Jed's First Talk

Sunday before last, Jed gave his first talk in Primary. This year, all our talks are scripture stories. Jed wanted to give his talk about Moroni burying the golden plates. Here is what we came up with:

Moroni had a special book, his daddy's book called the Book of Mormon. He knew that the bad guys were coming after him and that they would want to take his book and destroy it. So we went up to the top of the Hill Cumorah. He dug a big hole. He put rocks all around the side and bottom so the book wouldn't get dirty. He put the book, his sword, and the eyeglasses* in the box. Then he pushed a big rock over the top so the bad guys would never, ever find it.

Jed memorized the whole thing and we had little hand motions to go with each line. The day before his talk, we went down to the church and he practiced at the microphone. He did great! That Sunday, Sis. Bunting called his name and he marched right up to the podium with a big smile. He went up to the microphone, looked out confidently, and then saw all those kids staring at him... and got very, very shy. I went up with him to help when I saw him shrinking, but by then his head had already hit the podium top and he couldn't lift it up. With some urging, he finished the talk, but most of it was muttered into my chest with a barely audible amen. Poor little guy was a bit shaken, but I was still proud that he had learned his talk so well and finished it, even if it was harder than he expected.

*He got a little confused about the Urim and Thummim interpreter stones and really latched onto the idea that later they were used like eyeglasses. So we just ran with that.