Jason has been speaking with an Italian accent lately. No, we do not have the travel channel nor have we recently been to Italy (although I wish that were the case). What is the cause of this sudden change in nationality? Super Mario Brothers on the DS. That's right. My 3 year old walks around all day calling to his older brother, "Mario, don'ta shoota me with your fireballs. Lets goa and geta the mushroom headed freaks. Hurry, we havea to savea the princess" (say all of this with a super fake exaggerated accent). Let it be known that I despise videos games of all shapes and sizes, but Chris was quick to point out to me that this recent development proves his theory that maybe video games can be a good thing. After all, Jason is learning to speak a second language!

And now, for all of those primary teachers out there who don't think the kids in your classes could possibly be jumping up and down, talking, laughing, playing and actually learning something at the same time:

Every Sunday after church we ask each of our kids what they learned in Primary that day. The standard answer is always, "We learned about Jesus." It usually takes some prying, but we can eventually piece together a general idea of what they were taught in their classes that day. A few weeks ago, in the middle of the week, Jason was in his room talking to himself. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that he was talking to the Holy Ghost. I asked him who the Holy Ghost was and he responded, "He whispers things in your ears and tells you to stop if you are doing something dangerous." I told him that was really good, and asked him what else he knew about the Holy Ghost. He told me that there was a little boy who went into a building and his dad didn't know where he was. Then the Holy Ghost told his dad in his ear to go in the building and get the boy and he did and then the building broke. We talked about it some more and I was so impressed with the things that he had learned and retained from his primary lesson the week before!

Well, nap time came, and I went to put him in his bed. I noticed that it was full of crumbs so I lifted him up and showed him the mess. I was of course mad at him, and asked him angrily where all of those crumbs had come from. He answered sweetly, "The Holy Ghost did it. He whispered in my ear not to tell you though."

Since then, he has told me all sorts of interesting things about the Holy Ghost. I am sure that his primary teacher had no idea whether or not her students were even listening to her that Sunday, but I know of one kid who most definitely was. So, to all of you primary teachers out there, thank you! But may I suggest a possible topic for a future lesson?

"The Holy Ghost teaches us to tell the truth"!