Seminary

is really early.  And sometimes involves a mechanical bull.

 This photo below is right after they explained to me that their parents do not understand technology, but honestly leaving Ashley out of the picture(far left)has more to do with my blindness.  Thanks to Jonathon and Dallas for imitating Emily's perpetual picture pose.

This is what was left of the class when three of them decided to leave Peru for awhile and an attempt was made to convince our deserters we didn't care.

But this was the real story.

We have been studying the Book of Mormon and I have to say it is my favorite.  When I first taught Seminary I taught the last 2 or 3 months of the school year and we also studied the Book of Mormon. It was hard to come in at the end of a year and we were behind in the book so it was frustrating to get it all accomplished.  This year has also been my first having Seminary at home which is AWESOME. First of all there is no drive to the church obviously but I can prepare the room and not worry that someone is going to take down the tables or leave the chairs in another room or discover food, paint, glitter or some unidentifiable scientific experiment on the tables five minutes before we start.

The best part of Seminary has always been the kids.  I know it is not normal but I really like teenagers.  I have always fallen in love with my Seminary students.  I can't think of one that I am not rather fond of. 

This morning our summer ended. I asked them to pretend they were annoyed that their days of sleeping in were over.

I don't know that they were that convincing.  I like sleeping in too but I will miss them when they are not at my house at 6 a.m.

I would think that most members of the Church know lots of missionaries serving right now and that is true for me as well.  These are all the amazing and wonderful missionaries serving at the moment that I have had in Seminary.  I stole most of their pictures from Facebook, but we are friends . . . . so we share.

Jacob moved to Jenks when he was in high school.  He played Jenks football and also danced at Emily's ballet studio.  He is a missionary in San Diego, CA.

Vance moved to Jenks when he was a little kid.  He has been fed chocolate chip cookies by me since he was in elementary school.  I just got a letter from him last week telling me he missed the cookies.  He is a missionary in London, England.

Cori (right) was in my Seminary class when she was in the 9th grade and then she moved:(  I had her in YW before that.  I met her when she was 11 and we are still pals. 

She and her sister Colleen came to visit in Peru last year.  She is a missionary in the Philippines. 

 

Jesse has the funniest laugh.  Just try not to laugh when Jesse is laughing.  I have known him since he was a little kid when his family moved to Jenks.  He is a missionary in Twin Falls, ID.  He has exceptional taste in girls.

You may recognize Nicole from Jesse's picture.  Nicole is the sweetest girl and I have also had her in YW and at girl's camp as well as Seminary.  She just entered the Provo MTC and is on her way to Brazil.

Samantha is a beautiful girl that I have known since she was a baby.

She is a missionary in Pocatello, ID.

I love them all.  When I hear people pray for the missionaries now, this is who I think of . . . . they are the best.

The Dance Recital I missed

with the blue eye shadow.  Emily's ballet teacher in Tulsa said to never, under any circumstances, wear blue eye shadow on stage, so when they came at her with the blue stuff she was concerned.  Their hair and make-up is done for them so you just sit still and let it be done.  Emily has danced in Black Swan and Sleeping Beauty before but dancing is always a new experience.  She had been assigned to level 3 to learn character dances for the exams when she began at this studio.  They had her practice with level 6 after exams and cast her in Black Swan and Sleeping Beauty.  The difference here is that just because you were in the class did not mean you had a part so Emily was fortunate to participate.

So, another weird story.  Lima has a population of about 10 million people.  Her dance classes combined have maybe 15-20 girls.  That is  obviously, a tiny percentage of Lima.  Her dance studio is a fifteen minute drive from our house.  The girl in black on the far right of this photo below is our next door neighbor.  She lives in the house right beside ours!  Emily met her at dance.

I don't know if you can tell but 
Emily is the only girl that is not Peruvian.  They speak Spanish at the studio.  They all laughed with her when Emily was assigned to be a black swan since she is the whitest girl.

She is doing great and is happy to dance every time.

Emily also danced with her level three class.  She had the solo and even though Emily felt awkward having all the attention on her this dance, her mom enjoyed it. I may have missed the actual performance but I watched the DVD.

Emily was a fairy in Sleeping Beauty.
The fairy's all had solos in this dance. 

Everyone is invited to the next performance.  Should be great, they placed her in level 7 for this year.

Surfing

If you live on the ocean you might as well be surfing.  I don't think we say that in WA.  The water is still not comfortably warm so the wet suit helps.  Emily has been taking surf lessons for the past month with two friends.  One of the boys was sick today and the other boy's mom took these pictures that she sent to me. Do you want to know something weird?  This boy just moved to Peru from Thailand,  I think.  His family spent a few weeks in Bentonville, AK before their arrival here.  He got his Patriarchal Blessing during that time from President Ming!  If you don't know, Sister Ming was Emily's other mother.

  Emily would never have posed for me:)

 Warm-ups.

The boards are gigantic for beginners.

 The buildings in the background

are the restaurant on that pier.

They surfed right beside the pier today.

Paddling in.

She has had such a good time learning to surf.

I have a movie of her surfing but I can never get video on here.

So surfing in Peru

 still requires a VW bus.

A Love Story

This is not about five year old Emily and her first friend although the photo does document how long we have been handing out chocolate chip cookies.  That is a cookie love story for another day.

On Valentine's Day, Emily and her friends went to an orphanage to volunteer.  The 18 year old daughter of an American family in the ward has been spending her own time and money on service while she lives in Peru.  The orphanage has been one of her projects and she invited other kids in the ward to help last Friday.  

I had seen the photos that day on Facebook of flowers and candy and jewelry and cupcakes and stuffed animals and who knows what else exchanged on Valentine's Day.  I also saw the mention of celebrating or sorrowing over Single Awareness Day.  So when Emily told me about her day I thought about how ungrateful we are when we take what we have for granted.  While Emily was at the orphanage a little girl wrapped her arms around Emily's leg.  Emily picked her up gave her a hug and asked her if she wanted to get down to play.  The little girl said no and that she just wanted a hug.  So Emily held her for an hour.  Some people expect to have a valentine.  Some demand a gift from the valentine.  Some don't get either. Not even close.

Summertime

School starts in a week.  I am sorry summer has to end.  This summer has reminded me a little of the summers when my kids were young and it seemed like it might never end.  You know the first day after school ends and you think you will not be sane by the end if everyday consists of arguments, starvation and boredom.  When the kids got older the summers sped by filled with camps and work and vacations and then we missed the sleeping in and having day after day of doing whatever we felt like.  This summer seems like it just started but the relaxing has been awesome.  When we returned to Peru the middle of January Emily had dance two evenings a week 

and surfing two mornings a week.  This week is girl's camp.  And she still has homework because although it is summer break it is still the middle of the school year.  But this summer has still been lots of lazy days with few demands on our time.  I am going to miss this.

Actually, there are lots of things we miss living outside the USA, like English and rain and bug spray and Hostess and frozen food (that is quite the inclusive list), but this year winter and being frozen is not one of them.

The adorable surfing wetsuit and Emily's surfing buddies.

She looks like a shrimp.

Not Surfin USA.

There is a restaurant out on that pier.  Emily's class has surfed some days on the other side of the pier.  I actually have never seen this part of the ocean without surfers whether winter or summer.  Sometimes I forget what season it is:)