Monument Park 13th Ward Primary Program

Have I mentioned lately how much I love this ward?  Well I do :) The whole family does actually.  I mention that because today we had the Primary Program.  And what was amazing is that they used the talks that the children had given in primary throughout the year to create the program.  That way the children were familiar with their parts because, for the most part, they were their own words.  Such a great idea.  They also had very nice invitations that they handed out 2 weeks before the program so we could invite family, less-active and non-member neighbors.  Great idea as well.

We were touched to have so much family support.Grandpa Earl changed his flight so he could be there (what a fabulous Grandpa!) and even Uncle Cameron came!  Alexander sat relatively quiet during church because he was with Grandpa and occasionally Uncle Cameron entertained him.  It was also nice to have a chance to really enjoy the program instead of wrestling with little A.

Lincoln had been working on his part for 2 weeks and he had it all memorized.  He paused in the right places and he emphasized the right words when he did it with me.  I was so proud of him. Stephen practiced in a slipshod manner and I wondered if he'd speed read his talk in the moment.  Well when it came time for their parts, Stephen walked up to the mic, adjusted it, looked at the audience, licked his lips and took a deep breath in and out and then began reading his talk very well.  Half way through he shifted his gaze directly at the congregation and gave the rest of his talk in a very deliberate and expressive tone, totally memorized.  Hilarious.

Then instead of going back to his seat, he remained next to the podium to be with Lincoln ("because I love him", he told me afterward).  Sister Gurgel adjusted the stool and mic but Stephen noticed it was too high for Lincoln, so Stephen reached across the podium and adjusted the mic again.  Then Sister Gurgel gave Lincoln the first line of his talk and sat down assuming Lincoln would take off on his own like he'd done in practice, but he didn't.  He looked back at her.  She came back up and began prompting him while Stephen stared on.  Then half way through when Lincoln got more confident and remembered his talk, Stephen turned and began waving and mouthing something to us with large gestures.  Oh it was cute and there were giggles in the audience but it was also rather embarrassing.  It always has to be something with those two.  We found out later that right before Lincoln's part, the little girl that Lincoln was sitting next to had torn his 3X5 card with his talk on it into two and the teacher had taken it. That's what threw Lincoln off and flustered him.

All in all they did a good job and sang most of the words to the songs.  We took a couple of pictures afterwards to remember the day:

With the Primary Program and my one and only lesson in Relief Society today and then Dan and I giving talks last week, we had lots of comments from people as we tried to leave today.  We are going to miss this ward!