Primary Program & Testimony Meeting

Today I have felt especially grateful and blessed.

I've been in my new ward for about 14 months now & last week was the first time that I found myself walking to the pulpit on Fast Sunday. It didn't take any convincing. From the moment I sat down, my feet knew they intended to find their way to the front of the meeting.

Though Dan was not present to hear my testimony, I hope he knows & shares some of my sentiment about the importance of this gospel of Jesus Christ, as well as the importance of family and its role in aiding us in a happy & successful journey through this life. I am confident that he knows of the passion i have for my beliefs & convictions.

Although in marriage, we may often approach things differently and bring our own, different convictions & "religion" into marriage. Sometimes understanding each other doesn't come naturally. We may experience or offer support, rejection & everything else in between in relating to our spouse. I will say that i respect my husband and appreciate him for his unique qualities & gifts and that I am grateful for him as well as for our girls and extended families.

And I have FELT so much in this regard today.

We can really FEEL knowledge as a gift through the Holy Ghost. I am grateful for this gift. It gives me all the confidence i need to navigate my course in a day, each one in my life.

Today was the Primary Program. I've heard at least a couple comments that this is the best meeting of the year, every time. Is this not what our religion is about? Our children? Passing to our children this priceless gift of love & experience. The values & knowledge which we as parents have come to hold dear in our hearts!

I am feeling so grateful to have these two little girls to love & raise each day. As well as to have them loving & challenging me each day.

The Program songs, stories & scriptures were told by the children and each child was able to participate. I was sitting on the stand with my CTR 7/8 Class, just left of center behind the pulpit, which gave me the funnest view of parents. Watching their faces as the kids spoke was so great! Such proud faces, grinning ear to ear. The kids were cute & excited, some nervous wanting to shine for all the mom's & dads.

The Primary Presidency has the children create the pictures for the cover of the Sacrament meeting programs, which i love. Such a great idea, quite impactful. They colored self-portraits & signed their names. At the end of the meeting Bishop Brough sang I Am A Child of God with the children. ...After the meeting, 'opening exercises' for primary was a bit different. The chairs were put away & the leaders had provided treats for the kids (little donuts & milk).

Bishop Brough let the kids line up to each take a turn cutting up his tie! That was a new one! How can you not love our bishop?! Then the kids sat around in a big circle on the floor and played a memory game w big footprints which had sets of matching primary song names on the backs. When someone made a match, we all sang the song. When the songs ran out, the leaders each got to pick a favorite primary song for all to sing.

I am grateful that Alexa has had these good & profitable learning experiences & I hope she will continue to build on them. She is a sweetheart. Ashlyn will be anxiously awaiting her turn next primary program as she will graduate from Nursery to Sunbeams in January. I can't wait to see if she is as shy about the opportunity as I think she might be once it finally presents itself, or not!?

As I mentioned in Testimony Meeting last week, I am not only enjoying my eight, CTR 7/8 year-old girls immensely, but also the CTR 8 lessons which are centered around Christ & his life, resurrection, and basic teachings including baptism, the holy ghost, forgiveness, kindness, service obedience, etc. Additionally, I have enjoyed reading through the Articles of Faith which the girls are memorizing. (See: http://scriptures.lds.org/a_of_f/1/1-13#1)