Institute of Religion Class

In Gaborone, Institute of Religion classes are taught on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Each class is taught at two different chapels to reduce the travel distances for the students. On Tuesdays the class is "The Old Testament" for the whole year. On Thursdays the class is "Preparing for Eternal Marriage" for this term. We visit the Tuesday classes as often as we can and often take cookies. The teachers on Tuesdays are young-adult, returned missionaries and they do well at teaching the classes.
The students are very focused on learning and understanding what is being taught. They are very well founded in the gospel and many are returned missionaries. The class participation is always good.
We are teaching one of the Thursday classes and having a wonderful time. The other Thursday class is taught by a counselor in the young single adult ward bishopric. Each week we decide who leads the discussion for each part of the lesson. The students always make the class very interesting for us. We are just hoping that we can make the classes helpful for them. Finding a good mate and establishing a good marriage is difficult enough but there are few good examples for them to see and follow, and they really want to try as much as possible to have successful marriages. We just hope and pray that they succeed because they are doing their best to figure everything out.
We will be sad when this class ends about the end of May because we love the students and have fun teaching, but maybe we can teach another class next term. There are a number of good institute classes to teach in addition to the four primary classes of New Testament, Old Testament, Doctrine and Covenants, and Book of Mormon; we'll have to see what the local leaders would like to have taught next term on Thursdays.