Embarrassed

How was my first week teaching Relief Society to grown ups who are more mature, intelligent, and spiritual than I am? Embarrassing. Thank you for asking. I don't want to talk about it.

However, I do want to write about it because somehow, the fact that you're reading this in a room that I'm not in, and I can't see you snickering at my stupidity, makes it less embarrassing to tell you about.

I learned from the first time I spoke in church as a grown up that I am the kind of person who needs to have the appropriate words planned and written/memorized before they come out of my mouth. Otherwise I wind up saying stupid things that aren't even true. Like the time I told everybody that Josh isn't romantic.

Today the lesson started out OK because I had already planned what I was saying. I talked about watering plants and how I'm not good at it, they laughed when I told them I sunburned a palm tree (as they should have), I applied it to trials, and that was all fine.  But, then I got into the discussion part of the lesson and it all went downhill from there.

I really think that Relief Society should be a discussion rather than a lecture, but the problem is that you can't script a discussion. I was totally at the mercy of the others in the class. What I thought would be a "guided by the spirit" lesson totally backfired and turned into a "I didn't prepare so how about you tell me what you think instead" lesson. And that's bad.

At one point I was sharing a couple of quotes from General Conference talks (which by the way were ALL made to be quoted during this lesson on trials) and a member of the Presidency commented about how Joseph Smith was such a great example of faith. I totally felt like I was being "gently guided" by her to get back on track and only talk about the stuff in the manual, and that made me flustered. So, I totally rerouted my train of thought and frantically looked through the book for one of the times I was quoting Joseph Smith and even though it didn't fit, I brought it up anyway.

By the end of the lesson I felt flustered, unorganized, out of control, and DEFINITELY not guided by the Spirit. I sat down and just wanted to cry. Hard. Somehow I made it through Sunday School without crying, but in Sacrament Meeting I couldn't handle it anymore. We left early because I was embarrassed and sad and all I really wanted to do was come home and cry in my bed and make Josh tell me it was OK becuase nobody ever listens anyway and nobody will remember what a fool I am.

So, the lesson wasn't great, don't ask me about it, I'll cry in front of you and feel stupid about that too.