teaching

my new class-crush is 18, colombian, and decided to study at the university instead of playing professional soccer. whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

today was the second day of class, a day the school sets aside for diagnostics and i set aside to get to know my students.  yesterday i introduced myself a little bit to them, told them where i'm from, where i studied, that i love soccer and jazz basketball even though they were abysmal this year.  and then i told them about jacob lake.  then we started talking about the idea of being unique.  i said that growing up at the north rim of the grand canyon working at my 88 year old family business is something that makes me unique.  their homework assignment was to to think of something that makes them truly unique and come to class ready to give a 3-4 minute presentation about it.

today was one of my favorite class days ever.  one girl talked about how she cooked pasta in order to get into investigators homes and preach the gospel.  a guy talked about taking bike tours across s. korea.  this is where i found out that my latest glp chose education over pro soccer.  we also learned that one girl has 25 dogs at home and collects more whenever she can and that another girl likes to eat her cereal with eggs.

but my favorite story came from a brazilian student named samantha.  i had her in my class last semester and have always been impressed with her.  she talked about her conversion story.

she is 32 years old and came to america for the sole purpose of improving her english so she could advance in the company she was working for.  her boss told her that she should come to provo to learn because there are a lot of nice people who would help her.  she thought that sounded good, so she came at the beginning of january. when she got here, she was immersed in mormons.  so they, being the good member missionaries that they are, invited her to church.  she went because she thought it would be another good way to learn english.  she liked the way that she felt there, so she decided she'd let the missionaries come over and teach her a discussion.  after their first visit, the missionaries asked her if she'd get baptized on february 19 (about two weeks).  she said "no!  i don't know anything about this church!  it is strange to me!  i am here for my english!"  so, the missionaries asked her to kneel and pray for them.  they then marked some scriptures for her and asked her to read them that night and see how she felt.  after reading the verses, she knew they were true.  "i got my testimony.  i knowed the church is true, that joseph smithe is prophet, that this church is a good church, the right church.  so i called the missionaries in the morning and said to them that i would be baptized."  the missionaries were overjoyed, of course.  and she was baptized with her friend on february 19.

i went to that baptism.  it was  stunning.  i've never felt the spirit like that before.  the meeting was in portuguese, but i understood it.  i don't know that i understood the actual words so much as the meaning and emotion that they conveyed.  i've never been so impressed by the importance and potency of the gospel and the God that it proclaims.  i got a little, tiny taste of what it must be like to be in the mission field and see people convert and change their lives to accommodate this saving grace.

i never dreamed that being a teacher would touch my live in the ways it has.