Last Monday morning I was giving Anabelle the rundown of the day's planned activities. One of the last things I mentioned was that we were going to have Family Home Evening (knowing of course that the best way to make sure it happens is to tell her). She says to me, "Oh, yes. Because it has been a LONG time since we had family home levening". It has been about three weeks with our travel to Florida and the start of OTS. I guess she noticed.
When I entered the room with the nursery manual she protested. She did not want me to use "that baby book". I told her it was not a baby book, it was for kids who are three like her. She said,"No. I want you to use the big brown book" (our large family Book of Mormon). So I went and got it and when I returned she asked me if I wanted her to teach me. Of course I said yes....
AB: Jesus went to teach the people. And Jesus said, "Come unto me. And I will give you faith. And believe in me".
ME: Wow buddy. That's good. Did you learn that at church?"
AB: (while rolling her eyes): "No, you guys taught me that".
ME: oh, how great.
AB: And Jesus says, "Come with me and I know the way and you follow. And I will live with you again and I will rise with living breath".
I can tell that part of her Jesus quotes are primary songs, a part is from the movie 'Finding Faith in Christ', and I guess the rest is just her perception of the savior that she has pieced together from discussions and lessons at home and church.
So we opened the scriptures and went through story by story. If she recognized a story she would tell me she already knew that one, to go on. At the end of a story she would say, "Tell me another one". She couldn't get enough. We spent the next hour and a half this way, she was totally engrossed and was the one perpetuating the discussion and length of time. I came to the story in Helaman of Nephi and Lehi being put in prison. Before I had really been paraphrasing most of the stories but for some reason I read this one right from the scriptures. She listened intently, stopping me to say, "Who's voice did they hear?" and "who made the earth shake"? I thought she might get lost in the language of the scriptures but she didn't seem phased by it. After this I had to end it only because it had become late and Lila was going crazy.
I was both touched and overwhelmed. Maybe overwhelmed is not the word. I felt keenly aware of the responsibility that is ours to teach these precious little souls. I was struck with how important consistency is and the need to teach them young. I will always know that if she doesn't understand the gospel and have faith in it, it isn't because she wasn't ready or didn't want to learn. That falls squarely on our shoulders and I was struck tonight with the absolute importance of it all. It was a moment of complete clarity as I had the repeating thought and feeling that, "nothing else matters" since there is no way for us to teach our kids the gospel without living it well ourselves.
Thanks kids, for bringing me moment 213 where I remember what it's all about.
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