Fact: I've decided that the idea of "growing up" is a delusion. Why? Because you gain ALL sorts of experiences but you still don't feel "grown up." You still get scared, you still miss your parents. You still come across crazy obstacles that you have to turn to others for help. You still make TONS of mistakes and you still have TONS of questions for Heavenly Father! So why are we always telling kids to "grow up?" WE certainly haven't. Or why are we telling them to act their age? Who says they AREN'T? Instead we really just teach to rely on the principles of the gospel and the teachings of Jesus Christ to help them and ourselves, grow. Not grow UP, but grow CLOSER to our Heavenly Father and the Savior. Only then will children, and adults, be polite, kind, loving, patient, charitable, and virtuous.
Ok, that was my Epiphany of the week :) Now, for a cool story!
So in November I had this guy come in the Visitors' Center with his girlfriend, he's like 70 and she's like 60 and they'd been living together for 20 yrs+ and he hadn't met with missionaries in over 30 yrs, but he really liked the church and wanted to join but he's a chain smoker and (again) lived with his girlfriend, and just all these other things. So I handed him the Book of Mormon and told his to read it and pray about it!
A week and a 1/2 later I went to Maui and never got to input his information. So when I came back I had Elder McDonough look through EVERY guest card he still had to find the one from Me and sis. Christensen so I could follow up with them all, and low and behold he was in there. Called him up, he totally remembered me, and guess what? Christmas eve he quit smoking, Dec 27th he got married, and now he's quitting coffee, and he's training this girl at work to take his place on Sunday so he can come to church, AND he was 3/4 the way through the Book of Mormon! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! SO EXCITING!!!!! And I called up the Elders in his area and was like, "Ok, so here's the thing, I'm about to hand you over a HUGE present, and you HAVE to be good to it!" And once I told them the whole story (he had FINISHED the Book of Mormon byt he time I'd contacted the Elders) about him they were like, "........wow........ok.......uh.......WOW" hahahahaha And they followed up with him and now he has a baptismal date of May 18th! YAY!!!!!!!!!!! My first VC baptism! I'm so stoked! I hope everything goes well!
Well I love you all and I hope everyone's finals/spring breaks/life, went/are going well! LOVE YOU! Work hard! Pray always!
Sister Bradley
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