the power to win

I was going through my drafts and found this post. I don't know why I never posted it. It made me smile to have a pretty accurate example of the perfectly normal chaos in my childhood home.

And then I laughed. We still have conversations like this.

--

My family just started reading in 3rd Nephi. We were just starting with chapter 1, and we attempted to relate the scriptures to us, giving a scenario something like this:
"So what if President Monson was told that we were going to be deported tomorrow? The government said, 'Hey. Five years ago your Prophet Hinckley said that five years from we would see this sign because the Savior would come. Your five years are up, and we haven't seen anything. If we don't see anything in 24 hours, every member of your church is going to be deported.' That's kind of what these Lamanites said to the Nephites. So President Monson..."

We're interrupted. Aria says something like, "Wait, but the Nephites all died. They were gone when Christopher Columbus got here. So how was the land already settled?"

We all look at her because we have no idea where this has come from. She's kind of close, but Christopher Columbus? Really? Most of my siblings and I start laughing.

"No, Ar. The Nephites disappeared, but there were Lamanites still. But hang on, that's not what we're talking about."

But she got a reaction. So she keeps going.

"But Christopher Columbus!"
"Aria. That's not we're talking about. We're making this work for the less cognitive in the room [because there aren't enough of us paying attention]. Stay with us."

We finish the discussion, relating President Monson to Nephi and what he would have done in our day to make it more significant what Nephi did. We keep reading. Aria manages to get herself banished from the couch because she can't sit still for more than 5 seconds, even though she's been warned plenty of times that if she can't sit for at least a minute, she's going to be sent to bed. It took a few minutes to get back on track.

"Now that we have the less cognitive out of the room, we can continue."
"What did you call her?"
"READ."

I love scripture study at my house.


[title from scripture power by clive romney]