Liliana at Church...and Emmett, too

Sundays are always full of fun when you have Liliana at church with you. Chances are good that she will say or do something that will either make you laugh, grit your teeth, or want to cry. A couple of recent examples follow:

Liliana was asked to give the closing prayer in primary several months back when we were in our old ward and she was attending sunbeams. Everyone bowed their heads and waited patiently for her to begin. I began to wonder what was taking her so long, so I peaked at her from the back of the primary room (as the secretary, I was normally sitting back there working on paperwork of some sort). I saw one of the primary leaders step up to Liliana and whisper an offer to help her know what to say. "No," Liliana responded loud enough for everyone to hear. "I only do that at bed time." After a couple more attempts to convince her to pray, the leader gave up and said the prayer herself. I tried to remind Liliana after church that we also pray for our meals and any other time we feel the need, but she still said she didn't want to pray in primary. The other leaders teased me about that one for a bit.

When the congregation is singing during sacrament meeting at church, Liliana likes to hold a hymn book on her lap and sing as well. The only problem is, she doesn't know the words to most of the songs yet, so she makes up her own words. A few weeks ago she sang out at the top of her lungs, "Oh, Tinkerbell and Rapunzel..." and continued to sing loudly about them, even during the pauses in between verses! I didn't know whether to hush her or encourage her to keep singing. I guess we will have to pull out our hymn cds and play them more often to try and teach Liliana more of the songs.

Today our opening hymn was Far Far Away on Judea's Plains. When the song's title was announced, Liliana loudly said, "They said planes. Where are they? I want to get on the planes!" I tried to explain that plains and planes were not the same thing, but she was set on the idea of going for a flight and didn't want to hear about flat-lying lands or any other non-airplane related topic.


Back in the ward we attended when we lived in Renton, I was working in the primary. Emmett was not old enough to attend nursery yet, so he usually went with David to Sunday School. One Sunday, about halfway through Sunday School hour, a sister brought Emmett to me in the primary room and told me she had found him by himself in the women's bathroom...playing with the toilet! Grossed out - and a bit annoyed, I left the primary room in search of David. I found him down some hallway chatting with someone. "Oh, there's Emmett," he said with a guilty look on his face. After I told him where he had been discovered, David's response was, "Again?" Needless to say, David was not on my good list that day!