The Orator

Disclaimer: The camera Roger took this picture with is so small that it fits in an Altoids tin and slips in his pocket. We're pretty sure that if the camera is that small it isn't too distracting to take pictures while church meetings are in progress. Of course there was the time Roger took a picture of his sister Carol giving a talk and he forgot to turn the flash off . . .

Despite the fact that Jack folded his talk into a paper airplane while he was sitting in the front waiting his turn, he did a fabulous job delivering it in Primary last Sunday (Primary is the name for our church's Sunday school program for children ages 3-12). Jack is very good at speaking clearly and pacing himself well when he's giving talks.

Jack's assigned topic was how we can learn from people who set good examples in scripture stories. While we were preparing his talk, I asked Jack what his favorite scripture stories are. He said he liked the battle stories the best. There are a lot of battle stories in The Book of Mormon, especially in the book of Alma which is where Jack and I are in our reading together.

Scriptures are sure full of gory, sordid stories. I've always wondered why, and am now convinced that they are there in part to suck people in. If you can suck people in with a sensational story, maybe you have a chance of teaching them important principles, like "love one another" or "it's all bigger than this life on earth and you can have hope that it'll all be good, even after the darkest days."

Anyway, I sort of pulled a fast one on Jack. One of my favorite scripture stories is about a group of people who, when they learned about God and Christ and began to believe, decided to bury all of their weapons and never wage war against anyone again. So, weapons were involved, but I slipped a sound message of peace into his talk.

A memorable Jack story from the past: A couple of years ago Jack's assigned topic was on choosing the right. When we wrote the talk we included examples from our lives about the consequences we face when we make choices that aren't so good. Like how we might be grounded from friends if we don't get a job done. When Jack was giving his talk and got to that part, he happened to look up and caught a glimpse of Roger sitting in the back row. Jack stopped, pointed an accusing finger at his dad and said, "You! You're the one who does that to me!" Every grownup in the room just lost it.