After nearly five years it finally happened, my primary presidency and I were released. On Sunday the four of us shared our goodbyes and testimonies with our primary kids, here is what I shared...
"Hello boys and girls, today is an exciting day,
because as you may have heard in Sacrament Meeting, there have been some
changes made in our primary. We have a new primary presidency! Do you know how long my presidency and I have been
serving in primary? Five years! That is
a long time! And some days it has felt
like a really long time, but for the most part, it has gone by so quickly, and
I can hardly believe it has been that long.
Awhile back, I was doing some family history
work, and I read about my great, great grandmother, her name was Emeline
Crandall Bird. She was born many years
ago, in 1824. She
was born in New York, and she and her family joined the church when she was
11-years-old. Then she and her family
moved to Nauvoo with the other Latter Day Saints and there she met and married
her husband, my great-great grandfather, Richard Bird. Just one year later the saints were forced to
leave their homes. So they packed up their belongings and walked a thousand
miles to this valley here in Utah. It
took them three months to make that long journey, and they endured many
terrible hardships such as sickness, and cold and hunger, and even death of
some of their loved ones. But they made it, and soon after they arrived in Salt
Lake City, Brigham Young asked a few families to move to a new settlement
called Springville, which is just a few miles south of where we live here in
Lehi. So my great great grandparents and their 10 children moved to
Springville, and that is where they stayed. Many years later my great great grandmother, Emeline Bird, wrote a
memoir of her life. She told all about her experiences throughout her life, and
I want to read a few of her words that she wrote.. “In November of 1879, a new Primary
association was organized in Springville and I was set apart as the Primary
President of my ward, and I served for 10 years.”
I thought that was pretty neat that my great great
grandmother was one of the very first leaders in a brand new program of the
church called primary. And I’ll bet she
loved it just as much as I have loved serving in primary. I’m a little bit envious of her, because she
got to serve for 10 years, and I only got to be here for five, so she was
luckier than me. But I am proud of her and grateful that I had the opportunity
to follow in her footsteps.
I have spent this week thinking about the last
five years and the wonderful experiences I have had in primary, and I reflected
on the day when I first got this calling.
It was New Years Day, January 1, 2011, and I had been in Idaho
celebrating the new year with my family and we got home late that night, it was
a Saturday, and I had a message on my answering machine. The message said that Bishop Erb wanted
to meet with me the next morning. Do any of you remember Bishop Erb? He was the bishop just before Bishop Hancock.
So the next morning my husband and I went to meet with Bishop Erb and that was
when he asked me if I would serve in Primary and be the new primary president.
Now this was not a surprise to me, because a few years before that the Holy Ghost had
given me a special feeling that I would be asked to be the primary president at
some point in my future so I was just waiting for that to happen, and I was so
excited when it finally did. And I was ready.
And that was five years ago.
Here is an interesting statistic, when I started in
primary, in January 2011 we had 125 children in primary. That does not count
all our children in nursery, just our children in junior and senior primary. Now fast forward 5 years, And in Sister Burnham’s attendance report
from last month it said that we had 94 children in our primary. So in 5 years our primary has shrunk by 31
children. That is why we have such a large YM and
YW program, we are losing our numbers in primary to them!
One more thing, I have this black
folder, I want to tell you about.
The first week I served in primary I knew I had a problem, and that
problem was that I didn’t know the names of all my primary children, I knew
some of them, but I wanted to know the names of all my primary children.
Sometimes I have a hard time with remembering names. So I came up with a plan. I decided that I would go to each classroom
in junior and senior primary, and I would take a group picture of each
class. Then I went home and printed
those pictures, and listed everyone’s names below the picture, and put them all
in this binder. And then each week I studied the pictures and practiced until I
knew everyone’s names and I could call them by name each week in primary. So I want to show you the Sunbeam class at
that time, five years ago. Look at these
little Sunbeams! And now all these Sunbeams are 8 years old and
they have all been baptized! I look at our cute little Sunbeams now, and they weren't even born when I started serving in primary! The kids that were in CTR 7 are now in YM and YW. The 11-year-olds are fun for me to look at as well,
one of them was my own daughter, Stefanie. She was in primary with me for about
5 months before she advanced into YW.
And now she is 16 years old, in the oldest class of YW. All these kids are now 16 turning 17 years
old, they are almost all grown up. And I
have been able to watch all you boys and girls grow up for five years. As I’ve watched your testimonies grow, my
testimony has been strengthened as well
Boys and girls, I am so thankful for the opportunity
I have had to be with you here in primary.
I love each of you so much and even though it will be hard for me to let
go, I have a lot of confidence in our new presidency. They will be great, our
primary is in good hands.
I just want to leave you with my testimony, I want to
share it with you one more time. I know
this is the true church. I know Heavenly
Father lives, and that Jesus came to earth, he lived a perfect life, he died
for our sins and was resurrected 3 days later.
And because of that, because of our Savior, His atonement, we can all
return to live with Him and our Heavenly Father, and our families for
eternity. And I leave that testimony
with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."
