Brain Food

Shortly after moving up to St. Louis, I was called to serve as a Young Women Laurel's Adviser (basically I was asked to help with the youth at church on Sundays and Wednesday, specifically the 16-18 year old girls). It was more difficult than I anticipated in the beginning because I was new to the area - I didn't know anything about the girls or their families, and there were 15 of them to get to know! But despite the difficulties, and the times when it has been taxing and trying, I have really loved working with the youth and getting to know them and the other leaders.

One of the best and worst things about this calling, or assignment, is teaching lessons on Sunday. Some weeks I don't do enough to prepare, and I really feel myself lacking as I try to reach the girls. Other weeks I feel very guided in my preparation and get so excited to teach, and then the girls are chatty or silent or just not into it and everything seems to fall flat. But then there are those weeks that everything just goes exactly right - where I have felt the Spirit whisper to me during my preparations what to focus on and where I witness that moment for the girls when things just click. Though those "perfect" lessons, I admit, are more few and far between than they are common, they are the lessons that I hold onto, the lessons that touch me as much as they touch the girls I'm teaching.

A week and a half ago was one of those lessons. But first some back-story.

Back in August my cousin Kelli was visiting with her family and they ended up coming to church with us. Kelli has worked with the young women for a long time, and I was excited to have her sit in on my lesson. That almost deserves a blog post of its own. We talked about motherhood, and it was such a sweet experience for me to bear testimony of that sacred calling, and to have Kelli share her thoughts and feelings about it, as a mother of 7 young children. I know what kind of mother she is, and listening to her bear testimony made me want to be just like her someday. I am so grateful for all of the amazing examples of wonderful mothers I have in my life. It was also really neat for me to look out on my class, and envision each of those young girls as mothers - to know of their strengths and all the good that they have to offer children of their own.

But as much as that lesson touched me, I'm not completely certain how much it meant to the girls. At one point I showed a video clip and asked the girls their thoughts about it afterward. Silence. I'm pretty used to that reaction, so I just sat and waited. After a moment Kelli piped up, "Nothing?? You girls don't have ANYTHING to say?? Well I do!" Like I said, Kelli has worked with the young women for a long time, and in her experiences, it's more like she can't ever get the girls to STOP talking. She asked me after the lesson if my girls were always that quiet - for the most part, yes.

Fast forward a few weeks: I've been praying to know how to reach some specific girls in my class and I end up on the phone with Kelli asking for some recipe guidance for a breakfast I want to have with the girls. "Okay, I just have to ask you again, are your girls really always that quiet? Have you ever brought food for class?" Then she goes on to tell me about "brain food." When she was teaching lessons, every now and then she would bring in some goodies and a veggie tray and tell the girls that it is brain food, food to help them talk. So they are welcome to eat what they want, but that means they have to participate in the discussion. She said she always had a ton of success with it, and that it brought about some of her favorite teaching moments.

Remember those girls I was praying to know how to reach? Well they LOVE food - like, seriously, they're obsessed. So I decided to go with it for my lesson that Sunday. I made cookies and cut up a variety of vegetables, fruit, and some cheese. I'd been thinking about my lesson all month long and had a lot of good thoughts I wanted to talk about. Just before class, I set up the room with a table in the center for the food, with all of our chairs closely surrounding it so that they could easily eat their food during the lesson - also hoping that the closeness would help invite more discussion.

After opening exercises, the girls made it into the classroom before me. I walked in to comments of, "Is this food?!?" "This is the best. day. ever." and, "Oh my gosh, I'm so excited!" So I explained to them the caveat - that this food is brain food - and the response was, "Guys, we have to talk a lot so that this happens again!"

Well it worked! Even the girls who never say anything shared their thoughts that lesson. But it wasn't just the fact that they were talking more that I loved. It was what they were saying. I have never, or at least rarely, heard such sincere, thought-out, and heartfelt comments from them. They weren't just answering questions, they were sharing experiences and bearing testimony. And what was even more beautiful was the way I felt. Multiple times throughout the lesson I felt questions literally given to me to ask; it was almost tangible the way the Spirit was guiding MY thoughts and words to shape the lesson in such a way that would reach the hearts of the girls. I gained a personal witness of the truth of Doctrine and Covenants 84:85 and 100:6, "Neither take ye thought beforehand what ye shall say; but treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man." "For it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say."

It was a lesson where I knew, that I was not the teacher, merely a conduit for the one who teaches all things, the Holy Ghost. By the end of the lesson I felt so humbled and grateful to have had the sacred opportunity to be a part of such a beautiful experience, to have felt so intimately the Holy Ghost leading and guiding my thoughts and words. Those are the lessons, and those are the moments, that make all the difficulties and frustrations worth it. Those are the times that I feel truly blessed to be a servant of the Lord.