No, no this post won't be sarcastic or belittling home teaching. I'm being sincere. I've been living in Campus Plaza for five weeks, and I will have lived here only 7 weeks by the time I leave, but still I get to be a home teacher. The three girls I was assigned to home teach have been pretty hard to track down--they're never home, and don't answer their phones. So it took my roommate (who's not even my home teaching companion) to randomly see a couple of them and negotiate a time when they would all be together, which happened to be last night at 11 o'clock pm. Random, but I'll take what I can get.
You never really know what to expect, but I went over there hoping for the best. Not sure it was the best, now that all's said and done, but I'll say this: I had a really good, happy feeling when I left. They were flustered because their apartment was messy. I won't lie, it was. The pile of dishes was huge, and I told them that I'd make the lesson short so that I could get their dishes done after. They adamantly refused to let me touch anything, though.
After my probably passable lesson, which I hope sank in, it was time to go. But I wasn't really willing to walk away without doing anything to "serve" their apartment situation. I demanded them to let me take out their trash. They kind of just stared at me and started giggling as I went over to the hugely overflowing trash and started shoving the garbage down into the bag. I heard shocked cries like "Oh my gosh, is he really touching our trash?!" and "I can't believe he's touching those nasty milk cartons!" But the protests were mixed with mostly giggles and laughs. I couldn't manage to tie up the bag because it started ripping, so I just held it open awkwardly as I took it out to the trash, while my roommate went to go get one of our own trash bags to put in their garbage can. I left their apartment to thank you's and more laughing, and I decided that I didn't really care that much how our lesson went, or that I had actually been having a rough day. I couldn't stop smiling.
Sometimes I think that home teaching is more for the home teachers than the home teachees.
You never really know what to expect, but I went over there hoping for the best. Not sure it was the best, now that all's said and done, but I'll say this: I had a really good, happy feeling when I left. They were flustered because their apartment was messy. I won't lie, it was. The pile of dishes was huge, and I told them that I'd make the lesson short so that I could get their dishes done after. They adamantly refused to let me touch anything, though.
After my probably passable lesson, which I hope sank in, it was time to go. But I wasn't really willing to walk away without doing anything to "serve" their apartment situation. I demanded them to let me take out their trash. They kind of just stared at me and started giggling as I went over to the hugely overflowing trash and started shoving the garbage down into the bag. I heard shocked cries like "Oh my gosh, is he really touching our trash?!" and "I can't believe he's touching those nasty milk cartons!" But the protests were mixed with mostly giggles and laughs. I couldn't manage to tie up the bag because it started ripping, so I just held it open awkwardly as I took it out to the trash, while my roommate went to go get one of our own trash bags to put in their garbage can. I left their apartment to thank you's and more laughing, and I decided that I didn't really care that much how our lesson went, or that I had actually been having a rough day. I couldn't stop smiling.
Sometimes I think that home teaching is more for the home teachers than the home teachees.
Best blog ever. Service brings smiles! :)
ReplyDelete