The Elevator Talk

I love Conference weekend.  It's up-lifting.  It's fun.  And things never work out the way you wanted them to.  Or do they...

(Sorry for the long written post with no pictures but I really wanted to journal this and some of you will find this well worth the read. You can skip down to the real reason at the bottom.)

I have been preparing my children for Conference all week long.  We had our FHE about how in our day and time we get to hear the things that our Heavenly Father wants us to be hearing and learning about.  How cool are we that we get to hear from God twice a year!  We talked about how the things that would be said would be some of the same things we hear over, and over, and over again but how else are we to learn.  Just when we think we have finally learned the meaning to something, we tend to forget how important it really is to remember it always.  We talked about how much Satan would be working against us watching Conference and how we need to pray for the Spirit to be in our home and help us listen.

I believe all our preparing paid off.

Now, I love my Thad-Man.  But there are two sides to him.  There is the little boy with the devil horns waving his pitch-fork around, gnashing his teeth at everyone and everything.  It's not pretty.  Then there is this little boy that is an angel with big puppy dog eyes and a halo around his head that I could just eat up he is so sweet.

We saw both sides to this Thad last night at Amy's.  I love going to Amy's for PPI, (Pizza, Priesthood and Ice Cream) and I love spending time with the family.  I get to play games and enjoy being with women I love and my kids get to be with their cousins having just as much fun as I am.

The night was going wonderfully until we were leaving and I asked for help carrying everything to the car.  The Thad with the horns came out.  BAD!  By the time we got in the car and said our good-byes, I was very sure that Amy will never invite me over with my kids again.  It was that bad.  I grounded Thad for a week.  But our night wasn't over.  I still had to run back to my mom's house and get jars to finish my canning I had started.

We get there and my mom is so amazing, she had everything ready to just come and bring out to my car for me.  She opened the car door, and a jar falls.  Smashing to pieces in the driveway and all over her bare feet.  By the time we get it cleaned up and the rest of the jars loaded, all my kids are screaming and fighting in the car.  I told my mom I was going to have Tucker drive the car home and I was going to stay with her.

I get in the car, take a deep breath and calmly ask my kids if we can talk on the way home.  They all settle down and I ask them about what we had heard in Conference that day.  I wondered if they had heard anything that they had had the Holy Ghost help them feel what they were hearing was important like we had talked about happening at FHE.

We talked about the new Provo Temple, (Yeah!!!!) and some of the other temples announced.  Then Thad proceeds to amaze me and I wanted to share what happened next.

(Now for the real reason of the post if you skipped all the rambling.)

Thad:  "Mom.  I liked the elevator talk."

Me:  "The elevator talk?  I don't know if I heard that one.  Can you tell me about it?  Do you remember what it was about?"

Thad:  "You know.  The one where the guy was in the elevator looking down at his feet and the doors opened and ...  I don't know... The president?"

Tucker:  "President Monson."

Thad:  "Yeah, President Monson walked in and said something funny and told the guy to look up."

Me:  "You Remember all that!  Why would he tell him to look up?"  At this point I am in awe!  One that he remembers what was said and two, he has told me half the talk.  I had remembered this talk also but was shocked that he did.

Thad:  "He told him to look up so he could remember where we was going."

Me:  "And where are we going?"

Thad:  "Home.  To heaven."

Me:  "Thad.  You may have redeemed yourself.  You're not grounded for a week anymore.  Just half a week."

I am in tears at this point.  My 8 year old, not only remembered a talk, but he got the message in the talk.  Not just the face value of it.  He got the meaning.  We are going home to heaven.  He continued to tell me that we have to look up so we don't get lost.  He seemed to think this was self explanatory.  He may not get the full meaning but for an 8 year old.  He got enough.  I hear him say, "I like elevators."

How many times do we get something just because of one thing.  He remembered a whole talk and the meaning behind it all because he liked elevators.  I'm one proud Mama.