Sunday School kids

I teach the sixteen and seventeen year old in Sunday School.  Some of them I've taught a long time.  I used to teach with Aneesa, which was a dream come true for three years.  There are three youth Sunday School classes and we taught the middle one.  Then Brother Fuller left for a mission and the Sunday School presidency split us up and had her teach the middle class by herself and me teach the oldest class by myself.  I'm glad to have stayed with the kids in Sunday School, but I sorely miss teaching with Aneesa.

The kids are Hayes's group.  Ethan, Jeffrey, and Cecci Porter, Chalese Jensen, Savanna Roberts, Jordan Jolley, Jason Wedel.  I used to have the kids who were a year older, also - Misti Swann, Madi Moser, Mindy Weeks, Wyatt Bowles, Brennon Henderson, Niels Stegelmeier, Carlton Baird - but they're mostly gone now, off to missions and college and the singles ward.  Only Carlton is left and he'll be leaving next month to go to college.  And I'm kind of looking forward to it because he always refuses to participate and is on his phone the whole time.  I don't even know why he comes.  His parents probably make him.

I love these kids.  They are so great.   They come up with the funniest things and such good insights.  I have enjoyed teaching them so much.  I like to think I'm a good teacher and I think most of the time I am.  It's a stretch to teach every week.

I've been worried about the kids this summer.  Jason Wedel hasn't come to class for four weeks in a row.  And he's been avoiding me.  He saw me and refused to look at me when we were both at Makayla Holliday's reception.  I saw him after church this last Sunday and tried to talk to him but he didn't want to.

And I'm worried about Cecci.  Something is up with her.  She posted a picture on Instagram of some punk kid, talking about how much she loved this "man", and how grateful she was that he had come into her life.  And she's always posting pictures of herself in different poses, and a lot of pictures with her sister Anyssa and brother Oscar, who I think are NOT good influences on her, especially her sister.  I think Anyssa is aspiring to be some kind of striptease dancer, from the pictures and video she posts.  It's appalling.  And it's especially appalling because I've watched Cecci grow up from this little, sweet thing with bangs and glasses into a really beautiful young woman.  She's so quiet and shy in class.  I don't know if she knows her own worth, and is thinking that a hot dancer is the best and most valuable thing she could be.

It worries me.

I know these are terrible pictures but I like them.  I took them when I was teaching my class as well as Aneesa's because she was gone.  It was sometime this last spring.  I asked if there were any volunteers for the opening prayer and they all raised their hands.  I had to get a picture of it.