Life is a blessing.

Hello to all who read the life-and belated updates of the young Romriells known to you as Nick and Jen. We want to thank you for all the comments and updates!!! Life here in SLC is getting colder-fall is falling on us fast-no pun intended, and we pulled out our gloves and hats. This is needed when you wait to ride the bus!! Update-we are doing well, but are both sick. As a kindergarten teacher you get first crop of the colds from the little students that you love and as the loving wife that I am, I share everything I get with Nick. Isn't he lucky. So we are in a threesome right now, Me, Nick and a box of tissues. We never separate. Other then that we are doing well. We both have jobs, a roof over our heads, and food, truly we are blessed. We have the extra blessing of still being able to work with the full time missionaries!! Nick was called as a ward missionary(someone the young elders can call if they need anything) and we are having a beautiful friend from India, taught about God, the plan of happiness, and Jesus Christ-his gospel and atonement, in our home. We are thrilled since this knowledge has given us all our joy and has blessed our lives together and separately more then anything we have ever found. How amazing to see someones life change and become better!!! I adore her and her strength. She is such an example to me. Nick also works with the Elders with a young woman from Brazil, so he is able to teach in his favorite tongue, once each week. Speaking of...Nick and I sang in church last Sunday. We sang I need thee every hour-and he of course sang in Portuguese. Most of the people guessed it was Korean or Spanish. We get that often. I tried to sing with him in the end. Since they couldn't tell what language it was to begin with, they thought I spoke it too. The Lord helped us for sure. Miracles happen everyday.

Mission reunion!!!

Oi Brazil!!! We had a blast at Nick's mission reunion. We've never been to one before, we didn't know what you did at one or who would be there, and I would be knowing no one. But life is being truly lived when you step out of your comfort zone, so we stepped, my stride being a bit bigger-not just because I have short legs. We loved it, feeling everyones love and spirit and meeting people that knew and looked up to Nick was such a delight. When we walked in President Dansie walked right up to Nick and said, "My trainer, how are ya!" And that was quickly followed by a huge hug from Sister Dansie-we felt right at home-part of a family. Here is Nick and I with President and sister Dansie. You can see the ever familar LDS gym divider in the background.


Then it was neat to meet some of Nick's fellow missionaries. He had mostly Brazilian comps. so we didn't see any there, but it was great to hear stories from those that knew and loved him. I of course got to know thier wives-we were in the same boat, so there was a connection.








This was an experience where you know it's a small world. My MTC comp. beautiful sister Richardson grew up with the elder in the pink shirt and hat. How neat was that? Oh and Jill, what do you think of the other guy on the right, he seemed really cool, smart, funny, RM, and he speaks another language...it's just a question.







Here is the whole group. Nick served with this group at the very end of his mission, so we didn't know a lot of people-most really, but with the few he knew and the chance to see his mission president and wife and to sing and pray in portuguese it was the highlight of the week thus far ( besides conference of course). As Nick sang his mission song, tears filled in his eyes, memorizes came flooding back and the spirit became even stronger. What a blessing it is to serve a mission, to teach, preach, and live the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We lucky few, our cup runneth over. We are so blessed. Tchau for now!!

Kindergarten, met Mrs. Jenn!

"Good morning Boys and Girls!" Yep that is right, I am a kindergarten teacher at Saint Sophia School. I am loving it!!! I must be honest, it is hard...I am so tired at the end of the day-I fell like I am competing with video games etc, but I love the kids so much and there are so many things that are amazing about teaching, that it makes up for all the bad days (I really haven't had a bad day yet-just some hard moments. So I have been teaching for a week and an half. It's full day kinder. And that can be tough on these little ones...there are some dramatic moments-on average two-three kids break out in tears, but they are learning their sounds, letters and numbers really well-that' s exciting!!! I am going to be getting a TA next week to help out with the class. I have a few students that need extra attention. So let me give you a tour around the room. First, the side view, this is the play area-sand and toys, what else could a kid want! Also there is the center sign, this lets the kids know where they need to go for centers.

This is one of my favorite centers, the writing center, and it's blue on the center chart. We have blending posters up with eight books that they love to read, plus the ABC's which helps since they are still trying to learn how to write them.

The blue thing on the write are the vocab we are learning for the week, they use it to copy the words down. Below it are the writing tools, crayons, markers, pencils everything, plus writing games. Yep...one of my favorite centers

This is the kid's favorite center-media. They are a computer generation. There are educational games on them of course. This is where I take kids and assess their progress-sinces there's only two units. Color is yellow-hence the pencil and sunflower. My desk, and the "done" box is the red one.

This is the reading area, with tons of books, pilliows, stuffed animals and letters all over. And what is more fun then to read under a tree. The picture shows a bare tree but we just made fall leaves so it looks even better. (tree is the brown bookcase) The color is red. Oh and there's blow-up letter people as well. Thank you SAR. They are grounded from them this week-too many wacking on heads and fights, funny to watch, but you have to teach them not to fight sometime.

Math center-duh I know. To the right there are drawers of math games and fun counting, grouping games!!! The kids love this center too.
I crawl under the table to get to the seat, I assess them there as well, and use the white board. Love it!!!

Reading center again...I just wanted to show off the word wall, come June it will be filled to the max! This is where they get mail from me every morning and where they keep their workbooks

My desk...I don't know what to do with it yet. The 17 kids sit at two table and I move around a lot to instruct. It works well. Not ideal, but it's not a big room...you do what you have to do.

My tree, I am pretty proud of it. Fabric, string and my tall husband, and there you have it a tree. The kids love it at least and I guess that's what matters. I did the change in two days. I wish I had pictures of what it looked like before, nothing on the walls, desks and files against the wall, different corer, no centers at all...It looked...confusing. But now it's about done, Mrs. Jenn style. I now know why teachers use the whole summer and not just two days. Good thing I have a theatre background-we're used to doing things quickly and on a shoe-string budget.