This past weekend, we watched General Conference, a big fat conference our church has twice a year where the Prophet and other leaders of our church broadcast speeches and messages all over the world by internet and satellite.
We watch church on TV for 2 days at home in our pajamas. This year my mom made the kids a big tent to watch from and to be honest I slept through most of it in my sleep-deprived haze. I’m glad the talks are available online for later review because I could not keep my eyes open most of the time.
One talk I will NOT forget involved one church leader giving his solemn testimony of the Book of Mormon while holding the original copy that was read by the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum at the time of their martyrdom in the early 1800s. Not only was it an extremely powerful talk, but as a former librarian, I will always remember it as the talk that gave historians across the world a coronary. I wonder exactly how many seconds after he finished speaking that a team of archivists swept in with special dusting cloths and archival quality Ziplocs.
Getting ready for the conference, Magoo and I were looking at a picture of our Prophet and I asked him if he knew his name.
“Yeah…ummmm…no.”
“It’s President Monson.”
“Nope. That’s not it. It’s something with a train in it.”
“A train?”
“Yeah. The prophet’s REAL name has a train in it.”
I was dumbfounded. I tried to prove him wrong.
“There’s no train in his name. His name is Thomas S. Monson.”
“YEAH! Oh YEAH! He has a THOMAS in his name.”
So I wonder if President Monson’s other friends ever refer to him by his REAL FULL NAME, Thomas “The Tank Engine” S. Monson.
I couldn’t believe he wasn’t wearing gloves to hold that copy of the Book of Mormon!
A tent sounds like a great idea for the kids. Maybe we’ll try that in April.
Ha, Ha, Ha! You know I’m going to be thinking of that whenever I hear his name now. You’ve corrupted my recall — kind of like when my brother’s kids sang “I Am a Child of God” with the words “has given me an earthly home with parents kind of wierd.” Back atcha!
I love the connections that little boys make!
I remember my kids making the Thomas connection when President Hinckley was still alive. Then you had Gordon, Thomas and James in the first presidency. And even when James was replaced it was with Henry. All names of Thomas trains. My kids know these trains too well, I think. They started to look at all the members of the 12 to see if they too had Thomas names. Most of them didn’t.
Now, if they come up with a train named Dieter then I will really think there is something to this.
Thomas “The Tank Engine” S. Monson. That’s hilarious.
Oh that is too cute! I loved that same talk as well, it was very powerful.
Ha ha!! The train name. That is so hilarious.
That’s funny. He’ll be the train guy ever after.
I always think of the train when I hear the name thomas, but I’ve never put the tank with it. haha. That’s awesome.
And I agree the talk was great and I was thinking how it must be nice to just say “i want that book to hold up with my talk” and you get it. Or something like that.
Your kids crack me up! I would love to meet Magoo one day. I bet he and my Magoo would have some interesting conversations.
That makes me laugh. My baby “Thomas” kinda got his name that way. We had narrowed the names down to Thomas and William….then we gave my oldest son a choice of what he wanted to name his brother. He chose Thomas because it reminded him of the Train.
What a cute story to remember for Magoo.
That is awesome! I couldn’t figure out where it was going.
My response to that talk was pretty much the same as yours. I found it powerful and moving and I’ll never forget his words or how he said them. I also couldn’t help thinking “Shouldn’t he be wearing gloves?” and “There’s no way that’s the real book – they’d never let him wave around such an historical artifact!”
Heh heh heh. I totally thought that same thing about the gloves. Then I decided that apostles must not have body oil on their fingers.
And Seastar–I never realized that the first presidency were trains for so long. Should we lobby for the next train to be Dieter? Because that would be awesome.
Well, he IS right. That’s a smart boy you got there. Hope Wanda is feeling better!
-meream
Bwahaha! I loved the “Thomas the Take Engine” Monson. Don’t know if I’ll ever forget that one! Thank you for sharing.
Funny!!! I think I finally found a way for my little boys to remember the prophet’s name!
I read this and laughed because I thought the same thing about the no gloves handling of that Book of Mormon.
After I left this site I ran across an article in the Deseret News that talks about this very thing, and explains why no gloves. I thought you might be interested.
Have a great day. (enjoy your lovely little baby)
Here’s a link to the story. (added by Kathryn)
I know! He even riffled the pages a little. I guess he’s got access to some strings he can pull!