I remember the first talk I ever gave. I was 5 years old. I remember it like it was yesterday. I even remember what the talk was about, I told a wonderful story about a boy named Timmy, and a butterfly. Do you want to know why I remember it so well, because it was traumatizing of course! Picture it...a family decides to move to America, a 5 year old girl and her Father travel months ahead of the rest of the family, to secure a place for them family to live.
After sometime in my new
Ward I summoned up enough courage to raise my hand when they asked for volunteers to give a talk the following week in
Primary. I was so excited to show my Father the slip of paper which said that I had to prepare a 2 minute talk. My Father was so proud, we went home and called the family to tell them the good news. My Mother was so happy, but so sad she would miss it. My father rushed me off the phone because he wanted to start preparing my talk immediately.
He got out a blue spiral bound notebook and began to ask me what I wanted to speak about so he could write it down. My parents are converts and were never in Primary so I explained to my Dad that I had seen many talks now, and all he had to do was come into the Primary room next Sunday, kneel next to me at the pulpit, whisper the talk into my ear one line at a time, and then I would repeat it into the microphone. Nonsense! He said. I have never seen someone whisper a talk in someone’s ear. It happens all the time in Primary I assured him. He didn’t believe me. He asked me what the other children talk about. I told him that they usually told a story, that there was a magazine that had nice stories in it, and their parent’s whispered it in their ears and the children repeated them. He still didn’t believe me about the whispering in the ear part, but he consented that having a story that portrayed the message you were talking about was a good idea. He didn’t know what the magazine was and we didn’t have any children’s church books, so together we made up a story about a boy named Timmy and a butterfly. Hours later we had finally completed the talk and I was tired and ready for bed.
The next day when I got home from school, after I had finished my homework I headed outside to play. Where do you think you are going my Dad said. To play I said. No, no, he said, you have to practice your talk. Practice! The talk wasn’t until Sunday, today was Monday, what was he talking about. Now I had lost the whisper the talk in my ear battle, but I had been reading for years, what was there to practice. I would just take the paper up there and read the talk. Read the talk he said, no that’s not how they do it you have to memorize it, at conference they don’t look down at the pulpit, they have their talks memorized. I was flabbergasted. This man who had never been to Primary a day in his life, was comparing my two minute talk to a conference talk.(Which by the way, they use teleprompters! Didn’t know that then, so couldn’t make that argument). I began to cry, I looked through the tears in my eyes, he wasn’t moved at all. This is where not having my Mother on the otherside of the world would have come in handy. I took the blue spiral notebook from his hand and walked into the living room and slumped into a chair and began to memorize my talk. Did I mention that this was just a simple Primary talk? What about that I was only 5, did I mention that? This was my life for the rest of the week. My Father would listen and correct me if I skipped a word. I began to despise Timmy and that stupid butterfly.
At last Sunday came. My Father picked a hideous outfit for me, as he had been doing for the past few months, I was lucky if I eneded up with the same color shoes on my feet. My hair looked a hot mess. One fat braid sticking straight up from the middle of my head, another sticking directly out at the side of my head. I’m sure people thought I was homeless. When it was time to give my talk in Primary, I got to come up front and sit in the chairs behind the pulpit. I could see my Father sitting proudly at the back of the room. I was the second talk. As I watched the boy before me get up there and watched his mother lovingly whisper the words in his ear, I started to get mad. Why didn’t he listen? What was so wrong with whispering? Wasn’t he always telling me not yell and to whisper? Why couldn’t he do it? Why couldn’t I just read it? I really missed my Mother. When I got up to the pulpit I began my talk, I said it exactly like we had rehearsed it all week, I put the voice inflections right where Dad told me they should go, I stopped where there were periods and paused where there were commas, didn’t mess up once. When I had finsihed my talk my Dad looked up at me so pleased, and instead of going back to my seat I walked directly to him put my head on his shoulder and began to sob.
He quickly picked me up and took me into the hall, and handed me his kercheif. He knelt down beside me and quietly asked me what was wrong. OH! Now he wanted to kneel beside me and whisper! I told him I wished he would have just done it the way everyone else had done it and whispered it to me, but you can read he tried to reason with me. I could have pretended I didn’t know how, I told him. I’m sorry he told me, I didn’t know what it was like, I never went to Primary, maybe next time…..NEXT TIME, was he insane, there would be no next time, that two minute talk had cost me playing outside for an entire week. I would be sitting on my hands from now on in primary when they asked for volunteers for anything, I would be looking confused like I didn’t speak English.
As Primary ended people started leaving the room, my teachers and friends and other parents stopped in the hall to tell me how well I had done on my talk and how impressed they were. It made me feel a little better, you know how your parents say the same thing and you don’t want to hear it, but coming from a stranger it makes you smile. I dried my tears, and Dad and I headed home to call my Mother so I could recite my talk to her and beg her to come to America and comb my hair!
Have a traumatizing talk story to share? Do you have that kid that is always volunteering for talks in Primary? Practice all week with your kid for a talk, then they get up there and stare at you and say nothing?
Your Sista In the Gospel,
Sista Laurel
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