[Originally published October 31, 2011]
You can learn a lot from your kids. Grant spoke in church yesterday, and gave a beautiful talk about what he learned on his mission:
1. Don't be a baby. This is never a bad thing to learn, and generally needs to be learned over and over. And over.
2. Put God first in your life - He is your DAD. No one loves you more, and your prayers should be TALKING to Him. It's so much more than "We thank Thee, we ask Thee...." from Primary.
Grant told a story about a little tiny boy, Tino, the stake president's son, who gave a prayer and kept calling Heavenly Father "Poppy," as he asked Heavenly Father for things that Grant felt that he specifically needed at that time. Grant said he was very grateful to have learned to TALK to His "Poppy" from Tino.
He told about a tiny little outpost of the church, down at the tip of the continent, called the 28th of November (it's cooler in Spanish). He said one member's home was the most holy place he had ever been, besides the temple. He said the man felt his home needed to be sacred, because of being so off the path of any church jurisdiction. Grant said he could feel that the Lord had not forsaken these few saints in this tiny little area, out in the middle of nowhere - that no one in the world may know about them, but the Lord knew about them, and watched over their lives. "For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on ths on of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee, O house of Israel. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me." (1 Nephi 21:15-16). He learned that he is not alone from the 28th of November.
Lastly, Grant told of David and Maria, a family who had a huge trauma befall their family the day after their baptism. He told of counseling David that this event could bring him closer to God, or tear him away from God - but that he, David, would be the one to decide. He said one of the most meaningful moments of his entire mission was watching the change come over David's face as he made the decision to stay with the Lord. He learned to stay with the Lord, through anything that could happen to him, from David.
The last area in Grant's mission was a return to an area where he served very early in his mission. He spoke about how powerful it was to see different people's choices to move closer to the Lord - or not - over that year and a half in between. It reminded me of Alma meeting Ammon and his brothers after their fourteen-year mission to the Lamanites, how overjoyed Alma was at learning that his dear friends were still faithful to their covenants. It was particularly poignant to consider, after hearing about a family who could have been ripped away from their tender, newly-planted gospel roots at the very outset of their planting, but instead, to reach down deep into that soil and cling to their covenants, and to their God.
I love what I've learned and how my faith has been strengthened as I've watched my son serve a mission. I'm sure gonna miss those Monday emails.
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