the sound of one hand clapping

It’s always nice to know that your efforts are appreciated. I think we all realize this, but this point was driven home for me as I sat through Elder’s Quorum today. A little background is necessary.

I was called as an Elder’s Quorum instructor a few weeks ago and my first assignment was to teach on the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith. This is the last lesson in the manual and I thought it was a little early to be teaching this lesson, as there were about 8 more Sundays at the time. (I was of course correct, but the EQP was adamant that it was the correct lesson so I went ahead with it.) Nevertheless, I prepared what I thought was a well thought out and thought provoking lesson.

In the end, I thought the lesson went very well. It was well researched and had interesting outside information and plenty of personal experience. The class participation was excellent and I was pleased with the outcome. So imagine my surprise when the next lesson taught in that very Elder’s Quorum was the exact same lesson I had just given two weeks earlier. Not a ringing endorsement that I covered the information adequately. To make matters worse, there was no mention in class that we had already had the lesson, and several people in the class made comments about how they had never known certain things about the events leading up to the prophets death, despite the fact that they had also made comments in my class when we covered those specific things.

Like I said; not a ringing endorsement for my teaching skills. One positive that comes out of the situation is that I’m not going to stress too much over my next lesson, knowing that it is just part one of a two part lecture covering the exact same material. Takes a lot of pressure off, actually. I can now devote all the extra time and energy that I would have spent preparing lessons to getting mentally prepared for the upcoming bowling playoffs, which start Wednesday night. My whole life has been in preparation for this one penultimate moment. It’s time to separate the men from the boys. (Or the strong from the weak, in Jill’s case.)

May the best team win. Let’s get it on.