Hannah Medina of Chula Vista, California

Hannah Medina, 9, loves reading. If you went to her house after school, you’d find her sitting on her bunk bed surrounded by stuffed monkeys and reading her favorite books and scripture stories. Hannah has a huge collection of books—the five shelves in her room are packed full. Her favorite time to read is at night with her lamp on. Sometimes the light keeps her older sister Emma up.

“But I don’t mind,” Emma says. “When her light is on, it reminds me that I need to read my scriptures, too.”

Hannah’s favorite scripture story is about Joseph and his coat of many colors. Her favorite books are about princesses.

Like a princess, Hannah’s brown eyes sparkle when she smiles. Her name even comes from one of the noble women in the Bible (see 1 Sam. 1–2).

Although she doesn’t live in a castle, Hannah does lots of neat things at her house. She loves to go swimming and play with her sister and brothers, Bradley, 12, Emma, 11, and Samuel, 5.

The family also does interesting activities for family home evening, like going to the beach. They have a family home evening chart with everyone’s name on it. Every week each person takes a turn being responsible for either the song, the prayer, the treat, or the activity. Even their grandmother who lives with them takes a turn. The Medinas also read the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants as a family.

“I like spending time with my family,” Hannah says. “I can tell they love me.” Even if you didn’t know the Medinas, you would know they love each other. The license plate on their family van reads, “WE•R4KZ” (we love our four kids).

Hannah tries to be a good friend, even when others aren’t nice in return. Once she had an accident on a bicycle because her friend ran into her. She bled a lot and was really scared, but she didn’t get mad at her friend for what happened.

“I think good friends are nice and don’t tell people what to do,” Hannah says.

Hannah’s best friend is her sister Emma. They share a room, and often stay up late talking and giggling.

“We fight sometimes, but not a lot,” Hannah says as Emma smiles at her.

Like the princesses in her books, Hannah has many talents. She loves to sing in Primary, especially the song “Children All Over the World” because it has the words “thank you” in lots of different languages (see Children’s Songbook, 16–17).

Hannah is also a gifted hula dancer. She took lessons with her friend from Tonga. Hannah’s beautiful costume has a shiny headpiece and long strands of red and gold beads to go around her neck. Her long grass skirt swishes around her ankles when her hips swing back and forth. High above her head, she spins two long ropes with colorful balls attached to the ends.

She has been able to develop her talents because she sets goals and works on them. When she wants to do something better, she adds it to the goal chart in her room. Then she chooses one goal each month to work on. One of her monthly goals was to do a better job on her homework.

Hannah also loves Primary. “I like the sharing times we do and the spotlights. Everybody at the beginning of the year fills out a spotlight form with name, birthday, family members, and favorite things,” Hannah says.

On her birthday, 14 August, Hannah was spotlighted. The whole Primary found out that her favorite color is aqua green, her favorite food is pot roast and potatoes, and her favorite place is the beach.

“I also put on my sheet that I want to be a teacher,” Hannah says. “I think it would be such a fun job.”

Along with Primary, Hannah also loves activity days. Sister Sorenson is her activity day leader. Hannah loved it when Sister Sorenson made bracelets for the girls to encourage them to pass off their activities. Right now Hannah is learning the Articles of Faith and almost has them all memorized.

It seems that everyone who knows Hannah thinks she is princess material.

“I love Hannah’s giggle,” her brother Bradley says.

“I love it when Hannah plays games and does puzzles with me,” her grandmother says. “She’s my baby.”

“I love everything about Hannah,” her little brother Samuel adds.

It looks like Hannah really is a princess—a beautiful, talented, sweet daughter of our Heavenly Father, which is the best kind of princess of all.

Photography by Shanna Ghaznavi

Hannah (third from top) and her brothers and sister enjoy posing on the slide.

Family van license plate

The Medina family

The Medina children at the park

Hannah in her hula costume

Hannah enjoying a good book