We take turns speaking in Sacrament Meeting. We have mostly been recycling old talks we have previously given. Today I'm doing one from 1994 before any of my little chickens hatched. It's about parenthood. Because of course, having no children, I was and expert. Though I was aware that I didn't know much, I had a feeling I knew a lot more than most people I observed. Now 25 years later, I can see my kids actually did all turn out just the way I planned. But I'm guessing, with their valiant little spirits, they made it easy for me.
Part of my talk tells about when I learned I was more important than a duck. I'm sure I have told you the story before--when I was about 4 1/2, my dad found an abandoned duck nest and brought the eggs home and hatched them. The ducklings thought he was their mother, and they followed him around everywhere peeping their way along. But they did not like to go back into their box. One Sunday morning before church, we were trying to gather them up in the front yard. I was hot on the tail of one. I chased him around and around that big tree in the front by the lake. The tree that got blown down a few years back. I can picture the situation perfectly even today. I was crouched over as a ran, reaching down to scoop up the duckling. Then the little guy suddenly stopped, and I watched the toe of my black Sunday shoe flop down right where he stopped. I instantly felt terrible for killing my dad's baby duck. I thought it would be a huge deal to him. But he just said something like, "No big deal. Stuff happens." He wasn't mad. He still liked me. He never gave it another thought. I know now that to him, it was probably like leaving the gold fish outside to catch bugs. But as a kid, at the time, it left a big impression on me that I was pretty important if he liked me so much more than his little duckling.
I have all kinds of plants started for our garden. The secondary water came on yesterday. It's going to be exciting when you get here. But don't think about that yet. Just work and work. But have some fun working, and enjoy things. That's part of the work. It's hard to attract people to something that is no fun.
Love Pop
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I remember you telling me that story! Awwww that is so sweet. Little ducklings are really cute and important in God's eyes, but little boys are even more so. It is great to get lots of speaking practice too during sacrament meeting. What are Grace's talks like? Does she write then herself?
I was telling my companions and the elders in our district about our yard yesterday and about how you bought a tractor and landscaped it and built a rock wall and about the soccer field and all the apple trees. They were in awe. I may or may not have promised an apple to one of them.
Yeah, this work is fun for sure. We are literally meeting with so many people and it is the most I have ever taught on my mission by far. It's so fun to look at the calendar and have 5-8 meetings lined up for the day. Most of them are foreigners. And then when we have a few minutes we are messaging people and setting up more meetings. We met a really cool Italian guy last night. And a Nigerian on Saturday.
Also fun fact, not really for bragging rights or anything, but our mission is the only one in the whole world that didn't send a single missionary home because of the CoVid19 stuff. And we're not just happy campers, but we are getting some really cool stuff done. We are really grateful for our mission president because he definitely had some spiritual foresight in getting us to start using technology to find 6-7 months ago, and because he can be a squeaky wheel when he needs to be.
Love,
Your own duckling
