Tongue twisters

Elise is our exceptionally sunny* child, so cheerful, so friendly, so boldly extroverted that she once prompted my dad to ask, "Are you sure she's yours?" *There's such a thing as sunburn, though.

Yesterday while all of her siblings were bouncing off the walls (typical Sunday afternoon fare), Elise stole a few quiet minutes in our room. She was excited for her baptism preview that night, and had already gotten herself dressed and ready for it without being asked. She giggled when we talked about how grown up she's getting.

"Lisee, you are a delight," I said.

"What's a delight?" she asked.

"Well," Jeff offered, "when moms and dads get down about all of the things they have to do, it's so nice to have someone like you to make them smile."

She thought this was terribly funny. "But other families don't have an Elise!"

No, that charge is ours alone.

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In addition to the baptism preview, Sunday marked another growing step for Elise: a graduation from the whisper-fed talks in Primary. No matter how hard I try ahead of time to rehearse talks with my young children so they can somewhat give them on their own, it always boils down to this. You know the drill.

Parent to child's ear: whisper, whisper, whisper
Child to microphone: mumble, mumble, mumble
Child to parent (in loudest voice yet): What?

This time, though, Elise read her talk all the way through by herself. Which was a good thing, considering she didn't let me know of her assignment until Saturday. When you wipe out any time for rehearsing, it sure is good to have someone who can read!

Here's her talk:

Many people say that my brothers, sister and I look a lot like our dad. My brothers and I have big dark eyes like my dad does. My face and my sister's face are shaped very much like our dad's. When I was little, my hair was curly, kind of like my little brother Samuel's hair is. This is something we got from my dad.

My dad Jeff is my earthly father. Many of the thing about my body and the way I look come from him.

I have a Heavenly Father, too. The scriptures teach us that Heavenly Father created our spirits before we were born. Our spirit is the part of us that thinks and feels. It is our personality. It is the part of us that can learn and develop a strong testimony.

Moses chapter 3 verse 5 says, "For I, the Lord God, created all things, of which I have spoken, spiritually before they were naturally on the face of the earth."

As spirits, we lived with Heavenly Father before we came to earth. We received a body when we came to earth. Our bodies are very special and we should talke good care of them.

Heavenly Father gave us families to help us learn the gospel. If we live a good life on this earth, we can live with Heavenly Father again. I am very grateful for my earthly father and for my Heavenly Father because I know they both love me very much.