- We were gone for 2 weeks, during which we were mostly hanging out with our English-speaking family. This meant that some of the things we usually do in ASL reverted to English. Martha's 3 years old and has been praying in ASL for 6 months now...and her English prayers have picked up some funny things. She says, "Thank Thee for that we can...." because in ASL she always says "thanks for" and in English she used to say, "thank Thee that". So now she's just melded them together :)
- We went to an ASL ward in Provo the Sunday we were gone. It was for professional development - I wanted to see how Primary worked for them - how they get the kids to pay attention to ASL. Well, it turns out they don't - everything was signed and spoken. If a hearing person was signing, they would talk at the same time. That's called "Sim-Com" - simultaneous communication. If a deaf person was in front, a hearing person would voice for them. And the kids all paid attention really well. I think that having 2 teachers for every class there the whole time helped a lot, too. At one point, I wanted to ask why they sim-com instead of just using ASL. I saw that the pianist wasn't doing anything, so I slid over to the piano bench and spoke to her. I figured if she was playing the piano, she was probably hearing. Nope, she told me she was in the ward to learn ASL because she was losing her hearing, and she didn't actually know why they sim-commed. That ended up being an awkward conversation :) But I had a really pleasant surprise when one of the primary teachers introduced himself as the son of the past branch president in our branch. He was a cute newly-wed (relative to us, anyway) there teaching Primary with his wife. Awwww...
- The week we were gone from the branch was a popular week for vacations - in fact, the entire Primary presidency was gone. This created a domino effect - since there was no Primary presidency, the other two families with children opted to go to the hearing ward instead of making us get subs for the entire Primary. (Though Brother S. was prepared to teach Primary in case any visitors with kids showed up.)That meant a lot more branch leaders were gone. In all, I hear there were about 15 people there. They had Sacrament meeting, then relocated to the RS room for Sunday School, and stayed there for combined Priesthood/Relief Society. Quite a contrast from the huge ward we attended in Provo! (To be fair, the ward was getting a new bishopric that day, so they had a big attendance.)
- Marriner's dad invited a Deaf member of his ward over for lunch while we were there and we got to meet him. As we got to know his story a bit, I was reminded how difficult it is to be deaf still. Guys, nobody in this man's family has learned ASL. If they need to communicate with him, they write. Can you imagine growing up in that sort of environment? To this day, his mom can't have a conversation with him. I'd just like to say, ASL isn't that hard. If you're ever in that situation, just go ahead and learn it.
Well, Marriner's home! I'm taking off!
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