The wards Christmas trip around the world.

Tonight was the ward Christmas party and we did a Christmas around the world. It was a good activity. I was a little worried at first. One of the things I have got to work on is knowing who I have to set up and planning my time accordingly. I always think it will only take so long and I am always doing my last minute things up to and past that last minute. I can only imagine how unorganized it must have looked as people walk in. That is the first thing I need to work on, organization of time and resources. The second thing is I need to communicate until I am blue in the face with those that are helping me from the ward. There were a couple of people who helped with telling about a country that I miscommunicated with and I know that they were upset because they were ill prepared. That makes me feel bad because I put undue stress in their life. The last thing actually ties into the first thing and that is that someone has to have command of the activity when people walk in the door. People need to be greeted, guided and directed as to what is going on at the door.

All the kinks aside it went really well. We were finally able to find someone who knew how to work the sound system and located a microphone. We were able to get all the loose ends tied up and the person who I miscommunicated with was able to make it work anyway. I truly know that this calling is inspired of the Lord and that he will fill in where I lack. We had nine different countries represented. We had Nicaragua (Kent did that country and even though his gallo pinto didn't turn out it was ok because he he had a lot to display), Peru, Brazil, Scandinavia (Sweden and Norway), Italy, Germany, Japan, and South Africa. I got quite a few compliments on the night and the idea. We were going to have each person present for five minutes but as we got going I noticed after five minutes all the presenters still seemed very intent on sharing information. It ended up being eight to ten minutes of information and the activity lasted about two hours. Interestingly enough very few people left early because they wanted to hear about all the countries.

I had also intended to finish off the night with the story fo the nativity done by the primary children. Due to the extra time with the presentations we cut that and singing carols and finished up with cookies and visiting. I felt like it came together extremely well.