Yesterday marked my first year studying my scriptures from a doctrinal standpoint. For most of our Gospel Doctrine class this is the second, third, fourth… time through the cycle and for many, they’ve been through the curriculum so many times that they could probably recite the course manual verbatim.
For me, it’s my first. And even when I go through the cycle and come back to another study like this again, I hope I still look at it with fresh eyes, and new wonder.
None the less, because it was my first time through this material I found myself sitting there fidgeting nervously with my husband, Mr. J on my right and my FIL, Mr. M on my left. Mr. J was a bit sleepy, but still focused despite the earlyish start to our day, but Mr. M always had comments and feed back for the lesson which helped it to move forward.
Me, I felt like the new kid in class, not only the unprepared new kid, but the new kid coming into an English class 2/3 the way through a book, lets think one of the longest ones I could imagine from back in high school like Great Expectations, so not only was I new and having missed 2/3 of the materieal, it felt like there would be no way for me to even start catching up!
A bit unprepared seems to be an understatement, but oh whats that? There was homework too? We were supposed to be prepared for class today and I showed up naked?
Well, maybe not necessarily naked, but it felt like one of those crazy dreams from high or college when everything and anything that could have gone wrong had.
Yea, that’s how I felt! I know it’s silly and that I love our church, but that’s really what went on in my head. *Thank you to the enemy for the fear thing I almost bought into today*
Luckily I have a participants guide and my scriptures, but the class text book, it seems that despite the fact there is one, I didn’t get one. EEP! That didn’t help the nerves at all!
Thanks to technology and the interwebs I was able to find it and got it downloaded on my phone and my iPad. The only problem I was running into is that I’m a tactile learner. Highlighters, colored pencils, notes, doodles of impressions, post it notes, flags and inserts of note cards are things you’ll find in my scriptures or other class books. It will definitely be a different sort of study for me, but hey, I got God on my side so I can do anything, right?
I’ll just have to make it work. And not only am I going to make it work, I plan to share it with you and Mr. J is going to help me. Yay for Priesthood Holders in the family, or as I refer to them, the Priesty Pants.
In addition to the study of church doctrine and history, we will be studying the teachings of President Lorenzo Snow in Relief Society. So in a nutshell, that is a whole lot of history really fast, or not so fast as we have a whole year to accomplish it.
So this week we’ll wrap up the first lesson and prepare for lesson two, on top of your yearly journey through scripture. Who knows, I may learn something amazing, just have six days to do it!
Ohhh.. how do you like my silly pants drawing? I know it’s really silly, but when I picture Priest Pants in my head, that’s what came to mind.
You are awesome. I think “Priesty Pants” is going to have to become part of my everyday vocabulary.
Don’t worry about knowing everything, especially when it comes to Church history. There is SO much to learn, even for people who have learned about it all their lives. All of the lessons purposefully have more material than can possibly be covered in one Sunday school class–just find the bits that really speak to you.
But seriously. Priesty Pants. I’ll tell my husband he has you to thank for that one
Priestly pants are an amazing win! I may have to learn to animate gigs so that the sparkle!