says: We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. There's just something missing in all translations and what-nots. I hope that our new class likes the Book of Mormon or Scott's and my excitement gets them motivated. Most of the kids have just been baptized and have the glow and desire to learn all they can. It's going to be the best. Today after work we are going and buying the kids all a Book of Mormon; the hard back mission type ones; scripture marker and a bookmarker that shows the time line of the Book of Mormon. One of the things we did last year was challenge all the kids in our class to learn the books in the scriptures. Last year we taught the New Testament, so they had to learn those books and also the books in the Book of Mormon with a bonus treat if they learned the Old Testament. No one even tried. But for learning those books and bringing a set of scriptures to class each week we had a party at the end of the year. This year we have a younger class, Valient 9-10 (mainly 9), so we were thinking of only having them memorize the books in the Book of Mormon and bring their scriptures each week. But then we were talking with our class from last year and they said we should have two parties a year (and they want to crash them) so I need to set on more goal. Any ideas? I was tempted to have a reading chart like they do in Seminary, it would have worked last year, but I'm not sure about this year. Maybe memorizing the Articles of Faith. I guess we can ask the kids on Sunday. It was nice for all the boys this last week to say they didn't want to leave our class. We both thought that they would be jumping up and down with joy from the way they always acted in class. I guess they did learn some stuff and they liked that we used the scriptures a lot. When we first got called to this class they didn't even know there was an Old Testament and a New Testament in the Bible. Now they do know that at least. Plus they liked that we listened to them, answered any questions they had, and of course they loved hearing Scott's mission stories of New York. It gave us some warm and fuzzies to hear that.