Another Installment of the Peter Lecture Series

Peter gave his third talk in Primary yesterday, which brings us up to a total of six public-speaking experiences if you count the Primary Sacrament Meeting Program. We really struggled with writing this one. His topic? "Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ all mankind may be saved." Any idea why we had trouble? That is a large topic for a four-year-old (or a twenty-nine-year-old) to deliver a talk on.

We talked about it a little throughout the week, but it wasn't until Saturday afternoon that I pulled this picture out.


Me: Peter, what's going on in this picture?

Peter: That's Jesus.

Me: That's right. What's he doing?

Peter: He's suffering.

True. Believe-it-or-not, that conversation helped me figure out his talk. It wasn't typed until Sunday morning and, since we now have 9am church, he only got to practice it twice, although we still set-up our fake podium so he could run through walking up and looking at the crowd. He held the picture up while I did the whisper-the-talk-in-his-ear trick. He did very well.

For those of you that are curious, here's the talk:

This is a picture of Jesus Christ as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was praying for us because he loves us. He took our sins, all the bad things everyone has ever done or felt, and he felt them too. This was called the Atonement. He did this so that we could repent and return to live with Heavenly Father. When we repent we stop doing the wrong thing, we try to make it right, and we say sorry to those we may have hurt. Because of the atonement, I can repent when I’ve done something naughty and I can be forgiven. Because of the atonement my family can be together forever with Heavenly Father. I am thankful for Jesus and the atonement. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.