January-June 1990
I was tired of tending so many children. My neighbor told me about the advantages of getting licensed, so I decided to become a licensed daycare provider.
Once I had met all the requirements, I got my license. I was only allowed to watch 4 children at a time, 6 total, counting my own two kids. Now it was easier for me to say no when people asked me to watch their children.
I charge a $10.00 daily fee, even if they aren’t there. Instead of $1.00 an hour. I also got money from the state to help cover the cost of food. Now I can provide healthier meals.
Being licensed meant I had to take classes. At first, I was annoyed by it because I didn’t want to make time for it. I soon realized these classes were helpful to me. I learned so much about children’s development and about activities to keep them busy. I plan fun things for the kids to do, and it helps me to be excited about what I am doing.
The Young Women can earn a medallion by achieving certain goals. Terry put me in charge of helping the young women earn their medallion. At first, I tried to meet with the young women to help them get started. I didn’t know what the program was about.
How could I get the young women interested in it if I didn’t know what it was all about? I realized I needed to immerse myself in the program. I would do what I could to earn my medallion so I could truly understand the program.
I looked over all the things I could choose from to earn the medallion. One choice was to teach a child two songs. I thought that ought to be simple.
Every day during preschool, I would sing two songs with them until they learned them. I crossed the goal off and thought that was the end of that.
The next day, the kids would ask why we were no longer singing. They all seemed to miss it. I thought that if I could sing well, we could keep doing it, but since I wasn’t confident in my singing, I didn’t want to.
Jared is now 5 years old. A few days later, when I was standing in the kitchen doing the dishes, a song came on the radio. The woman singing had such a beautiful voice! I thought if only I could sing like that, we would have song time every day!
Just then, Jared came running into the kitchen. He said, “Mommy, mommy, do you hear that?!” I thought, yeah, I hear it! Then he said, “You are singing on the radio!” I knelt down and embraced him. I couldn’t help but cry.
Jared was so excited to have heard me on the radio. It was so humbling to me. I realized it wasn’t how good my voice was. It was the time that we spent together singing. From then on, we had song time every day during preschool.
In one of the childcare classes I attended, the teacher asked what we had done with our kids during the week. I shared that I did song time. Song time had become something we all looked forward to.
After class, the teacher pulled me aside. She told me about “Family to Family,” It was making a commercial to encourage women to become licensed daycare providers. She asked me if I would bring my daycare kids to a place where they could film us singing. I was horrified!
I told the teacher I could not sing. She assured me that my voice would not be in the commercial. There would be background music in the commercial, and they would only show us having song time. I agreed to come help make the commercial.
It was exciting! My daycare kids and I were going to be in a commercial! All the parents had to sign a consent form allowing their kids to be in the commercial. I was only in the commerical for a few second. It was still fun to see when it unexpectedly came on TV.
After completing all the requirements in the Young Women’s manual, I earned my Young Women’s Madalion. I was so proud of it!
Young Women’s Theme.
We are daughters of our Heavenly Father Who loves us, and we love Him
We will stand as witnesses of God at all times, in all things, and in all places.
As we strive to live the Young Women’s values, which are
Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good works and Integrity
We believe as we come to accept and act upon these values
We will be prepared to make and keep sacred covenants
Receive the ordinances of the Temple
and enjoy exaltation.
Every Sunday, we recite the Y.W. theme. When I first got called to serve in Y.W. I didn’t know about the theme. Everyone seemed to have it memorised. Since we recited it every Sunday, I finally memorised it. Even though Sarah was so young, I bought a poster of the Y.W. theme and hung it in her bedroom.
One evening when I was putting Sarah to bed, I thought about my mom and how she had treated me and never taught me about the gospel. Then I thought, Sarah was so lucky to have me as her mom! I was going to make sure she had memorised the Y.W. theme before she got into Y.W. I was going to teach her everything!
As I sat in the rocking chair to put her to sleep, I sang a church song. Sarah looked annoyed at me and said, “But up.” I thought what did she say? Did she say shut up? She couldn’t have! We never say that word. She couldn’t have heard it elsewhere.
I was sure I was misunderstanding something, so I kept singing. This time, Sarah looked mad and repeated, “BUT UP!” Yeah, there was no misunderstanding this time. She made it clear that she didn’t want me to sing to her. I thought it was a shame. Here I was so willing to teach her all about the gospel, and she wants nothing to do with it.
This should have been my first clue. I wanted our family to be together forever, so I wasn’t about to give up.
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