The Thompson Family

It was a special day in Primary today as Kylie had her first part in opening as a Sunbeam; she had the scripture and Brandt had the talk. Buddy was excited to help his sister and prepared ahead of time by marking his scriptures and telling her he would be the one to help her say it.  On the other hand, he was not excited about giving a talk and refused to prepare anything because he "was too frightened."  During sacrament meeting he changed his mind and decided to have me help him write down a talk to go with these puppets that he pulled out of my church bag.  When the time came, Kylie, who had practiced ahead of time, refused to say one word of her scripture despite her brother trying to help her.  Buddy gave his entire talk by himself-it seemed to calm his nerves that I had written it down for him and he could read it. He was pretty proud of himself, especially since grandma and grandpa came in to listen to him.  I was proud of him for coming up with his own talk and then being brave enough to do it.

"Heavenly Father commanded Nephi to build a boat.  Nephi didn't know how to build a boat but he followed Heavenly Father's command.  Laman and Lemuel-they thought Nephi couldn't build a boat and they wanted to throw him into the sea.  Heavenly Father protected Nephi and shocked Laman and Lemuel when they tried to grab him.  Then they repented and helped Nephi build a boat.  I want to try to be like Nephi."

This afternoon the kids got a special surprise when Mitch and Max Lauridsen came over with their mom, Cindy, for a visit.  Both kids were excited to hang out with them and show them things-Kylie dragged out nearly every stuffed animal they have and Buddy was happy to show them his guitar and Missy, the puppy.  Brandt and Kylie have come to love them as much as I have.  Every time I have the opportunity to be around them and see what good boys they are, I can't help but miss their grandma Ann and think how proud of them she must still be.  She always loved telling me about how they were doing in sports and school.  She loved John and Cindy and both boys so much and she credited them with being the most important thing to her. I'd say she had that part of life figured out pretty well-family is the most important thing.