Lesson in Whispering

Today in church, Cam was very restless, sitting on my lap and wondering when we were going to nursery....every five minutes, wondering when we were going to nursery. Everything he said was very loud, considering the setting, and despite how I modeled whispering, he just would not whisper. We were sitting behind a nice looking family....three kids, new baby, husband and wife. The whole family was your typical Utah family, except for the dad. He was obviously a second marriage and was African. Not African-American, actually directly from Africa. You could tell he was African. So, needless to say, he had a very dark, rich color of skin. Cam finally noticed this and suddenly said, in his largest NON-whisper and with a dramatic pointing finger,

"Momma, why does that man have a black face??"

...I quickly whispered to him that there were all different kinds of people in the world and he was from a different country so he had different color of skin. I also then prayed that the nice man had not heard Cam and been offended. Of course, people sitting five rows in front of us probably heard Cam. Rhett just looked at the floor and shook his head and we periodically covered our faces and exchanged mortified glances.

When sacrament meeting was over, I introduced myself to this family and found out that the man's name was Ephraim and he was from Togo and the sweet, little darling in pink striped tights he was holding was Amira, his first child with his new wife, two months old. Now, for those of you who do your current events reports, you know that Togo (as well as many other African countries) has had a lot of flooding the past few months and hundreds of thousands of people have become homeless and displaced. So I tried to make nice and ask him about his family back home and the flooding and just hoped that he wasn't offended by Cam's outburst. I mean, he really shouldn't have been offended, because that's just a child's way of noticing difference, but too bad Cam couldn't have said it in a more politically correct way, since I have been coaching him in that area (NOT). His wife, Jennie, was very nice and we sat with them in Sunday School and found out that they just live a few doors down from us.

So my point in telling you this story is to:

a. Educate you on the natural disasters in Africa.
b. Show you how children can innocently be socially incorrect and remind you to not be embarrassed.
c. Let you know that the Moschetti's are not entirely inactive; we still do make it to church most of the time (ON time is another story...).
d. Encourage you to meet someone new.
e. Remind you how important whispering practice at home can be.
f. Comment on the social tragedy of the lack of diversity in Utah.
g. All of the above.

I don't know the correct answer - you pick one.

PS For those of you who may have failed Geography....