Hyrum: My Example

For Family Home Evening today, I shared with Joy and Hyrum Pres. Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk from the priesthood session of General Conference on patience. (You can already listen to it here.)

I told them about some research I had heard about before. Children were put alone in a room with a marshmallow and told they could eat it now if they wanted, or if they waited 15 minutes they could have a second marshmallow. The 30% of the children who didn't eat had happier families, higher incomes, fewer incredibly foolish decisions, and were in general better developed human beings than those who were impatient. You can watch the children trying to be patient (or not) here.

I told Hyrum there are two ways to be patient, which I acted out. One 'patient' was whiny, squirmy, tapping my watch, groaning, and frustrated. I call this 'trying to be patient.' The other patient was happy and found something else to do while I waited happily. This was 'being patient.'

I asked Hyrum if he wanted to be patient? Yes, came the response. Okay, let's practice.

I told him if he waited, he could play with his microphone. He waited very patiently while I counted to 10, and squirmed out of my lap but stopped short of grabbing the microphone while I counted to 20. I told him he could take the toy and sing into it. He tried singing for the first time.

He then put the microphone down and told me he wanted to "wait again."

This time I counted to 30 (probably around a minute). He was fine up to 20, which he expected, and squirmed around the last 10 seconds. But again, he held out and got to play with his microphone.

What a son! A son who asks to "Wait again!" While he played, Joy and I discussed the rest of the talk and how much we have to learn.