Book of Mormon Bingo brought me joy today. It's no secret that we are a competative family. We like to win. We will go to extreme measures to be the first, best, greatest, at something. When I was growing up, in order to get us to look forward to saying family prayers, my dad came up with a game that the last one in my parent's bedroom (where we said prayers) had to say them. It's not that any of us didn't want to say the prayer, we just didn't want to be the loser. We would go to great lengths to not be the last one in the room. It wasn't uncommon for one or all of us to go away limping, bleeding or bruised. I'm not even kidding. And one time my sister and I were coming home late from a movie, and we turned off the car lights and coasted for about a half mile, parked at the end of the long driveway, then snuck the back way in the pitch black night to the outside door that leads to my parent's bedroom just in order to catch them off guard and ensure that we weren't the last one. We lived in the country, so there was sage brush, trees and wild animals to fight off, so we really were taking our lives into our own hands all for the sake of the win. (in the end the joke was on us, my dad was already in bed because he had an early morning the next day, so we woke him up, and even the quiet reassuring of "it's just a dream Dad, go back to sleep" didn't help much.) I know it sounds irreverent- and totally was. But it got us saying prayers every night, so that's what matters. In fact, it was a great way to keep a handle on teenagers too. My friends actually liked to hang out at my house at night in order to take part in the great family prayer race, and my dates had me home right on time so that they wouldn't have to end up saying the prayer. I think my parents had a pretty good plan now that I think about it...
Anyway, the point is that we like a good competition. I would say it's in our blood, but my kids have it too, so maybe it's conditioning. Whatever the case, we LOVE games and challenges. So when Grandma gave us Book of Mormon Bingo for the twelve days of Christmas, and it just happened to be Family Home Evening tonight, I knew we were in for some fun! And it didn't disappoint. I know bingo seems like a laid back, relaxing (some may even say boring) game. But not when you play with us. We had to amp it up a little and came up with SUPER SPEED POWER BINGO!!! I know, just hearing the name totally makes you want to come over for a game doesn't it? Well, you are more than welcome, but you will have to sign a waver before you get to play because we don't show any mercy. :) Anyway, it made me so happy, I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard with my kids.
I tried to spread the joy by helping one of my best friends, Jenny, get packed up to move. I went to her house with great intentions, but by the time I got there George and Javier (the movers hired by her husbands ritzy new job:) already had things under control. We tried to help them, but they ended up repacking most of the stuff we did, so instead I took her to lunch. That's spreading the joy, right?
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