It's not worth it

You are not going to believe this. We had a baptism yesterday. Yep, Anna Hopp was baptized. I should probably tell you a little more about her since I’ve hardly mentioned her at all. Once upon a time about eight years ago Anna was having a rough time. She heard a knock on her door and suddenly she was being taught the doctrine of Christ to two Sister Missionaries. But it wasn’t time for her to be baptized yet.
Eight years later she found her self in Salt Lake City, Utah to visit family who had recently moved there. During her visit She was determined to achieve one of her dreams: to see the Mormon Church. She marched her husband and step son all around Temple Square taking pictures of the temple, the fountains, the flowers, the statues. One of her favorite experiences was taking a tour of Brigham’s house. At the end of the tour, two happy sister missionaries asked the crowd to take a card and fill out their names and addresses so a DVD about Jesus Christ could be sent to their homes. And what do you think happened? No one took a card…surprised? Not me, but Anna was. “How rude!” She thought to herself, “They just gave us a free tour of this huge house and no one was willing to take a card?” So she took a card. “They won’t be able to find me,” she warned, “because I live way out in the boonies.” But never fear! They sent the Pleasanton Sisters out to find her because out-in-the-boonies is our specialty.
So we found her and taught her a lesson about Joseph Smith, but she didn’t seem incredibly interested, however she agreed that we could come back and so we did. We taught her again and tried to get her to come to church for several weeks, but it never worked out. We had about given up on her three weeks ago after leaving a voice message on her phone inviting her to church just one more time. The next morning at 10am we sat waiting outside the church waiting for our prospective church attend-ers--the 15 minutes before church is a very nerve racking and often very depressing experience, but every week we stand out there waiting in hopeful anticipation. Suddenly we got a call. Rebecca? Janie? Henry? No, it’s Anna. Anna? To be quite honest we weren’t expecting her to call us back let alone come to church, she surprised us and asked if she could come to church even if she was late. Yes you may come and please do! So she came and loved it. The ward made her feel welcome. The next Thursday we drove all the way to Floresville, which is about a 45 minute trip, to teach her again. It was the end of the month and we were running low on miles, but we threw the miles to the wind and had faith that the miles would work themselves out. :) (Side note: the miles DID NOT work themselves out which testified to me once again that faith is principle of belief AND action, not just belief. Oh well. You live, you learn, and then you move on…and then you apply what you learned otherwise the experience is merely another declaration that, yes, that “boing” you keep hearing is wise counsel bouncing off my forehead…all right my theological rant is over.)
So we visited her the following Thursday and she had read the entire gospel principles manual which made for an interesting discussion about the second coming: Apparently Obama is the Anti-Christ? I have no comment. I love being completely oblivious to all news outside of my personal interactions with others. But don’t worry, all the really important news filters down to us: Michael Jackson’s death for instance. Anyways, I need to speed this story up. The next Sunday she came for the whole thing and loved it. We asked her to pray about being baptized next Sunday, she read more of the Book of Mormon, we went on a field trip to the San Antonio temple and sat in the waiting room with her which was Awesome!!! And then poof! She got baptized. Her testimony about the Book of Mormon was shaky and then it was solid as a rock when she had to defend it to her future son-in-law who thought it would be a good idea to pull out an anti-Book of Mormon Book two days before her baptism. It definitely had the opposite effect on her than he was expecting. She pulled out the bible and spent the whole night testifying to the truth and validity of the Book of Mormon. And then we heard Elder Holland’s talk the day of her baptism. Bam!
So her years of study finally flowered into the making of a simple covenant to follow Christ to the end. It was beautiful and she is determined to remain true to that covenant.
Comments on Conference: AMAZING! I don’t know if it’s just my perspective as a missionary, but we sure got a “talkin’ to.” You knew they weren’t messin’ around when the very first talk was Elder Scott’s talk. Bam! I loved Elder Christofferson’s (sp?) social commentary…it was awesome. I totally have fallen into the trap of relying on other people to tell me what is right and wrong instead of learning principles and then figuring it out for myself. I know that over the years I have dabbled a little too far into the “It’s all good” philosophy and have forgotten that my motto instead should be: We’re ALL children of God and because of that, no, it’s not ALL good. Respect the children, discern wisely, and have the courage to say, “It’s not worth it.”