Last Sunday the missionaries asked if they could stop by in the evening and share a message with us. I had thought that it might be a message about how we needed to share the gospel more with our friends and neighbors. To be honest, I was a little nervous about how Brett might receive a message like that. I accepted their invitation to come over anyway, and was glad that I did.
The missionaries are not able to go tracting (door-to-door) after dark, and because there are still hours in the day where they could do some good, they decided to spend some of that time being a support to the members. They shared a message with us based on 1 Nephi 3:7, about how the Lord will strengthen us to do what he has asked.
The missionaries directed much of their words to the boys, and taught this simple message to them. The boys were participating and interacting well with the missionaries, for the most part.
Occasionally, Ryan would say something random (off-topic, of course) that he thought the missionaries might enjoy hearing about. Sometimes Ryan asked them things like, "Do you want to see my room?" or "Do you want to see this toy that I have?" During this time Ryan was also climbing over and between the throw pillows and generally not sitting quietly, although he was still paying attention. I apologized to the missionaries about these interruptions and asked if they experienced this often. They said they did. I replied that at least Ryan had not shared anything embarrassing yet.
The missionaries concluded the portion of their message directed at the children, then told the boys that they were going to talk to Mom and Dad for a minute and ask them a question about the lesson. Todd quickly piped up, "But don't ask Daddy. He doesn't read the scriptures. You can only ask Mommy. She reads the scriptures, but Daddy doesn't." I laughed and observed, "Well, I guess it wasn't Ryan who said something embarrassing after all." Fortunately, Brett does not get embarrassed that easily and he took it well. We were able to move past the awkward moment quickly and still enjoy the rest of the visit.
What surprised me about our visit with the missionaries was how much the boys really enjoyed it. The next day at preschool Ryan said to his friends, "Do you know who came to our house last night? The missionaries!" I also heard him saying this to his friend Maddie the next day as well as a few other people.
It made me realize that I really need to have the missionaries over more often. They were not in our home for very long, but I was grateful that they chose to spend those few minutes sharing a simple message with our family that Sunday evening.
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