Nursery

Kulani and I have been the nursery workers in our ward since January. It has been ... interesting. When we were first called, it almost crumbled us. Kulani is the youngest in his family and he is just not around little children very much. I think our first week he got after a girl for choking a little boy, and then the little girl started crying because Kulani spoke to her sternly. Then I made things worse for Kulani by giving him the stink eye. I think we had a spat after church every week for two months. Kulani always ended our spats with, "I'm just going to go to the bishop and tell him to release me," which he never did. But lately, Kulani has really been letting his little light shine. Last week the nursery song leader was out of town, so Kulani led the kids in music. We have this CD with nursery songs on it. Kulani says, "Let's have a good spiritual and sing, 'This Little Light of Mine.'" It's a great song that sounds straight out of New Orleans with a banjo and horns and everything. At the end of the song, I like to sing the high notes as if I'm Michael Scott on The Office when he sings "Happy Birthday." It always cracks us up, and the kids have no clue why we're laughing. This week, Kulani took the lead in watching all the kids. One girl just clung to him. Other kids wanted him to read them books. It was the sweetest thing I'd ever seen and it made my heart melt. Kulani even commented that he was starting to enjoy nursery.

I am in awe of Kulani sometimes. It reminds me of when he first started learning to swim a few years ago. To say he looked like a duck out of water is to be putting it lightly. He saw me doing triathlons, and he just decided he'd do them too. Now he swims smoother and faster than me (not that I swim that fast, but you should've seen him in those early days). When Kulani did the half-Ironman in Hawaii, we thought he may have been hit by a car or something, because he came in much later than he planned. Turned out he got a flat tire and a penalty for throwing out a banana peel. But he didn't quit. As he told his dad later, "My parents didn't raise a quitter." And I'm grateful for that. Marriage isn't for quitters, and neither is nursery.