Teaching True Principles

Last night I went to an awesome Enrichment class, where the teacher taught us all about "principles". How to pick out principles from the scriptures, how to teach principles from the church manuals, how to give a talk in church and focus on only a few specific principles, etc. The teacher gave a quote from Joseph Smith that went something like this... "Teach my people correct principles and let them govern themselves." Anyway, I won't give you the whole lesson, but I did come away with a strong impression that I need to take advantage of every teaching opportunity I get, to teach my kids correct principles. So, this had been on my mind, and this morning I was cleaning the house. I told Carson to go clean up the animals in his room, and when I went to see if he was doing it, he came to me and said that he said a prayer so that Heavenly Father could help him clean up his room. (Kind of funny, I thought. I think the kid is so lazy, he thought that saying a prayer would ease his burden of doing his chores at all!) But then suddenly... DING...DING..DING...the lightbulb went on. This was a perfect chance for me to teach him a gospel principle, that normally I might have missed. I let him clean for a minute, then came into his room and sat on the floor and helped him pick up all his toys. He was so excited that I was helping him clean. I took a minute and explained to him that when he said a prayer to have Heavenly Father help him clean his room, that didn't mean that Heavenly Father was going to come do it himself. Instead, Heavenly Father sometimes answers our prayers through other people. For example, this time Heavenly Father gave ME an idea or impression, through the Holy Ghost, to go and help Carson clean up his room. So, I told Carson that his prayer was answered because he got help cleaning his room because I chose to listen to the Holy Ghost when he promted me to go and help. Therefore, Carson's prayer was heard and answered through mommy. I was worried that trying to explain this to a 3 year old was going to be way over his head, but when I was done, Carson just smiled at me and put a hand on his heart and said, "I can feel Jesus in my heart, mom." The spirit was so strong! Even if he didn't quite understand what I was teaching him, the spirit was there, and he recognized it. It was a good experience for me, and I hope that I can always take every chance I get to teach my kids correct principles, so that one day THEY wil be able to make good choices on their own and "govern themselves".