The Joys of Sunbeams

As many of you know I got called to be the new primary president in my ward about a month ago. It has been a very stressful, challenging, exhausting, but totally rewarding experience. I have learned so much the past few weeks. I feel like each Sunday in Primary, it gets better and better. The first Sunday the kids were EXTREMELY rowdy. So, the second week we taught them about reverence and I began to pick up on the little quirks that some of the kids have...some of them being good quirks and some of them not so good. So the third week, being this past Sunday, went really well. They were much quieter but those little quirks shined through even more. Just to give a little example...our sweet sunbeams who I have come to love because I was their teacher, try so hard to be reverent. Some of them do a great job and others, not so much. One girl in particular who is probably the cutest of the bunch just has a hard time sitting still, staying quiet, or in fact just staying in her chair. She loves to get up and stand by the teacher, loves to sit on the ground, loves to lay on the ground, loves to talk. She will be anything but reverent. Every week I have stuck to my guns and have always made her go back to her chair. As the weeks go on, it is less frequent that she gets out of her chair. However, yesterday she was doing the same thing. She kept looking at me every time she started to slide out of her chair just to see what I would do. My counselors and I did what we always do and told her to sit back down. This apparently hurt her feelings and she wanted us to know it. That little girl's parents better watch out. She's good. The poor girl made herself cry. No, not because she was actually really sad. But she stared at the ceiling light for minutes on end, tried not to blink until she got one solitary tear that started to drop down her face. As soon as that tear fell, she looked directly at my counselors and I to try and show us how much we hurt her feelings. I couldn't help it anymore and busted up laughing. Who knew 3 year old's could be so dang smart. I am really learning to love my calling and I'm starting to realize that it is all about loving the kids. And I have to admit that I am somewhat grateful for the little rowdy kids. Primary would be extremely boring if every child was completely reverent.