I don't think I'll be allowed to teach Primary again

I was asked to teach a primary class today.  Somehow I managed to get 14 children that are from 5 to 6 in age. What do they call that group?  Not quite CTR, right?  CTR is the only one I seem to remember from Primary.  After serving nearly two years as our Ward's Executive Secretary, I have finally figured out that Beehives are a part of the Young Women and aren't in the Primary.  So, if the only thing I can remember are Beehives and CTR, then I'm very confused and after teaching today's Primary class, there is a good reason the good Lord has kept me out of there.  I do know that Primary is for anybody who basically has the breath of life in them (well okay at 18 months, because some of those 18 months for each of my 6 kids was sometimes Hell to bring them to church and I was so grateful for the day when they hit 18 months so I could drop them at the nursery and run) until they are 12.  If that's the case and they're broken up by class for every year or two of age; there has to be a lot more Primary classifications than CTR.  As I'm typing this, I just remembered Sunbeams are a part of Primary because there is a song about them with great exclamation and shout for what Jesus wants them to be.

Today's lesson was on the Second Coming of Christ.  The lesson material suggested that I get the children to talk about remembering a family member who left for a long time and then allow them to discuss who it was and what it felt like to have that person gone.  The idea was to draw a correlation with Christ ascending into Heaven and that we need to prepare for His return.

Each of the children knew of someone who left for a season, so I decided to see what each of them had to say.

"My dad once left on a golf trip and he didn't come home until Wednesday."

"Wow, so what day did he leave?  Was it on a Sunday or a Monday?"

"I don't know.  He was just gone for a long time."

"Well you tell your dad that isn't okay with me and if he's leaving on golf trips, he's supposed to take me next time."

He looked at me a little confused.  I wouldn't move on to the next kid until I got him to agree that his dad would invite me on his next golf outing.

"Aren't you supposed to ask me if I was sad that he was gone?"

"Well, were you?"

"Nah.  I knew that I was more important than golf and that he'd come back."

As I went around the room, some of the children talked about their parents going to Disneyland and cousins who had gone away to college or siblings who went on camping trips.  I shared the experience of my leaving on a mission and told the children that I was very sad to leave my family.

One child quickly responded, "did you cry?"

"What if I told you that I did cry?"

"I'd think you're a big baby.  You have to be old when you go on a mission and if you still cry when you're old, then you shouldn't go on a mission because grown-ups don't cry."

"Well then, I didn't cry.  I just gave my family a salute, pounded my chest like a gorilla and walked away."

"You're weird!"

I couldn't disagree with them on that.  The discussion moved to events that led up to the return of a family member; such as cleaning up the house or putting up 'welcome home' banners.  I entertained answers of what they would do to prepare for Jesus Christ's return, that this is something we greatly anticipate and it will be a happy day.  So far, I felt like things were moving along pretty well.

I asked them, "do you think that we will be friends with all the animals?"  They agreed.

"What about the grizzly bear?"

"Oh, grizzly bears are scary."

I happened to be holding up a picture of Mary at the tomb (poor timing on my part).  One kid walked up to the picture and asked if it was a bear cave.

Somehow at this point I digressed.  Well, I had pretty much already done that the moment I walked into the classroom.

I asked them, "have any of you ever been camping?"  They all shouted that they had.

"Are you ever frightened that a bear might sneak into your tent and eat your Doritos?"

"Bears don't eat Doritos.  They eat people."

"Well, I think they only eat people who smell like Doritos."

"You're weird!"

"When Christ comes, I don't think the bear will be interested in eating people who smell like Doritos or Cheetos.  I bet the bear will be your friend.  In fact, I bet you could probably invite a grizzly bear over to your house and have him sit on the sofa with you while you watch a Jazz game.  When you rub his tummy, he'll probably purr like a kitten."

"You're weird!"

"So do you think you'll ever get sick after Jesus comes?  Ever have a sore throat or a runny nose?"

"Probably only on days you have school so that you don't have to go.  Even if you don't have a runny nose, it is easy to make your mom believe you're sick on a day when the teacher wants to make you write letters."

"Did you know that I'll have hair when Jesus comes?"  I said this while rubbing my bald head.

"That's impossible!  Even Jesus can't fix that."

I looked at my watch and still had 10 minutes left until their parents came by and picked them up.  I was running out of lesson material.  Well, not really.  Come to think of it, I really hadn't even scratched the surface of what I was supposed to talk about.  This lesson was far too gone to bring it back to something reasonable. It was time to try and coach them through what they were going to tell their parents if they asked what they learned in Primary today.

"Do any of your parents ask you what you learn in Primary?"

One of them quickly raised her hand and said that they always talked about what was learned in church while they had dinner.

"Well, if your mom asks you what you learned today, what would you tell her?"

"I'd tell her that my teacher is a bald guy who thinks he can make a bear purr like a kitten."

"You're absolutely right."

I had her say the closing prayer.