Sometimes They Make You Very Proud

The kids, that is. Last week the missionaries ate with us and invited us to continue thinking about someone with whom we can share the gospel. (This has been an on-going project for a while. We were going to focus on a part-member family we home taught...until they moved.) This time the approach involved asking us to give a pass-along card to someone.

We accepted the invitation, but the question of "who" was at the fore of my mind. We run with a lot of fellow Mormons, and the people we encounter the most outside of the church are often in situations that are a bit off-limits--I oughtn't give pass-along cards to students who visit during my office hours, for example.

Today's FHE lesson came from Preach My Gospel (a great resource for FHE, by the way), and focused on finding people to teach. In beginning the lesson, I referred to the missionaries' visit and the pass-along card. Rather nonchalantly, Ryan said, "I gave it away today." Huh?! Ryan?! Huh?!

It turns out that Ryan and Isaac took some time yesterday making an invitation to Ryan's baptism for his friend, Michael, from school, and today Ryan gave hime that and the pass-along card (as Ryan put it, "since Michael's in a lower reading group, I helped him read it"). And he didn't make a big deal about it. Here's a thing he knew he wanted to do and a chance to do it, and he did it.

That, more than anything else, is really what I want for my children, that they will recognize the chance to do something good, something selfless and caring, and that they will do it, without worrying about it, without the hesitation that often marks my decision-making, without fanfare or expectation of acknowledgement. They'll just do something good for someone. It's very touching and, for me at least, inspiring.