...oh, and the children's voices

Well, Sunday was our ward's Primary Program. For those of you that are unfamiliar with terms from my church, Primary is the program in charge of children up to age 11. I am a leader in that organization. We work hard with the children all year long to learn songs and topics to go along with our yearly theme to present to the entire congregation. This year's theme: I Am a Child of God.

Well, due to the fact that I have a small baby, I did not go up on the stand to be with the children and instead got to watch the beautiful kids sing and say their little parts. Too cute! Lauren even gave a talk that was fabulous. I was so proud of her. She wrote it all by herself and delivered it beautifully. Olivia is in the youngest of the classes presenting and her part was "I love to paint and draw with my family." She was so excited because she thought of it by herself and she had said it in the microphone nice and loud at each of our three practices. Well, her turn comes and she looks at the congregation and just starts breathing into the microphone (think Darth Vader). She finally turned around and sat down without saying anything.

I was a little dissapointed until she got up to sing. Throughout the program the children sing songs that they have practiced throughout the year and Olivia has worked terribly hard to learn all of the songs. The little old lady in the very back row could probably hear Olivia without problem. Olivia sang so vibrantly and confidently, I couldn't help but smile and be proud. She was so excited that she knew all of the words that she kept getting louder and louder. It was so cute. The hardest to witness was the last song the the entire congregation joined in on. We sany "I Am a Child of God" and Olivia noticed that everyone else knew it too so she kept getting louder and louder and realized that she needed to stand out. (this is my interpretation). She says, "hmmm, how can I stand out...oh, I'll let everyone know that I REALLY know all the words" so she sang them ALL, except for the fact that she kept singing ahead of everyone and was the loudest in the building. It brought tears of laughter to my face. It seemed that by the end of the song Olivia didn't have to use as much power to be the loudest because as I looked around many (and I mean MANY) of the people around me were laughing so hard they couldn't sing. Although I was red with a touch of embarrassment and wet with tears of laughter, I will never tell her to hush because she was singing to OUR Heavenly Father who loves and appreciates her dedication and power in voice.