After All

On the way home from church, our neighbor’s small boy informed his parents he wanted to be a dickens. His mother thought he must have heard the phrase “What the dickens!” so she carefully explained what it meant.

“Not that dickens,” he replied. “I want to be a dickens so I can pass the sacrament.”

James R. McCammon
Columbus, Ohio

My five-year-old son was listening to my daughter and me discuss genealogy. Finally his curiosity got the better of him and he asked, “Mama, what did my great-great-grandfather do to make him so great?”

Ginger Reed
Richland, Washington

One morning I heard my five-year-old daughter confide to her seven-year-old sister, “He has curly hair, and I think he’s cute.”

Surprised by this type of interest in one so young, I peeked around the corner and asked, “Who?”

“The bishop,” she replied.

Judy Rasmussen
Arvada, Colorado

I had been preparing a Primary lesson that included the song “Who’s on the Lord’s Side?” The tune was running through my mind as I prepared dinner, and I sang out the first line, “Who’s on the Lord’s side, who?”

From the stairway came my two-and-a-half-year-old’s resounding reply, “Me!”

Sue Stockwell
Provo, Utah

During our family home evening on Monday, July 24, my husband was reading pioneer stories to the children and telling them about the pioneers entering the Salt Lake Valley. I suggested, after he finished his story, that he tell them of the seagulls and the crickets. Our eight-year-old daughter quickly replied, “Yes, and I would also like to hear about the birds and the bees.”

Deon Hatch
Sacramento, California

A favorite memory gem in our family has been:

Remember God is watching you,

And whether wrong or right,

No child in all this busy world

Is ever out of sight.

I taught it to my children, and they in turn are teaching it to theirs. Our oldest grandson, age three, knows it by heart.

One day his mother found him in the bathroom decorating the walls with her favorite lipstick. As she picked him up firmly and raised her hand to spank him, he looked around with his big blue eyes and said, “Remember, God is watching you.”

Estella W. Peterson
Santaquin, Utah

The road to apostasy: The Old Schism Trail.

Randall Green
Provo, Utah

Last month the Primary workers in our ward were asked to try eye-to-eye teaching. After four weeks of it, I asked my nine-year-old Targeteer boys if they had noticed anything different about me during the past month.

“No, what?” they chorused. Before I could answer, Richard piped up, “You’ve been wearing maternity clothes.”

Gail Jackson
Layton, Utah

I was trying to teach my eight-year-old son that he could pray in his heart at any time and his Heavenly Father would hear and answer his prayers.

“Have you ever tried this before?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied thoughtfully. “Sometimes in school when we have a hard math problem 1 pray in my head. But if he doesn’t hear me, I count on my fingers.”

Mrs. Harold Thistle
Las Vegas, Nevada

While I was working in the Church offices in Salt Lake City, a lady whose sweet voice trembled with age telephoned our department by mistake. Thinking that I should transfer her call to the proper office, I asked, “Are you calling from outside?”

“Oh, no,” she replied staunchly. “I’m a member of the Church.”

Iris Syndergaard
Kaysville, Utah