Tyler's Sunday

Raising a child is full of contradictions.

Taking Tyler to church Sunday afternoon, Tyler informs us that he wished he weren't a part of our religion because Sundays are "the only day I have to myself". Don't get me started on that one, because Tyler is not a heavily scheduled child. I guess he just wants to chill out once in a while.

Jason and I covered the basic of the issue, but decided to mostly let it pass as one of those random things kids say. Tyler has lots of random thoughts.

Then 20 minutes later we are sitting in church. Singing songs and praying. The first Sunday of every month is what we call Fast and Testimony meeting. This is where any member of the congregation is invited to come up and share their testimony and beliefs.

My child, who no longer wanted to go to church, turns me to and whispers "I want to go up", I ask him if he knows what he wants to say, he said he wasn't sure yet. I suggested he think about it for a little bit.

Ten minutes later he whispers into my eat a short, sweet, and heartfelt testimony. I helped him reword a little part slightly, and up he gets to go stand in front of 200 people.

Jason was surprised to see Tyler get up. Tyler was excited to go and didn't seem nervous at all.

Now typically a lot of parents "feed" a testimony to a child until they get the idea down. Jason and I didn't want to do that with Tyler. He did this very much on his own. No practice or pushing from us.

My young man stood up at the stand and said:

I want to bare you my my testimony. That I know this Church is true. That Joseph Smith is a true prophet. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen

He came back to us, to get a proud hug from daddy, and see me in tears of joy. He then asked if all mommies cry when their kids do this.

I think so.