When A Plan Comes Together

Just when you think all hope is lost, it never is. 

A month ago a family in our ward took in a foreign exchange student from Germany, we'll call her Da for this.  She came to church for her first Sunday in town.  I asked her when she got to my class if she knew where she was.  I had my doubts when I clarified and asked if she was a Mormon and she responded, yes while pointing to the cross around her neck.  Upon further examination we found that she is Protestant.    She reads better than she speaks the language so I told her to just stop me if she was having a hard time following.  

What was her very first introduction to the Mormon church?  It was a doozy!  We were on the lesson month for "marriage and family."  This specific week covered chastity.  I had already done a lesson where I spelled out every action they could possibly think to do with another human being as to where it fell in the bounds of chastity.....There were some red faces that day and I was sure that I was going to be getting a phone call or two from parents because of my bluntness.  I'm a firm believer in bluntness and spelling everything out.  Anyway, since I had already covered that area pretty well, I decided to go in a different direction this time and focus the entire lesson on a talk by Jeffery R Holland called "Helping those who struggle with same gender attraction."  I told you, it was a doozy.  

Da went home with a deer in the headlights look and told her host family that this religion wasn't for her.  They are a much more liberal country and don't care about things like that - is what she communicated to them. 

BTW- it ended up being an amazing lesson.  Just as I had suspected the girls were struggling with this dilemma at school.  One of the girls was in tears because the friends that she has always had suddenly claimed that she hated them because of all the controversy going on in our state over this issue.  She couldn't understand how they would think she hates them.  We had a great discussion about having standards and loving people at the same time and how hard it is to make that distinction in todays society without being thought of as hateful.  It's a real problem that isn't going to just go away, it's only going to intensify.  

Anyway, I figured that I scared Da off for good and she would never come back.  I'm a firm believer in not hiding who you are and laying all your cards on the table.  Better to know what we're about upfront instead of feeling like you got duped later down the road.  

Da hasn't come to a single mutual night activity but she did start coming again on Sundays.  Last week at the end of class I brought up that we had an activity coming up with no plan attached.  (Because getting a class presidency to act like a presidency is no easy task)  I had been inspired watching one of my girl's mom perform at a ward talent show.  She used to dance at the PCC so I took the opportunity of sitting in front of her daughter to see if we as a class wanted to have her mom show us how to hula.  Everyone got super excited.

Da got super excited.  Even more so when she found out the date for this activity.  Her birthday.  I got bold and asked if she would be willing to spend her actual birthday day with us if we turned it into a luau birthday celebration...Remember, she hadn't been to a single weeknight activity.  She was shocked that we would do that for her and said she would love it.  The girls got into planning mode, found out her favorite kind of cake and planned the whole thing right then- while parents were angrily waiting in the halls for their children. :0)

Last night was the luau and it was so fun.  Some days I think it's unfair to everyone else that I get to have so much fun.  Da probably still thinks we are a bunch of whackadoos, but that's ok.  Heck all through high school while I was hanging out with my Mormon friends, I thought they were whackadoos -well, not them per say, but their religion.  One thing she cannot deny is our genuine friendship and love for her and that we are capable of having fun when we aren't talking about scary subjects.

ps, I love the picture we took at home in front of the mountains.   Ethan insisted that we needed a good picture, without the dog mess in it- which was cropped out in the collage, so he sent us over there.  His shadow is picture bombing us.  Oh, and, I did finally get dressed for the day :0)