Miracles do happen

By: Leslie Smith
After yesterday's email, Brendan and I are wondering what happened to our Jordan? What happened to our son who only a year ago was complaining about having family scripture time with excuses like, "I have too much homework" or "I have to get up really early" or "My friends are waiting for me right now!" etc, etc. And then when he would be asked to say our family prayer his one and only line was always, "But it's not my turn!"

I write this not to dog on Jordan, but to give parents some hope. (Ok, mainly just moms because I doubt there are many dads reading this blog). They do change! It all starts to click and your grumpy teenager turns into a vibrant excited missionary of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Quoting from an email yesterday from my friend Bonnie, she commented "I just love how you can tell when they have really caught fire and their testimonies are growing!! They start telling us to do the things we've been telling them for years!" Now I'm just hoping he'll realize that keeping a clean room/apartment is important too, but that's asking for too much, I know.

Why can't the church have an MTC bootcamp instead of scout camp at least for one summer?!! It would save us so many years of torture! We've really been blessed with good kids though (so far) and haven't had any big issues with any of them. Jordan has just been the one to give us a run for our money with his loudness, his nonstop talking, his wild and crazy antics at inappropriate times and places, his constant busy fingers that loved to torture his younger brother and sister and anyone else that was "in the way." He has always chosen the right, thank goodness, but in his own way. He's loud, stirs up contention in the family, yet very quick witted and funny, can be moody, hot tempered, not teachable AT ALL, a little lazy and stubborn. He's definitely never been our "reverent" child and it's almost shocking to witness his growth in just 7 weeks! Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old (or when he becomes a missionary), he will not depart from it.

His challenge for all of us to read the Book of Mormon by ourselves, either again or for the first time, comes to us from a young nineteen year old who has finally seen the miracle of it in his life. Our ward's Elders Quorum also just recently challenged us to read the Book of Mormon in 90 days starting today, April 1st. I hope that we will all take this opportunity.