I obey with exactness

My companion and I read three pages from the Missionary Handbook (also called the White Handbook) every morning at the beginning of our companionship study.  Here is a quote from the White Handbook:

CHILDREN

The following guidelines apply to all missionaries, regardless of age or sex.

Because of increasing legal complexities, be extremely careful around children.  If charges of inappropriate behavior are made, you may find yourself involved in a lengthy court case.  If you are found guilty, you could face a substantial jail sentence and Church disciplinary action.  

As in all other relationships, never be alone with a child.  Avoid any behavior that could be misunderstood or could appear to be inappropriate, including tickling, changing diapers, holding children, and allowing children to sit on your lap.  Never babysit children of any age.  

Here is a story of how I successfully practiced exact obedience to the letter of the law, while still showing a five year-old that missionaries care about him:

We visited Sister Ponthieux and her three children on this past Saturday.  She has a seventeen year-old daughter and two young boys.  The boys are the high-energy ones that I wrote about in the past (in the Itsy Bitsy Spider story).  The boys were relatively well-behaved on Saturday because we were all outside, where they could be high-energy and high-volume.  Caden is the three year-old, and he was playing in the inflatable kiddy-pool.  T.J. is a precocious, creative five year-old and he was playing on the swing.  At one point, T.J. was getting ready to throw a temper tantrum.  I walked up to him, and said, "Well, T.J. I'm not allowed to actually pick you up, but I'm gonna pretend that I'm picking you up like a cannonball."  And so I squatted down, put my arms around an invisible five year-old, and carried a heavy, invisible five year-old for ten feet from the swing set to the play pool, and then I pantomimed dropping him into the play pool, and I made a fairly big splash.  Then I pretended that I was really confused, as if I had lost little T.J.  I asked, "Where did Cannonball Boy go?"  And then T.J. started giggling and trying to escape from me.  We did that whole charade over and over again.  I think it made Sister Ponthieux happy that the sister missionaries were able and willing to make the lesson family-friendly.  And I showed T.J. that he didn't need to seek attention by acting out, but that he could get positive attention by letting adults take care of him and set the terms.  Sister Hartshorn and I talked about the interaction afterward, and we decided that part of why my "ploy" worked was because no one has every played Invisible Cannonballs with him before.  Because Invisible Cannonballs isn't a real game, or at least it wasn't before Saturday!