Sign Language is SO cool!

This morning I got a phone call asking if I could sub for the Primary Chorister. She gave me a few songs that we needed to sing through and then said to do whatever we needed to for the rest of the time. They have this been wand that is the "reverence wand", so I picked a kid being reverent and they got to pick the song we sang, and then after their song was over they got to pass it on to someone else. I think my favorites were:

1. when a little boy in senior primary (okay, they all looked little to me, but that's what happens when you haven't been to primary in FOREVER) whispered to me and asked if he could hand the reverence wand to an "old person" and I said that he could hand it to whoever he wanted, as long as they were being reverent. The teacher he picked then asked if we could sing Popcorn Popping, and insisted on the actions. It was hilarious!

2. a girl picked How Firm a Foundation. I looked at the primary (it was really small) and told them that I wanted them to show me that they knew it, because I didn't think they could possibly know the 1st and 3rd verses to How Firm a Foundation. Turns out that was just the challenge they needed, and every person in the room sang that song, so proud to prove me wrong.

3. there is a sister in the ward who has Downs Syndrome. Her mom taught her sign language at home, so Janet can speak and sign. She helps in primary (I'm not sure what her calling is since she was there for both junior and senior primary) and she had taught the kids how to sign all three verses of I am a Child of God. My favorite part of primary today was when someone asked if we could sing I Am a Child of God, and the primary president asked Janet if she could come up and lead the signing while I led the singing. Watching all the kids (well, most of them. we did have a visitor and a new teacher) sign and sing I Am a Child of God was AMAZING! I told Janet that I wanted her to help me learn how to sign that song and explained to her that I was learning sign language and loved it.

Basically, while I freaked out before church because I had never been to primary in this ward and I didn't know what they were used to, primary was pretty good. The Primary President asked me if I would be willing to help out again when they needed it and I told her that I thought I could handle that.

There are some super cute kids in the ward here! It was fun today to recognize some of the kids at church as the kids that came to The Adventure Zone yesterday.

Tomorrow is my first day being the Manager on Duty at the AZ (aka, my first shift without Julie there). I'm pretty excited about it-I've got Shannon and Jake working with me, so it should be a pretty smooth morning! I'm not sure what the day will be like though, it is a holiday and the first day of our summer hours, so it could be dead or crazy there. Wish me luck!