And what was the point of this activity again??

So, being an adult leader in the Young Women's organization in our ward, I get to go to mutual every week. I think I enjoy mutual more now than I did when I was actually a young woman!

Technically, because I'm the advisor, I don't have to go, because it is the other leader's responsibility to take care of the mutual activities, but it is strongly ENCOURAGED. Mainly so the youth get to know you outside of teaching lessons every Sunday. (This is just how our ward organizes the callings. I think that in other stakes the leaders are all involved in everything, because my s-i-l teaches Beehives in her ward, and they switch off on teaching the lessons.)

Anyhoo, the main point of mutual...at least as I see it, is to get the youth together and involved in a)doing service, b)learning life skills, and c)doing activities that will help them pass off personal progress goals. And of course some of the activities are just to get them together and to have fun.

Well, the activity that we had on Tuesday should have fallen under the "learning life skills" category. We are supposed to encourage the youth to plan the activities, and this particular activity was combined with the young men who are the same age. So, in this case it would be the Deacons. Anyway, our Beehives decided that they wanted to learn how to make Mexican food. The meal they decided on was tacos. I know. Really hard.

So, we had them decide what they wanted to bring, and then when we got there Tuesday they made them. What irritated me was that there was no organization! There we are in the kitchen, we had two young women there that usually don't come, two deacons, and about five of the other Beehives there. The other Beehive leader just kind of stood there and let them figure things out for themselves. Which is fine and all, except more than one of the young women were standing there going...what should we do? What is there to do? Everything is so chaotic! These are phrases actually coming out of their mouths.

I guess I expected more of a learning environment. I mean, wasn't that the whole point anyway? I was the leader going around the kitchen trying to find knives for them to use to cut tomatoes. I was the leader teaching them how to cut the tomatoes. I was the leader helping them open cans of food. I was the leader who decided there had to be more to the activity then them just standing around and started asking them questions about what they knew about cooking ground beef, and why you don't put hot pans on countertops, and how to put out grease fires.

And then, magically, when I decided to ask them these questions, the other leader had to put her spin on everything. Until then though, she had to be silent and nonmoving, and acting like she didn't even want to be there. (Yes, I was ticked off, okay!)

I was impressed with what they knew though. Mainly because before, in class, I had told them that some people didn't know how to follow directions to cook oatmeal and they all looked at me and went...I don't know how to cook oatmeal. They don't know how to cook oatmeal, or pasta noodles, but they know why you should cook ground beef until it's not pink. :)