The signs you wish you never had to use...

We had a party at Activity Days yesterday! It was an obstacle course, and it was super-fun. Other than the trampoline accident after the party, we had a blast. We had popsicles and a closing prayer before everyone went home.

Looking back, I'm shocked this hasn't happened yet in the year and a half we've been doing Activity Days. It's just so obvious, given a bunch of little boys who know their parents can't hear them. Any group of 4 boys would do the same thing. Boys! Ah!

Someone let loose the biggest fart I've ever heard in the middle of the prayer.

These guys are good - they know how to giggle and talk without moving around a lot so their parents (who are all watching the prayer) won't see them. :)

Finally, I had to stop the prayer and address the problem. Because there are some times when you just shouldn't be trying to talk to God :) Of course, even though the kids and I all knew why we were stopping and trying again, I had to explain to everyone else. And that was when I was grateful I'd seen the sign for fart.

Boys.

Addendum:

Gotta add to this story. I texted the mom of the boy who got hurt on the trampoline yesterday to make sure he was ok. We were worried he might have gotten a bit of a concussion. She said he was fine, which she credits to the prayer of faith that opened our activity. I'd totally forgotten about the opening prayer! The prayer, in its entirety, was:

"Father, bless that nobody will die on the trampoline, Amen."

Boys.

Empathy for a native Spanish speaker

My son Lige picked up a couple of new piano students. I know the mom and dad from the school book fair. They're native Spanish speakers, but have been in the US a long time and are pretty much fluent in English. Today, Grandma brought the kids to lessons, so I got to meet her. She's been here a while, but she's at home all day with little kids as the designated kid watcher. Thus, she's not so good at English. When they showed up, I sat down to talk with her for a few minutes while Lige taught. I planned to go get some work done after being polite, but something in the way she talked made me think that maybe she really wanted to practice English. It struck a chord of empathy in me. I want to be better at ASL. But I'm home all day with little kids, and just don't get to talk to native speakers very often, either. So in my head, I realized that staying and talking would be an appreciated service. We sat down and got to know each other. I tried using all the things my Deaf friends do for me - slowing down, helping her learn new words when she was trying to express new things she didn't know the word for, avoiding hard words, stuff like that. It's not easy to have a conversation that way. My brain wanted to go faster or change to something more fast-paced. But I made myself slow down and enjoy the conversation in honor of all the patient people who have done that for me :)

It ended up being a neat experience. I told her about how I was sympathetic to her language struggles because I had the same thing at church, and told her a bit of our story. I asked her if she went to church, and she said she was frustrated with her church and looking for a new one. I told her we had some missionaries that could come tell her about our church (in Spanish, even!) if she was interested, and she was as excited about that as anyone I've ever seen. It made me grin that our little conversation made her so happy. I spent a year and a half as a missionary in the Philippines, and I don't think I ever saw anyone who was so excited to talk to some missionaries before. So we picked up the phone and called the missionaries right then.

So, I was glad I took the time to talk. She was looking for some English conversation and a good place to go to church, and I could help with both of those interests. Because really, I do go to a pretty fabulous church.

ASL Camp

I have a busy week this week, so I asked Ellis to guest post for me, and report on Young Men's and Young Women's camp! Since our branch has 9 teenagers (6 girls, 3 boys) they co-located the YM and YW camp, and did many of their activities together. The coolest part of the camp to me was that it was done 100% in ASL. Talking was not allowed. Everyone had several clothespins on their shirt, and if anyone heard you say anything, they got to take your clothespin. Of course, the people with the fewest clothespins at the end of the day had to do something humiliating (namely, do the "I'm a star!" move 5 times in front of everyone. I'd never heard of it before, but it was pretty fabulous.) So everyone was voices-off. They had some foam dice around camp that you could throw at people to get their attention. Sam and Martha are enjoying having those around the house now!

So, without further ado, here is Ellis's fabulous report on Girls Camp!

Learning a language fast!

My parents got a mission call a few weeks ago to serve in the Paris France temple visitor's center. I am so stinkin' excited for them! It is pretty much an open secret that the thing I've looked forward to most since I came home from my mission is when I get to go on a mission again! And the senior missionaries have such interesting service opportunities! I can barely wait. (Ok, I almost said, "I literally can't wait." But then I caught myself. Phew.)

Anyway, I digress. My parents. Going to Paris. For 2 years. The point is that they are in urgent need of brushing up their French skills. So I've been thinking a lot about how to get to conversational in a language you already sorta know. (I've got experience in this, it turns out.) So here's what I do if I was going to Paris. (Or if I got a re-do on our assignment to the ASL branch.)

1. Wonder why on earth I was re-learning French when I'm way better at 3 other languages now...so good thing it's not actually me going to Paris :) (I took French in High School and a semester in college. But once I learned Tagalog, I never looked back. (Except for the few months before we went to Montreal as a family.) It turns out that once you stop having to conjugate, you have no desire to ever do that again. ANYWAY...
2. I'd use the language as much as I could. When I learned Tagalog, they advised that we never say a word in English if we knew it in Tagalog. You have to actually be using the language for your brain to start processing things in that language. So I would say that during dinner, or before noon, or whatever, French only in the house. Get that tongue in shape! :)
3. Listen to/watch the language as much as I could. Your brain needs some time to start to hear the different words, to take in the patterns of the language. When we learned ASL, we talked a lot among ourselves, but I did not appreciate how important it is to watch native signers and learn how it looks when done right. So I'd start watching the news in French on YouTube, or start watching a French sitcom (Asterix?....). I'd start listening to General Conference talks in French, or maybe find a podcast for kids that was simple enough for me to understand. I'd try to get as much of that sound into my head as I could.
4. Pray more, because God doesn't help if we try to do it ourselves.

After Marriner was called as branch president, we had 3 weeks of calm before the storm. Our biggest focus was learning as much sign language as we could before our feet hit the ground and we had to start focusing on other things. Looking back, that was a really special time for our family. Not everyone was completely sold on the idea of learning sign language really fast, but in general, we felt a need to work as hard as we could, and we felt the Spirit teaching us things we couldn't have imagined just a few weeks before. Working hand-in-hand with the Spirit to be ready for our assignment built our faith in ways that really boosted us through the first few crazy months.

Who knows when you may be have the chance to learn a language in the service of the Lord. But I hope when you do, you cast aside your feelings of inadequacy and just focus on being the best you can to bless God's children. My parents have always been such fabulous examples of this to me. I can't wait to see the ways they are blessed as they brush up their French and take off to serve! My willingness to learn a language for the Lord comes from their great example. And I'm proud to come from such a family.

The stubbed toe

A really interesting thing happened last week after church. The kids went to play in the church gym while I talked to some people after church, and 10 minutes later Martha came back crying with a bleeding toe. I guess she sorta got it closed in a door. One of the branch dads who is deaf was down watching the kids, but didn't see the accident. He just got a crying 4-yr old. He tried to comfort her and she kept saying things to him (probably, "I want my mom!") but he can't hear her. He tried and tried and tried to get her to sign what she wanted, but she just cried and wailed. Finally, someone came and got me, and I calmed her down.

I pondered over this all week. Sure, Martha can sign. But in her moment of crisis, she couldn't do it. She was just frozen, and all she could do was process the language she learned to think in. I thought about the branch dad who helped Martha - do his kids sign when they're hurt? Does having a deaf dad get ASL deeper into your brain than having a family that signs for a little bit every day?

Gah, language acquisition is so darn fascinating.

And, Martha's toe was fine. And she got to ride the stroller back to the car, since she had a bandaid on her toe, so she thought that was pretty great. Jane loved getting to walk. So it all worked out in the end.

The Sunday that I didn't sign all day.

Marriner has 8 sisters and one brother, and his baby sister Rosemary had a baby shower last weekend. For some reason, Marriner's mom just wanted everyone to be there, and she flew all the sisters abroad back home for a girl's weekend. And for some other reason, she invited me to come, instead of Marriner, who was her only child not invited to the party (since Marriner's baby brother is still in college and lives close to home.) Sometimes I'd start to feel mildly guilty about that, but I'd just shove that thought out of my head as fast as it came in. This was a GIRLS weekend, not a Merrill Kids weekend! :)

I fit in so well with Marriner's family, it's just about the same as getting together with my family, except bigger. My 3 1/2 days hanging out was fabulous! What did we do? We talked, ate, talked, slept, talked, talked to some different people, went to the temple together, talked, slept, talked, went to church together, talked, slept, talked, flew home. Perfect!

It was a little weird leaving ASL behind for a whole weekend. It turns out that talking with my hands permeates my life right now. I talk to my kids in ASL. I talk to my friends in ASL. But most of all I worship in ASL. All day Saturday, I caught myself wanting to wave to someone across the room and ask a question (without yelling at them.) It was annoying to have to get up, walk across the room, and talk to them. But most of all, it was weird to go to church in English. It's not that I'm opposed to English, just that my worship has become interconnected with my hands, and it was weird to be in a situation where moving my hands during the service was distracting. On the other hand, people kept talking to me, and I felt really irreverent talking back. I know that's not how it is - that's just how it felt. In my head, reverence is still connected with noise, so signing must be more reverent than talking, right?

But I did use my time to spread ASL joy in the world - I  I taught some signs to a sister whose son is having some hearing issues. And I taught my 9mo old neice lots of signs: mom, dad, favorite aunt....and we'll just see if anyone else learns enough sign language to contradict me :)