First Talk

Lynette gave her first talk yesterday. She was supposed to give it 3 weeks ago but after posting the reminder on my fridge I promptly forgot about it until after we came home from church the next week- oops! I called and asked a redo and the primary presidency kindly agreed. We had two more weeks to work on it, since Stake Conference was the following week, and so every day we would just work a little bit on it- memorizing 2 lines at a time until she had it all down and the practicing it every day. This was how it went:

Heavenly Father and Jesus choose prophets to speak to us on earth. Prophets tell us what God wants us to do. Adam was the first prophet. The scriptures tell us about other prophets like Nephi, Noah, and Moses. They helped people choose the right. Joseph Smith was a prophet in our time. He helped bring us the Book of Mormon. Thomas S. Monson is our prophet today. He teaches us about prayer, baptism, keeping the commandments, and to love Jesus. I am thankful for prophets. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I wanted Lynette to memorize it for three reasons, 1- Because I knew she could do it- she inherited her father's ability to memorize (though I would like to add I had to remind him of his mother's birthday- why is that?). 2- Because I knew she'd enjoy it- she loves memorizing things- you should see her "read" books to us- its a hoot. And 3- Because I knew if I just whispered in her ear for her to repeat she would get shy and mumble it so softly no one could hear it. She really did enjoy the process, and we only practiced once or twice a day so she wouldn't tire of it. At first we used picture and a felt board, but eventually didn't need that anymore. When the moment of truth came I was pretty nervous because I still worried she'd decide last minute she didn't want to do it. I should learn never to underestimate her. When they called her name she marched right on up and started rattling off her talk so fast you could hardly understand it. I only had to prompt her once to speak up. She was fantastic. I was so proud. Of course, as all toddlers do, while she was speaking she was moving around a bit and playing with her dress, but it just added to the charm.

The one really sad thing about it was that Michael missed the whole thing, and for a very dumb reason. He was on-call the night before but still managed to get there in time donned in his scrubbs and with his hair rumpled. He was waiting in the back with me and decided to use the bathroom- thinking there was still a good 10 minutes before her talk. Not a good gamble. Not two minutes after he left they called her up and Lynette jumped up and started speaking before I had the chance to ask them to postpone. I felt really bad about that. She did perform it for him later, and also to my parents over the phone- to their delight. It was a fun experience. I'm so proud of my little girl.