After a month's worth of nursery lessons on the theme and variation of "Follow the Prophet," church president Thomas S. Monson has cemented his place as a hero in the hearts of our 2- and 3-year-olds.

The tiny children say his name in unison when I hold up his portrait. They've colored the outlines of his loving face in every shade of the rainbow. They've sat on carpet squares for almost 30 seconds at a time to hear his stories.

It was like a rock concert last Sunday when I brought my laptop to nursery and played the two-minute clip from last year's priesthood session of his famous "ear wiggle."

I had three kids on my lap and another with his arms around my neck and the rest standing and jumping as close as possible to watch the screen and hear President Monson's voice.

They giggled and laughed when he wiggled his ears at the climax of his story about the little boy who mimicked his every move from the audience of a stake conference in which he spoke.

"Again," my enamored students begged. So we rewound the clip and watched the prophet wiggle his ears again.

"Follow the prophet," I encouraged and they all attempted to wiggle their own ears – some more successfully than others.

Most reached for their ears and pulled them up and down with their hands. One boy sat very still looking deeply to the right and then to the left trying to catch a glimpse of his own motionless ears. Another concentrated boy had faith in his imagined ear wiggle and proudly proclaimed, "I did it! I did it!"

We concluded our lesson by marching around the room and singing the chorus to "Follow the Prophet."

I hope their testimonies of a living prophet who guides the restored church of Jesus Christ never lose such exuberance.

In an attempt to carry the same message to the adults in my Gospel Doctrine class (my calling during the second hour of church), I had the chance to recently teach lesson 37, "We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet."

It was refreshing to me to take a break from our march through church history and put all elements of the restoration into perspective. I hung the portraits of our 16 latter-day prophets along the half-wall that extends on either side of the pulpit in our chapel. I shared my specific testimony of prophets and then turned the rest of Sunday School over to the class and encouraged short, very brief and very personal experiences to be shared on the topic of living prophets. The next 40 minutes of class listening to more than a dozen participants were some that I'll never soon forget.

One of our 18-year-olds was home for the weekend from BYU and shared her strengthened testimony of President Monson after hearing him speak at a Tuesday devotional.

A visitor shared a story from her family history about a grandfather on the distant branches of her family tree who with his brothers discovered the copper-rich mines on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley. As operations to extract the copper began and riches were inevitable, Brigham Young asked her grandfather to leave the valley and establish another settlement. He followed the prophet, forsook wealth and never regretted the faith he gained in return. A legacy of following the prophet continues in her family.

Other members of our class expressed uniquely crafted gratitude for the work of our prophets to build temples, inspire missionary work, encourage family home evening and obey the law of tithing, to name a few.

Before class, I prayed the spirit would bring stories to the remembrances of our class members that would elicit an undeniable appreciation for the miracle it is to be led by one who communes with Jehovah. My prayer was answered.

While the rest of the world may compare Mormons to lemmings as we follow priesthood leadership, I proudly march in line with my favorite toddlers very grateful to be on the gospel path forged by living prophets.