A Short(ish) Brag

Today Miriam gave a talk in primary.  Before I tell you how it went, let us recap Miriam's prior talk history.

Sacrament Meeting: The first few years of the primary program she didn't give her part.  The first year she wouldn't even stand up. The second year she walked past the microphone and went and sat back down.  The third year she started to say her part then the primary president tried to get her to read the part of the kid that came before her who wasn't there and Miriam almost started to cry and ended up not saying any part.  The last two years were the first years she's said her part in the program and she read them both times even though she always has her part memorized.

Regular primary talks: When Miriam was first in primary and asked to talk, I had her tell me what she wanted to say on the subject and then I wrote it down in a way that made sense.  Then I had her memorize it.  Then she would say it in primary.

She would be very nervous, however.

Miriam eventually moved away from just telling me what she knew about a subject and making that her talk and started looking up scriptures to add.  One time I thought I would "push" her a bit and didn't write out every single word of the talk (she always reads her talk even when it's memorized--gives her more confidence) and she freaked out and wouldn't give the talk at all.

What I'm saying is the girl gives good talks when she can read them but she has always been very shy about lots of people looking at her.  But, she always got asked to give talks when other kids were absent because she could read.  How many other 5 year olds could read the pre-prepared talks?  Not many.  So she did get a lot of practice in junior primary giving talks for that reason.

Then this time Miriam said she didn't want any help putting her talk together.  I said fine and showed her how to use lds.org and showed her how to cut and paste.  She found some scriptures and a quote from Elder Holland (her talk was on being a missionary) and cut and pasted it until everything was in the order she wanted it to be in.

Then she printed it off.  I asked her if she wanted help adding transitions and a closing thought, but she declined.  I made her practice it twice and she realized it would be easier to mark the scriptures she needed to look up so she did that.  She just ad libbed the intro, transitions and conclusions the two times I made her say her talk to me.  The first time was a little sketchy, the second time a little smoother, but she insisted she was ready so I didn't harass her any more than that.

Then she stood up today and gave the most wonderful talk.  Seriously, I was brimming over with pride.  She was confident, she was poised, she didn't read every word, she looked at the audience, the transitions were completely smooth.  She sounded far more prepared and intelligent than many of our youth speakers (sad but true) in Sacrament meeting.  Timothy thinks she has really good inflection when she speaks because she listens to so many books on tape.  I think it might just be her flare for the dramatic.  Either way she was never monotone and, quite frankly, her talk was stellar in every respect.

And she's 9.  And shy.

Miriam, I am so proud of you!

I'm so grateful for our church programs that make our kids learn and stretch and prepare for all sorts of experiences later on in their lives.  Thank you, primary.