Primary colors

Today was our branch’s primary program. Or as they say in my branch, el programa de la primaria. (For those of you who don’t habla español, el programa de la primaria mean, in Spanish, the program of the primary.) Yes, as you may have astutely discerned, I go to church in a little inner-city Spanish branch. And oh, is it fun. It’s like being in Latin America again. The Redhead actually is in the Young Women’s Presidency and I think she empathizes a little with me for what my first few months in the mission field were like. So today was the Primary Program in sacrament meeting, and I thought it was a perfectly poetic synthesis of all that is Latino, Mormon, and Universal in the world.

The meeting started with the missionaries setting up the chairs for the children on the stand. This is consistent with my experience in Latin America, although it isn’t necessarily a “Latino” thing. But they like to make the missionaries do everything, so they put them to work. All the children were dressed up all nice and looked so cute. They proceeded to sing several songs and thus proved themselves to be of Latino lineage by their singing voices. (Sorry all my Hispanic friends out there, but most of my friends in Latin America can’t sing in-key to save their lives; these kids were no exceptions.) It was a very “lindo” and “especial” meeting.

It had a lot of classic elements of primary programs around the world. There were the few older kids that thought they were too cool to sing and didn’t want to get up when everyone else stood up to sing. There was one musical number that no one knew the words to, which I think is a tradition in all Primary Programs. There was the song that the kids only knew the chorus to, so it was kinda quiet through the verses and then they all joined in on the chorus. There were the requisite awe’s when a little kid said something particularly cute and there were a few talks given by “gentle suggestion.” (The mom said the phrases in the kid’s ear and he or she repeated them breathily into the microphone.) Oh, I almost forgot the baby wailing loudly in the back. (Good heavens, will that parent take that kid out?)

I liked the universal things about the meeting the best. Kids are funny. They wave to their parents and they pick their noses up on the stand and they just make me laugh. Some day I’ll probably have little rugrats like that and I’ll think they’re the greatest little kids ever. They’ll probably be hyperactive ADD/HD redheaded boys and they’ll give me hypertension and a heart condition. And it’ll probably serve me right for what I did to my parents when I was little. Suddenly I am very afraid. . .