The Chocolate Bar

I was asked to tell the primary a little about our  mission assignment to South Africa, June 24,2012.  I visited primary the whole morning.  At the end of the day when the birthdays were announced 11 year old brother D was asked to come up.  Mention was made that he had been waiting for this day and when he chose his gift from the birthday basket, he did not want the pencil, but chose the Hershey’s chocolate bar with a “choose the right” wrapper on it.  His smile was big as he took his seat after a birthday song.  At the end of closing exercises it was my turn to talk.  I showed a map and talked of where we would go. I had some pictures around the map showing primary children and one showing a metal hut structure where some of the children might live and also pointed out how clean the surrounding dirt was.  I then related the following story after showing a small white box with two Rollos in it.

Sunday continues to be our favorite day of the week.  In Primary, Sister L has given all the children mirrors with the words “Jesus loves you” taped on the glass.  They were so excited and were entertained for the 2 hours they were in Primary just by looking at themselves.  Two weeks ago she gave them each a treasure box with 2 chocolates in each box.  The message was “The gospel of Jesus Christ is a treasure”.  During the preceding week, the mother of one the 9 year old boys in our Primary suddenly died.  Obviously, the little boy was not in class that Sunday and the Primary President asked Sister L if she could take a treasure box to the little boy.  Of course, Sister L handed her a treasure box.  When the children heard that Sister M was going to visit him, they all took their candy out of their treasure boxes and gave it to Sister M to take to him.  Because these children never get chocolate, it was a moving experience for all of the adults.

I closed my remarks and showed the children a wooden box with Rollos in it and invited the children to stop on their way out of primary and get a Rollo to eat. 

Brother D stopped on his way out of primary and said “Could I trade my chocolate bar for one of those?  Then would you give my chocolate bar to a child in Africa?”  I replied, “ Of course, I will try my best.  What a kind thing to do D.”