honesty

in our primary lesson this week, we talked about how road signs and commandments are alike - they both keep us safe; they both guide us to our destination and they both can be reassuring - knowing that we can follow them.

later in the lesson, we discussed how obeying the commandments makes us happy, while disobeying the commandments will make us sad.

in trying to drive this last point, i told a famous family story - one that makes my kids laugh every time they hear the words, "when i was in 4th grade."

i realized i haven't shared this story on the blog yet, so i figured i'd share it today.

when i was in 4th grade, the school parking lot was made of gravel.  it wasn't as big as it is today.  in fact, the parking lot was only as big as the blue shaded box.

well, one day at recess, i was playing on the outside basketball court and i saw this rock from the parking lot.  i picked it up and decided to throw it back into the parking lot.

when i threw it, i bounced off the concrete basketball court and straight into mrs. betts' car head-light (about where the white box is).  my heart sank.

i quickly left the crime scene hoping no one saw it.  but at least one kid saw it and told the teacher on duty.

all this happened on a friday - the day my dad (who was also a teacher in the same school district) picked up his pay check.

when he got home from work that day, he came into my room and began asking me what i did at recess.  i told him everything ... except the part where i threw a rock into mrs. betts' head-light.  well, after all that hiding the truth, i figured he already knew what happened and so i ended up telling the whole truth ... i was in sobs of tears at this point.

my dad then told me i had to earn the money to pay for the repairs ... i spent a lot of the weekend and the following week out in the weed-field next to our house - picking up trash.

on monday, when i went back to school, i had to screw up the courage to tell mrs. betts.  now, mrs. betts was the meanest teacher in the school.  we called her mrs. butts because she smoked and would constantly cough.  when i told her what i did and that i was sorry, she accepted my apology.

it's difficult to tell the whole truth sometimes.  but by hiding the truth and then later telling the whole truth, well, that's even more difficult.  so in the long run, it's best to tell the whole truth.