Memorizing

Last summer when I was in Buffalo, we as a family started memorizing the articles of faith. I think it came about because I read a story out of the Friend for a FHE lesson and it was about the articles of faith. I taught the girls the first one and they did pretty well. Then when we came home, Kate told me that the Primary was encouraging them to learn them as well and they got rewards if they passed them off to a member of the Primary presidency. So we kept going.

At first we would just repeat them line by line each night. Sometimes the girls would take turns leading out and I was amazed that even Emma did pretty well. She had those first couple down pat. We kept going and Kate kept doing really well, but Mary and Emma started to drop off a little. They had lost interest a little and the later AofF are kind of long with lots of big words. The primary told the kids that if they passed all of the AofF off by the end of the year they would get a bracelet. Kate was well on her way but the other girls wanted to do it too but they were further back. So in an attempt to help them, we learned the AofF songs from the children's song book. Mary and Emma loved(!!!!) that. We would sing the songs all together and then when I put them to bed we would practice again. They would sing the song by themselves as far as they could go and then I would help them finish. It was amazing!!! Mary and Emma both passed them all off and did most of them within two months.

Anyway, I'm not sure they'll remember all of them but it was a good start. It is just about the cutest thing ever to hear Emma sing in her high 3 year old voice her favorite: "We believe in the literal gathering of Israel, and in the restoration of the ten tribes..." I know she doesn't really know what they mean, but she likes them. She is also partial to "We believe men will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam's transgression." I think she has been punished for something her sisters did one too many times.

It is a testament to how smart kids really are. When I first started doing it, I just did it with Kate and Mary because I thought Emma was too little, but when Emma saw that they got stuff for memorizing them, she wouldn't let me leave her out. When we would go to pass them off, the primary lady would say, "Isn't she in nursery? Are you sure she wants to pass them off?" And Emma would say "Yea!!!" And she did.

When we finished, I would go to tuck Emma in and she would say, "Mom, you forgot to do our articles of faith." And I would say, "But we finished them remember?" She didn't care. She didn't realize there were only 13. So I decided to start the girls memorizing scripture mastery scriptures. I mean it can't hurt them. I made them some books with a big printout of the scripture and then I printed out the story that went with it from the illustrated scripture stories on LDS.org. and put them in the book too. And the girls are doing it but it is a little hard since there aren't really songs to go along (although I did find a website where a lady had put all the scripture mastery scriptures to music and it might be worth the money).

Anyway, so I went back to practicing with Emma before tucking her in at night, and pretty soon, since she and Ruth share a room, Ruth was yelling at me because I wasn't doing the same thing with her. So I tried it and wouldn't you know it, she can repeat too. She can't say it alone but she really likes to repeat and there's nothing sweeter than hearing scripture out of the mouth of a not quite 2 year old. It really is amazing.