Why? Because a 3 year old wants to know!

Elizabeth has started full swing with the question "why". I had always heard about it happening from other parents - and wondered how I'd answer some of those hard questions. But I had never heard Elizabeth ask "why" so much until the past couple of days. And it is presenting me with many teaching moments. There are times that I'm not sure exactly how to answer, so I make it up as I go along. Hopefully she is extracting the good parts of my teaching and only remembering those things I say which are most effective :-)

Anyways, I wanted to share a conversation that Elizabeth and I just had when I put her to bed tonight. We went to say her prayers, but we hadn't had our family prayer yet, so she suggested we wait for Daddy to come in so he could pray with us. Then she said, "Daddy loves prayers, doesn't he?" I said "yes". Then she asked, "Why do we pray?" So I explained to her that we pray so that we can talk to our Heavenly Father. She asked, "Who is Heavenly Father?" I told her that he is our Father who lives up in Heaven and explained a little more about Him. Then she went into some questions about heaven. (Whew, at this point I was just feeling glad that I remembered something from my mission :-) I explained to her that we once lived with our Heavenly Father - before we came to earth to live with our families - and that we came to earth so we can learn to be good and be like Jesus and return someday to live with Heavenly Father again. She asked if her friends had lived with Heavenly Father, too, and I answered that they had. Then she said, "I want to go to heaven with my friends. Heavenly Father has toys, you know. I want to go up there and play with my friends and the toys in heaven." She then quoted a line from the book, "Curious George Visits a Toy Store" - "Balls, dolls, bicycles and games FILLED the shelves!" Yes, Elizabeth. I imagine that Heavenly Father has the best set-up of anyone!

Anyways, it was precious. I look forward to the next "why" conversation! Just hope I can come up with some good answers!!!! I'll post pix from our Chicago trip soon.