End of an era, start of a new

Here is a makeshift table and chair for our lesson.  The girl at whose house we would normally have been was gone.  So we went to the young man's house.  As a bonus, we picked up one of his friends who lives close by.  We took this picture because we needed to be more than normally creative.  Often we use the arms of an overstuffed chair for a table, 5 gallon buckets work well for chairs.  They often don't have low tables where you don't have to crane your hands to play.  We are very anxious that none of our students get carpal tunnel.

Here we are with the table in use by the new student.  We often teach outside to pick up any stray breeze and stay out of the way of the family.

Janell insists that we have a graduation concert -- and she is right.  This is for Conception and Solano branches.  The first two rows are students who are playing.  They got to pick the hymn(s) to play.  There was only modest overlap -- I think there was some competition to find something different.  We played 'name that tune' to start things off as more people trickled in.  It puts a nice closure to our teaching and seems to leave people feeling good about themselves, the church and looking to continue to learn.  One young man played 'Battle Hymn of the Republic' and another got the keyboard to play accompaniment to Silent Night (we only teach the basics, he had to read the manual).
Janell had plenty of pumpkin bread and then we went to the grandmother of several of our students so that Janell could feel good about herself again -- She felt overdue for a haircut -- scalped is what she got!!  She forgot that some of these people may be Lamanites!!
Luckily, she likes scalped.

Here is Michael who played along with the keyboard for silent night.

I think letting the students learn (maybe even encouraging them) alternate songs like 'Titanic' helps keep them motivated.  Janell isn't as sure.  At any rate, Ashley is a star student here and had Titanic memorized. Our rule is that if you're learning a hymn a week we'll help you learn something else that you like.

Janell had her first sick day today.  She slept in the car every chance she got, and I got to give a first student lesson while she slept in their hammock.  Tonight seems to be better.  I think it was a blessing from the Lord so that she could direct the concert. He does send blessings our way.