I have a tendency to look at little kids and think they are little. That sounded stooopid. How do I put this? It's easy to disregard what young people are capable of understanding. It's easy to look at adolescents, teenagers as idiots. So many young people are capable and brilliant and already responsible for themselves as they approach God.
I'm not feeling at all articulate tonight. I need sleep. Stay with me. I'll try desperately to make sense.
I've been a ward missionary for 6 months or so now and have been amazed. It has been the coolest experience. One thing on this journey that has surprised me is how many youths are investigators. It never crossed my mind, really, that little kids would be taking the discussions. A lot of times, the family is inactive and the kid wants to be baptized. And sometimes they are from a home with no members and still want to be baptized, their parents allowing it.
This one little kid we are teaching now is 11. He basically is raising himself. He is home alone all day and buzzes to the chapel on his razor scooter for lessons. He wants to be baptized. I was sitting there looking at him thinking... What is this little kid doing? An 11 year old boy making time and effort to learn to pray, learn about all the principles of the gospel? He's so little!
This other little boy the Sisters are teaching comes from an inactive family and is leading his family. He is 9! 9 people! The Sisters gave him some picture Book of Mormon stories to read and he said to us... "No, I've just been reading the real Book of Mormon." He showed us where he had been reading. 9! Reading the Book of Mormon on his own terms, his initiative.
There are two 15 yr. old boys who are friends that are also awesome. They phase, moment to moment, in and out of being immature 15 yr. old boys to men. It's so confusing. One second, they can barely sit through a video because they have the laughs and are making fun of the Jesus actor because he looks like Tom Hanks and the next second one will say something so profound and spiritual. I look at them both and can catch glimpses of their great potential. I can see the men God could make out of them if they let Him. One finished the Book of Mormon and was starting it again. The Sisters asked him why he likes to read it. He said, "It makes me feel good."
Anyways.
Seeing these wonderful little people has been such a great reminder of what kids are capable of. It is natural when we get older to forget kids are capable. In fact, it's the age the Lord loves. Joseph Smith, David, etc.
So back to Lupe, the 11 yr. old. I was staring at him during his lesson, wracking my brain wondering why he was so into it. And I remembered...
I was 11 when I first read the Book of Mormon from start to finish. I was taught in Primary about Moroni's promise (10: 4-5) and I thought, Well that sounds like a good plan to me.
I was upstairs alone in Mom's room the night I finished reading it for the first time. I closed the book and thought for a bit. Well, I guess I'll go pray about it like Moroni said...
I went in my room, knelt down and asked Heavenly Father if the book I just read was true. I had barely uttered the sentence when I was flooded with feelings I had never felt in that degree. Love. Joy. Peace. Rejoicing. Love. Love. Love. I started to weep. I knew Heavenly Father was real and had just answered my prayer. I was big into writing in a journal at that period of my life and wrote about my experience... My heart felt like it was replaced with the sun and sunshine. (Yes, I've always been dorky.) But sunshine it was. Literal, physical light and glory.I didn't really understand at the time that these were the feelings of the Spirit that I would become well acquainted with during my life.
Though I didn't understand much of the Book of Mormon when I read it at 11, I understood the Spirit of it.
If someone (anyone!) reads the Book of Mormon with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, God will manifest the truth of it through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Being with the Sisters and teaching these kids has been such a good reminder. Why is it that we grow up and forget we were once 11? I've been trying to look at all these young whippersnappers with eyes that can see their great capacity. Little bodies have big spirits. Or large capacity.
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