Rachel's talk and Phoebe's...day

Here's a picture of Rachel writing her talk late last night, while sitting at my feet. I was switching back and forth between an article I was reading and her talk whenever she wanted feedback. The bedroom window was wide open and we were listening to the thunder rage and the wind howl (until the rain started).

How "kids these days" can type an entire paper on their little phones is beyond me. I like my keyboard too much to attempt that. But here she is...typing up a 5-minute speech on her phone.

We also used our phones (technically my iPad) to call my mom so we could talk about some family history stories (for Rachel and Miriam to both pull content from for their respective talks). As it turns out, my mom was also scheduled to speak in church today!

We also were texting with Grandpa about how the storm was in his area and following the storm on a weather app. These devices are just so handy.

Interestingly, Alexander came up to me the other day and said something about how our brains are really like a phone inside of our heads. I asked him how that was the case and he started explaining how our brains can do so many things—they can be a calculator, solving math problems; they can make memories, like scrolling through pictures; they can be used to recall information...

And I thought to myself how skewed the word "phone" has become. 

Because surely he meant our brains were more like a "computer" than a "phone." 

But even the meaning of the word "computer" is so much different than it was decades ago. 

Just interesting, that's all.

Anyway, we didn't get to bed until late. And we all slept in the basement together. Our weather didn't even end up being all that terrible. The storm sailed right over us without causing too much damage at all. Nary a branch was down in our neighbourhood or the whole drive to church.

I shared a mattress with Phoebe, which she was really excited about. She was buzzing with energy while I was dragging it downstairs, so I asked her to go open the basement door for me. She squealed with glee, turned around and...ran directly into this pole:

"I'M OKAY!" she wailed. "I'M OKAY! I was trying to watch where I'm going!!"

But evidently she did not try hard enough. I had no clue when I asked her to open the basement door that she would take off at the speed she did. Here's the aftermath (hours later, after all the tears were shed and the swelling had gone down):

She touched her forehead at dinner and was like, "Ouch! Why does my head hurt?! Oh, yeah. I was trying to watch where I was going. I really was, guys!"

Anyway...Phoebe and I slept on a mattress on the basement floor. It was a long night. 

In the morning she woke up (at 7:00, because she heard a bird—and, indeed, the storm was over, the birds were out, it was a beautiful morning) and immediately demanded breakfast. 

"My tummy is saying it's so, so, so hungry!" she said. 

So I sent her upstairs with her siblings to get some cereal while I picked up some things to take back upstairs. By the time I came upstairs she informed me that her tummy was completely full. 

"What are you talking about?" I asked, examining the amount of oatmeal she had in her bowl. "You've taken like two bites."

"And now my tummy is too full to eat," she said. 

Warning bells went off in my mind. This was no good, no good at all. 

*****

Last night I also came across a cartoon that said: "Me as a therapist after years as a stay-at-home mom..."

And there was just a picture supposedly as someone in a therapy session with a speech bubble above the therapist's head saying, "Hmmm... Do you need to poop?"

I can't find it now. But it feels relevant to today.

*****

"When's the last time she pooped?" Andrew asked. "I don't remember wiping her bum yesterday."

Evidently having too many wipers around makes us all slightly less aware of her pooping habits.

"I'm not sure I remember wiping her bum yesterday either," I said. "But I know I wiped her bum on Friday...no...it was Thursday. She almost threw up on my head while I was wiping because she could still see the poop in the potty."

She's...sensitive...to poop.

"Let's try to go poop before church," Andrew said, steering her toward the bathroom.

She did not poop.

We left for church anyway.

*****

Here's Phoebe playing with some felt toys before the meetings began (we always arrive early...for prelude):

Her outfit was...spectacular today. The Grogu shoes were crucial for her to wear. The tights were a must. Her shirt has puppies on the front of it. The whole ensemble was...amazing.

She made it through the opening song and through sacrament and then Rachel stood up to talk. 

Rachel had maybe been talking for 30 seconds when Phoebe turned to me, with her eyes popping. She clutched her behind and gasped. 

She was actively pooping her pants. In the middle of sacrament meeting. 

Andrew rushed her to the bathroom where they had a grand adventure. Phoebe had indeed pooped her pants. But she still needed to do more poop. And because she was pooping and Daddy was holding her poop-filled underwear it was all...just too much...so she started throwing up. 

Poor, poor Andrew. 

He was juggling poopy underwear, while trying to catch vomit, all while keeping Phoebe balanced on the potty. 

I stayed for Rachel's talk—which went really well—and then left to go help Andrew. 

We ended up just driving Phoebe home (because what if she wasn't just grossed out and was actually tummy sick). She and Daddy watched some church videos. I headed back for primary. 

It was...a day. 

*****

But Rachel's talk went really well. People told her that she was very funny. Other people met her in the hallway and said, "Good morning, Miriam!" Still other people saw Miriam in the hallway and were sure to point her out saying, "Look! It's Rachel's sister!"

So that part at least was memorable for people. Hopefully her message was memorable as well. Here's her talk (it's 896 words long and she—the little motormouth—delivered it in 4 minutes flat):

Good morning! My name is Rachel Heiss, but some of you might just know me as Miriam’s Sister because she’s always up here playing the organ and I don’t really do anything that public. If you’ve ever seen me and called me Miriam I probably haven’t corrected you because usually I just think it’s funny, but I am in fact my own separate person. I’m seventeen and a senior in high school, but I’m homeschooled and have been attending BYU-Idaho online. I like reading, writing, and crocheting, and I also bake a ton and have been making all the birthday cakes for our family since I was twelve. I’m going to BYU this fall, which is exciting and a little scary. I’m not sure what I’m going to major in yet, but I’m interested in political science, English, anthropology, and law. 

I’ve actually been interested in law for a long time, which is probably because adults have been telling me I would make a good lawyer since I was really little. I always kind of thought that this was a compliment, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that it at least partially means that I was just an argumentative kid who asked a lot of questions and was always looking for loopholes. One of these loopholes I was convinced I found as a kid was about baptism. Before I explain this, I have to explain that we have some family lore around drowning and baptism. When my grandma was little, one of her older cousins would tease her a lot. She was a really literal kid and also didn’t know how to swim, so she would take it very seriously when he joked that he was going to throw her in pools and ponds and things and was a little afraid of him. A while before she was supposed to be baptized, her dad had an accident on their farm involving his foot and a sugar beet topper and couldn’t get in the water with her on account of his mangled leg. Her parents said that her cousin could just baptize her instead, and she was like, “or we could just wait, because I’m PRETTY SURE HE ACTUALLY WANTS TO KILL ME.” Obviously her parents did not take this very seriously and planned the baptism anyway. She cried in her interview with the bishop, and then cried when it was time to get baptized. She told me, “I was sure it was the end! He finally had a chance to get rid of me! It was a big surprise when all that happened was that I got baptized and didn’t die.” When I was eight and getting ready to get baptized myself, I had heard this story a couple of times before, and it was in my head even more because my dad kept joking that he would hold me under the water “until the bubbles stopped.” I was less afraid of this happening than my grandma had been, because it just made me think of yet another loophole. The most convenient time to die, I thought, would be right after you get baptized—then you’re totally sinless! You don’t have to worry that you’ll make any more mistakes, so you don’t have to worry about needing to repent. This is a funny conclusion to come to, and also not really a correct one, because the things you do after you’re baptized are also very important. 

In Doctrine and Covenants 20:37, it says that to be baptized, we have to have a “determination to serve [God] to the end, and truly manifest by [our] works that [we] have received of the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of [our] sins.” If eight year old me had been right about that loophole, then that would kind of cancel out the part of the baptismal covenant that says we need to serve God until the end. I might have been sinless when I was baptized, but I would have missed out on so many opportunities on earth if I had decided that just being sinless is enough. Our main concern shouldn’t be just not doing bad things, we should be focused on actively doing good things. We promise to take the name of Jesus Christ upon us and try to be like him, and He wasn’t only trying to not sin—He was constantly serving other people and trying to make a difference in their lives. We should be doing the same thing. When we were reading Doctrine and Covenants 20 in seminary, we talked about the things that were supposed to do after we’re baptized and become members of the church. In verse 69, it says that we’re supposed to show that we’re worthy “by a godly walk and conversation,” having “works and faith agreeable to the holy scriptures,” and “walking in holiness before the Lord.” This means that everything we say and do should be reflective of the covenants we’ve made. I think that all the references to walking in that verse are interesting. Jesus says to “come follow me” and we can’t follow Him if we’re standing still—He wants action from us. I bear my testimony that we need to have the determination to serve and keep doing good things after we’re baptized, and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 

And, for some bonus content, here's a talk that Zoë gave in primary last month (which she wrote without assistance, her assignment being to summarize a story from The Friend):

Good morning everyone! Today I am goin to talk about the story "Already a Missionary" from The Friend. In this story, Thad was really eager to meet the missionaries when they came for dinner. The missionaries told him that he could be a missionary before he was old enough to serve a mission. When they told him that, Thad decided to try to be a missionary.

The next day, he helped his mom do some chores. He read a book with his older sister. And when a friend came over to play, Thad shared his toys.

These are all small and simple things, but by doing these things That was helping himself become a better missionary when he was old enough to serve.

One way I have been a missionary is by helping my brothers clean up their room and the LEGO room even though I didn't make those messes. Some ways I can be a missionary are by helping others or playing with Phoebe. Those are very small and simple things, but they help people in my family be happy about having a cleaner house or being able to get work done. 

I bear my testimony that we can do small and simple things, like telling your friends about the church, to become better missionaries in the future. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

*****

Phoebe is feeling much better. She ate lunch and her tummy feels just fine. So fingers crossed it was only her sensitive gag reflex and nothing else...