Bad Language and Lyrics

By Terry Hurst, age 9

Gilbert, Arizona

Last Christmas, I received some money from my great aunt. I paid my tithing and then thought about what I would buy. Since I was given a compact-disc (CD) player for Christmas, I decided to get a CD to go with it. A few days later, Mom took me to the store. I found a CD that I thought I’d like and bought it.

When I got home, I started listening to it. The first song was fine, but the next one wasn’t. It had bad language and lyrics, so I stopped listening to it. When Mom asked how I liked the new CD, I told her that I didn’t feel good about it. I remembered the “My Gospel Standards” poster in my room and that I’d promised to listen only to music that would be pleasing to Heavenly Father.

We checked the rest of the songs, and then I saw a sticker on the CD wrapper that said, “Cannot be returned after opened.” I showed it to Mom. She said, “We are still going to try to return it.”

We went back to the store and waited in the return line. Mom told the people about the lyrics and asked if we could please return the CD. The man said that he would let us just this once. I felt happy inside, and I knew that Mom did, too.