Primary days...

Last week I taught the primary class with kids ages 8-11.  Before we walked in, one of the members of the primary presidency said, "Are you ready to meet the cannibals?  That's what they are you know."  I was expecting them to be screaming like the boy above.  I thought I would not love it and feel like I was having to babysit kids in ties and tights for free.  I was so wrong. I haven't laughed so hard at church in months.  They are ridiculously teachable and so full of love.    In sharing time the teacher was talking about the word of wisdom and held up a picture of cigarettes.  There was an audible gasp through the crowd and a boy on the front yelled out, "Those are cancer sticks! If you use those, your legs will fall off." Ha. I always wondered why some people were missing their legs... 

After the cancer sticks moment, it was time to separate into classes.   The second I walked in the room and sat my chair down they instantly scooted all their chairs around me so tight that the chairs were overlapping and  I could smell their not so fresh breath. I loved it because they still think the opposite gender is repulsive, they can still entertain themselves by playing with the hymn books and their hands with their vivid imaginations and are not old enough to know how to be bratty or disobedient. I felt like a celebrity and I hadn't even pulled out the MnMs.
 The lesson was on prayer and I asked if any of them had a prayer answered before.  Every single one of their hands shot up like a NASA rocket off a launch pad in Florida (back when NASA employees were not getting unemployment).   David started to tell his story in such a somber voice I felt like even his 23423 freckles were looking serious.  He recounted the following:

"I went upstairs with my favorite stuffed animals, the first is named brown bunny and he is a bunny, and Froggy who is a frog and Pumpkin who is a dog (I was trying not to laugh at these exceptionally creative names and thankful he was clarifying their phylum in case anyone was lost, I was just curious how Pumpkin got an actual name and escaped being "doggy").  My brothers and I were launching them from the top upstairs window into the field below.  (Sidenote: David lives on 80 acres with cows and land that looks as undeveloped as the day Pocohontas and John Smith discovered it on their honeymoon, I digress.)
After we launched them we ran outside to the field and we couldn't find them anywhere.  We looked and looked and looked for a long time, I mean a real long time and we couldn't find any of them.  We said a prayer and after we found Brown Bunny, Froggy and Pumpkin at the same time so I know that Heavenly Father knew where they were and helped us find them".

That simple example made me think.  Does Heavenly Father really stinking care about Brown bunny, Froggy and Pumpkin? In all his cosmic creating, economic crises and starving war ravaged children in 3rd world countires, did He really just happen to have a few spare minutes and was in the neighborhood of bluefield helping freckle face find his stuffed dog named Pumpkin?  The best part about it is that He did.  I'm always in awe by all that Heavenly Father creates and is.  How the heck did He think of black holes? Seahorses? Antartica? Parting entire seas?  It's mind boggling.  Even more boggeling to me than how infinite He is, is how intimately aware He is.

I remember in my glory days of 8th grade when I had bangs that looked like someone glued a large brown cauliflower to my forehead and I wore a braided black belt and zits with my teen spirit deodorant that I diligently applied to fight the fatal puberty effects.  I had a blue glitter retainer that had a glow in the dark moon. My dad explained very clearly to me that if I lost it I would owe $175 dollars to replace it.  I could think of a thillion things I would rather buy if I ever even had 17 bucks so I was determined not to lose it.  Well, I lost it.  I was sick to my stomach.  When you can't even drive, your options are to sell millions of cups of lemonade or work for under child labor law wages doing chores at the house. I knew I had to find it.  I went in the bathroom and prayed like crazy.  I felt like I should go in the auditorium where we had an assembly that day. I did and there under some of the seats was the glitter blue moon retainer in all its glory.  I was stunned.  I was stunned not by the fact that I had found it, but by the fact that if Heavenly Father helped me find that retainer, that means He knew were Canyonview Jr. High, was, He knew that had braces, He knew that I had a crush on Robbie Blake and didn't wear my retainer in front of him. If he knew where my retainer was, what else could He know about me?  The obvious answer was everything.  It was a very big 8th grade epiphany to realize that the same God who created worlds without number and obviously wasn't bored,  had time to help me find my retainer.  Somehow, since that day, it was always been easier to pray to a God who I know, knows me. Everything about me, including the fact that I worse a blue glitter glow in the dark moon retainer.