Proud Parent Moment

This Sunday Erin gave her first talk in Primary. I was starting to wonder why she had never been assigned a talk before since it's her third year in Primary, but I just assumed they didn't ask the younger kids. Then one day I saw a Sunbeam giving a talk so I knew that wasn't the case. I mentioned it to someone and the next week one of the presidency came back to me saying, "yeah, we asked Erin to give a talk and she just said no." I guess I wasn't aware that they had much of a choice at this age. Apparently other kids jump at the chance? Unbeknownst to me, they had asked Erin a few times before and she always said no, but they didn't tell her that her parents could help her or anything. I think it was just the unknown. But I figure that Primary is the time to learn how to give talks, not in Young Women in front of the whole congregation or heaven forbid as an adult. Plus, if she always said no, what kind of example would that set for her younger siblings?

I told them that she could do it, and even though I knew she'd do a great job at home, I really hoped that she wouldn't freeze up at the last minute in front of the primary. The topic was about prophets so she picked three of her favorite prophets (Noah, Samuel the Lamanite and Daniel), told me what she wanted to say about them and then I wrote it. I got a phone call near the end of the talk writing so she just finished it up on her own and folded it up as many times as she could.

She practiced it several times at home and then decided she needed to wear a lot of lipstick so that she could look pretty for her talk. She got some great comments about her 5 year old makeup job at church, but she didn't seem fazed by it.
When she got up in front of everyone it did take a little time to unfold and flatten out the paper, but once it was open she read it all, front and back, perfectly and confidently while Jared held the pictures. She said that she wasn't even nervous. That was definitely a proud parent moment! For one because she is doing so well with reading, but more than that was how much she has come out of her shell as far as doing things in front of people. Two years ago for her preschool graduation she cried the whole time even though I knew she knew every song and even everyone else's speaking parts. A year ago at her next preschool graduation she said everything she was supposed to, but you could tell that she was really nervous. To see her get up like that now is really amazing for her, especially since it took me years in school and church to not feel so nervous to be in front of people. I think Erin's Kindergarten class is helping her a lot. Anyway, we are just proud of her! (sniff, sniff) How we got so lucky to have such great kids is beyond me, but I sure love them.

Just a side note: this is the first year that I have been really grateful about losing an hour for daylight savings, only because we have 1:30 church and Sunday mornings are sooo long! Too bad Jared had to go to another ward at 8:30 and had 7 hours of church; at least I liked it.