Surprise Teaching Assignment

Blair suggested we go to church early for ward choir this morning. It’s always great to be at church an hour early; you have time to prepare yourself for the sacrament meeting and you can fill your head and heart with beautiful hymns in choir - just time to relax and feel the spirit. Haha! Not today.

Kourtney, another ward missionary, came up to me and said, “so I hear you’re teaching the lesson in Gospel Principles today...”.  My brain instantly conducted a violent search through all past conversations that might have contained the word “teach”. My stomach seized as I remembered our ward mission leader casually asking if I could possibly teach on Sunday as I was leaving the building last week. Gah! He was serious! I gasped and covered my mouth. Blair laughed, so Paul did too. Kourtney added, “well have fun preparing the lesson. If you need help with Paul while you teach, I’ll be happy to do it.” I thanked her and got to work looking for some scriptures and a manual. This was the one week I didn’t bring them.

I looked at the clock - forty-five minutes to whip something up before sacrament meeting. Blair downloaded the Gospel Principles manual onto his phone and began flipping through the lessons until one caught my attention. Fortunately for me, we haven’t been following a schedule so I could choose any lesson I wanted. Naturally, I chose the longest one titled "The Life of Jesus Christ". I borrowed some paper and a pen form the ward clerk and dove into the text.

I came into Sacrament meeting feeling - if not confident - comfortable. I had scribbled a bullet-pointed list of things I wanted to discuss in my lesson as well as some thoughts, scripture references and questions. Before the opening song, I was told that we had more investigators than usual today and to “gear the lesson in their direction”. I responded as casually as my acting skills allowed, “okay, no problem”.

As usual, I spent the last half of sacrament meeting wandering the halls behind Paul, who was stomping about aimlessly without any obligations or worries. (Occasionally a particular closet or trashcan would worry him, to which he would voice his loud disapproval, with much arm gesticulation and head shakes.) When we wandered close to the library I asked for a stack of Gospel Principles Manuals. (We were really going to need them considering half of my lesson plan involved taking turns reading from that manual.) She only had three copies. I took ‘em and ran.. er... waddled behind Paul.

I had left the diaper bag as well as my lesson materials on the bench with Blair. I just trusted he’d bring them to me after the closing prayer, which he did - all except the papers with my precious notes. He had thought they were blank pieces of paper, but I told him they had my notes and I needed them. People were already settling into their seats as Blair returned three minutes later to tell me they were gone! Someone must have thrown my notes away, and he couldn’t find them in any garbage can! “It’s okay” I told myself, “I’m sure I can remember most of it.” I’ll just listen to the Spirit.

That’s when Paul started whining.

I calmly introduced myself, while Paul stood at my knees, head thrown back in a red, slimy wail of utter despair. We were all crammed in a tiny classroom and tried to ignore the screams that were painfully reverberating into our ears. Kourtney had the diaper bag of goodies she was shaking in hopes of luring the little precious peach. No luck. 

Finally, the ward mission leader had to take Paul out of the room and everyone watched the heart-wrenching scene of mother and child being torn apart. Soon silence returned and so did everyone’s attention - back on me, the one without a lesson.

I’m sure it went well. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. There’s no way of knowing for sure. My brain went into prepare-for-humiliation mode, where it completely shuts off the short-term memory from retaining any events that have a high potential of becoming painfully embarrassing. Thus I have no recollection of that second hour at church. Nobody said anything, so I’m hoping that means no false doctrine was taught. Let’s just hope my ward mission leader has learned to think twice before asking me to teach again. If there is a next time, I guess I'll write it down in my planner.