Hang on!

The past month or so I have been a little discouraged about the piano lessons I have been teaching. I am down to two students, so I have been teaching them alone. The other teachers got burned out, and this was my idea in the first place, so I decided to give them a break. But the problem with that is that I don't get a break. Lately my students haven't been progressing. Plain and simple, they just haven't been practicing enough. I was starting to feel like this could go on forever without any improvement. My goal is to help them get through this book, then we will stop lessons. If they want to continue after that, they will need to find a private teacher and pay for lessons. But there have been days when I felt it would take years to finish this little book. Tonight I was thinking about stopping the classes all together. I was just feeling like it wasn't worth my time. Also, there have been days when only one came, or neither came. We have the lessons at the church, so if they don't show up, I have been just practicing my choir music. But I was starting to get discouraged.

About a week ago I was sitting in the room waiting for a student to show up when the Branch president came in with his daughter. He asked me if I could help her learn. I had already decided I wasn't taking any new students, but this girl has taught herself! She can already play most of the songs in the book we are using. It's really encouraging that she might be able to learn well enough to play for her congregation. Then tonight, one of my other students came in very well prepared. She played everything well and was sight-reading very well. Just when I was thinking about giving up, they both came in and helped me get the boost I needed to keep going a little longer.