The night before the first day of School

Are teachers supposed to get nervous for their first day of school? If they are, I'm probably in trouble.

I'm sure things will change when we get a bit closer to zero hour, and these kids I'm supposed to be instructing in the ways of Algebra II manifest themselves insode of my classroom, but I'm just not anxious at all for tomorrow.

For those of you who are just catching of up my travels, I left Utah on the 28 of June to head out to San Francisco, California. I spent the week of the 28th in San Francisco, doing our TFA Induction, which included everything from learning the logistical hierarchal structure of TFA San Fran, to completing my first ever benefits package. That was quite the stressful experience, which I actually would like to write about at some future point, but that point will not coincide with today's date. Today, I would like to write about something different.

But first things first. Mom and Dad, remember how I mentioned the other day that the University's huge administration building resembled a mall? Well, it turns out that it was originally constructed to be a mall, but for whatever reason, LMU purchased the building and turned it into their student center/administration building. It's massive - I'm going to see if I can grab the pictures from my phone that I took of it. They don't do it justice, but I just thought that was a funny coincidence.

Second order of business. I think I've mentioned this before, but all the people I've met through TFA have been such wonderful people - they have the most diverse, interesting backgrounds. All things aside, however, they all have their reasons for being here. And the one thing that they all have in common is that they want to make a difference. As such, I have found them to be a very outgoing, accepting crowd to run with, with genuine interest in people.

As entry level conversation tends to go when you meet new people, one of the failsafe questions to ask is "Where are you from?" Well, my answer to this question every time is a proudly stated "Utah." The responses to my answer range from "Oh, I have some friends from Utah" to "I've never been there before." There are a lot of other answers that might not be appropriate, but without fail, the follow-up question is always "Are you Mormon?". Never in my life have I been asked that question so many times.

And all I can say is it's too bad, because it is unbelievable how many missionary opportunities open up from this little question. Most people I talk with share that they have some Mormon friends, or they have some rumor that they'd like clarified about the church, or most frequently, the conversation moves on. But on two occasions thus far, I've had the opportunity to share a gospel converstation more in depth with the person.

Last night I had one of those conversations, with a girl by the name of Rache. Rachel is going to be teaching up in the Bay, and she is actually in my school district. Ever since I met her, she's shown a particular interest in learning more about my mission and what it was exactly that I did in Venezuela. Last night, before the fireworks out in the Bay started up, we had some time to have a much more involved conversation, and she had some awesome questions. She asked about the Book of Mormon, if there were female prophets, what does the commandment to strive for perfection entail, and if I believed that everything in life happens for a reason.

The conversation hit on all sorts of topics, and I was able to incorporate answers into the conversation as I told her about the cycle of the apostacy, of prophets, of Christ organizing his church, of the Great Awakening, and of the first vision. I kid you not, we probably talked for a good 1.5-2 hours without a single hitch, lag, or lull.

And then we got to the part of the restoration - more specifically, the First Vision. No sooner had the words "...hear Him" left my mouth, her phone rang. She answered it quickly, ended it succinctly, and we moved on. Turns out it was a friend from high school that she hadn't spoken to in almost a year.

How many times does this happen? I mean seriously, it happened more times on my mission than I would care to count. It just boggles my mind that we could literally be talking for a full two hours without a single interruption, and then in the climax of the message of the restoration, a friend calls from whom she hadn't heard from in many months. The adversary works in his wiley methods.

Needless to say, overall it was a great discussion. I answered a few more questions, and then another friend showed up to where we had been talking, and we all three went to watch the fireworks from the top of the hill behind the LMU dorms.

What a cool experience though! I'm so happy to be able to have these opportunities - to live as an ensample to the world, and to seek out those people with whom I associate, who are thirsty for the gospel. Who knows what will happen with Rachel - I'll keep talking with her. But just to be able to have that missionary opportunity once again... I'm excited.

In other news, I do have my first day of school tomorrow. This is my classroom below. The girl in the picture is one of the members of my collaborative (a group of 4 TFA members), her name is Christine. Sometime I'll get a better picture of us on here, but just for the sake of reference, the other two are named Jose and Michael.

I know, I know, overall the room is rather drab. The poster that is shown in the middle was my attempt to liven up the room a little (I love that quote, btw). We're going to work on that later - we only had an hour on Friday to do stuff to the room, so it'll take some time for us to get things rolling.

So tomorrow is my first day, did I mention that? Sigh... I'm sure they'll be great kids, they have to be. Otherwise, I might not be ready for this. Night everybody! 7 hours and counting...

PS - Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I've received a lot of comments from people about engineers making the best teachers. Just hang tight, that post is coming, I assure you! :)