Sept 25, 2011

Sister Gilbert/memorize Apostles

In Sunday School when I was somewhere around 8 years old I had a very special teacher by the name of Sister Gilbert. Her family owned the Dairy Queen in town and was one of my favorite places to visit since it was only a block and a half from Grandma Poulson’s.  One day in class Sister Gilbert challenged us in the class to memorize the Presidency of the church, The Quorum of the12 Apostles, Church Patriarch, The Assistants quorum of the 12 Apostles and then the Presiding Bishopric of the church. She also challenged us to memorize our Stake Presidency and Patriarch. To the first person to pass it off she would give a silver dollar that she had gotten in her Dairy Queen business. A friend of mine by the name of Jon rode the same bus as I did each day to school so we decided to take her up on the challenge. I remember working really hard to memorize each name specifically correct. The day I went to church early to pass it off I found out that Jon had also gone early that day and was at that very moment in passing it off. Sister Gilbert gave me a chance also even though Jon had done it correctly and basically won the silver dollar. I also passed it off correctly so she gave me a silver dollar as well. I can’t list them at this time but there were names in that group such as “O Leslie Stone” and “Hugh B Brown” that seemed to stick with me quite easily through the years.

I have always treasured that Silver dollar and for years it was the only one that I had until one day I was doing chores and had climbed the hay stack to feed the cows./ Our baler made the bales round so the stack was a in huge triangle  shape which was fun to slide down after pushing a bale off with which to feed the cows. This day however was a little different because as I slid down off the stack something hit me in the back. It was a silver dollar. We asked several possible people who might have lost it but never did find out who the dollar belonged to so I ended up putting it with my other silver dollar from Sister Gilbert. Years later after Lynn had gone on his mission we were going through my coin collection and I discovered that Lynn didn’t have a silver dollar so I gave the one to him that I had found on the haystack. I still have the other one to this day. It reminds me of the dedication of a Sunday school teacher who knew how to catch the interest of her students and help them to learn valuable lessons at the same time as they were in reality building testimonies of the Prophet and the Apostles.