Porter's 1st Talk

Yesterday Porter gave his first talk at church in primary.  Primary is where the children aged 3-11 go and sing songs, and learn about the gospel.  Each Sunday a few children are asked to participate, and yesterday Porter was asked to give a talk about how Heavenly Father speaks to us through prophets.

Together we made a treasure map, and my plan was to have him show the treasure map and say that treasure maps have special instructions to lead us to a treasure.  Then was to show a picture of the prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, and say that our prophet receives instruction from Heavenly Father on how we can return back to him.  And then just close by saying that he hopes we can all follow the prophet so that we can stay on the path that will lead us to the greatest treasure.  Short and sweet, to the point... what you would expect from a three year old.

Anyway, Sunday morning I stood Porter up on a chair so that he could practice... with daddy and Tyson as our audience.  I had him hold up the pictures and was whispering into his ear so that he could repeat it.  Porter wasn't really grasping the whole "repeat" concept.  In fact, it seemed he was thinking it was more a fill in the blank.  I whispered into his ear "President Monson", and Porter says to daddy and Tyson "President Monson goes to church ALL DAY LONG!"  We try to reiterate the repeat idea.  We proceed.  I whisper, "I hope" and Porter says "I hope Daddy will play with me today."  Jared and I are smiling but are pretty concerned about how this talk is going to go down.

Fast forward to church, 2nd hour in Primary.  It is Porter's turn to give his talk.  He gets up and without any of my help says "I am Porter, and this is a treasure map!"  I whisper "Treasure maps give us special instructions to lead us to the treasure."  He repeats it perfectly.  (Whew!)  He shows a picture of President Monson and once again says perfectly that he receives instruction from Heavenly Father on how we can return back to him.  Then Porter points to me and says "You're turn, mom!"  (Little giggles around the room.)  Then I whisper "I hope" and he says "I hope I can get some candy." (More giggles)  This time I whisper "I hope we can follow the prophet" and he says "I hope we can (pause) (then he sings...) follow the prophet, follow the prophet!"  (Now lots of giggling little kids.)

Somehow I ended it as quickly as I could and sent him back to his chair and hurried out of the room.  One day I will look back and think this is cute, I think.  But right now I'm declaring it a disaster.  Oh well, first time for everything.