One of my friends posted this article on Facebook today.  I didn’t get through reading all of it because as I got through the first few sections I had so many thoughts flooding my mind that I needed to stop reading and finish my own pondering.  In particular this is what she said that really stuck out to me –

In my religion, we classify these decisions as “sins” but I’m going to use a different word. I want you to see sin differently. That is the reason I am being open and honest about this. Let’s talk about sin in a more realistic way. Sin is Pain. Over the past four years  I decided to put myself through a lot of pain. This pain kept me from the temple; a place where I found so much peace and all of a sudden I was not allowed to go inside, let alone publicly pray in my own congregation… Sin really is pain. It causes pain. So let’s be more compassionate about how we look at pain because most of us are feeling a lot of it and it’s hard to find that motivation and love for ourselves so that we can allow the pain to heal and go away

I really liked her modified definition of sin as being pain.  I think too often as a church we tend to think of sin as bad things that people do that are detrimental to others.  But the truth is that most sin is most harmful to the person committing the sin, not to anyone else.  There’s a scripture that I stumbled upon several years ago that has changed my view of the gospel.  It was Doctrine & Covenants 59:4 and it reads (with my added emphasis) –

And they shall also be crowned with blessings from above, yea, and with commandments not a few, and with revelations in their time—they that are faithful and diligent before me.

When I read that I think my jaw literally dropped.  Crowned with commandments?  Wait, you mean like the commandments are something we should want in our lives?  The whole idea up front seemed absurd to me.  Commandments were things we were told to do or not to do, they restrict us and make our life difficult.  The whole challenge of life is to keep the commandments and that’s hard… isn’t that the point?  Suddenly though I understood the commandments differently.  We don’t get blessed for keeping the commandments – the commandments themselves are the blessing.  I don’t know why this hadn’t occurred to me before, but after reading this it seemed so obvious.  Of course the commandments are blessings!  What are we taught in 2 Nephi 2:25?

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

If God’s whole purpose is to help us to obtain a fullness of joy then it makes perfect sense that the commandments are meant to bring us joy, not to restrict us or cause us pain.  I guess in some sense I’d understood that.  I knew that I was happiest when I kept the commandments.  I knew that the results of the commandments made me happy but I hadn’t made the connection that it was directly the commandments that made me happy.  I guess I’m really thick but that took me awhile to really understand.

I was thinking on that with an experience that my little brother is going through right now.  In the last few years he’s made some choices that have not always been in keeping with the teachings of the church.  I don’t want to share too much of his story because I don’t feel it’s mine to tell, but as a result he eloped a couple years back and wasn’t able to be sealed to his wife on his wedding day or have a traditional wedding.  However, in the time since then he and his wife have worked together and gotten themselves to a place where they are going to be able to be sealed in a couple of weeks.  Since they didn’t have any sort of traditional wedding the first time around my parents have decided to celebrate their sealing day like they would have liked to have celebrated their wedding day under different circumstances.  We’ll be going as a family to the temple, taking pictures, and having a reception-like party in the evening.  Whatever you’d expect as part of a regular wedding celebration we’re trying to do for their sealing, because this choice and the journey they’ve made is a big deal.

I’ve heard the attitude this is inappropriate.  That they missed out on that opportunity to have a reception because they chose to elope and that this is *not* a wedding and we shouldn’t be treating it like it is.  I think these people don’t understand this concept of sin as being pain.  Yes, I felt slighted to not be a part of my brother’s wedding the first time around.  But you know who was really caused the most pain from that decision?  My brother, not me.  His decision didn’t take anything away from my wedding day with Eric, or make it so that our experience of being celebrated on that day was any less.  His decision didn’t take away from the way that I was able to start my marriage with eternal covenants with the man I love.  The decisions and sacrifices I made to do things the “right” way the first time around have brought me JOY, and lots of it.  I wouldn’t trade them for the world.  He only took those things away from him himself.  There are plenty of ways that he has already cheated himself and had to go through a lot of pain to get to the place that he is right now.  You know who knows that best?  My brother.  So, now that he’s gone through all of that pain and suffering, why would I want to deny him any part of the blessings that I was able to enjoy?

Why do we insist on the attitude of the righteous brother from the parable of the prodigal son?  He chose to remove himself from the celebration because it wasn’t fair that his father was celebrating his unrighteous son’s return in a flashier way than the steady righteousness of his other son.  But what do we learn in that parable from the Savior himself?  In Luke 15:31-32 we hear the response of the father –

And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.

The righteous son hadn’t missed out on any blessings, he already had all that his father had.  But for some reason he felt slighted that his father would celebrate the other son’s return to the fold.  I think many of us still hold that same attitude.  I think as a church, and as people in general we need to stop thinking that we need to punish people for their sins, or make them realize what they missed out on.  We need to realize that sin *is* its own consequence.  God doesn’t need us to judge people or make them feel less than worthy, he needs us to love each other and celebrate when we do something right.  In President Uchtdorf’s most recent conference address he extended this invitation:

To those who have separated themselves from the Church, I say, my dear friends, there is yet a place for you here.

I think the subtext to those who have been faithful members in the church is – make that place.  Do everything in your power to make those who haven’t always been on the straight and narrow feel loved, accepted and welcomed.  Do not make them feel ostracized for the things they’ve done wrong – they already know!  No one in this church, or on this world for that matter, is perfect.  So don’t feel like you need to make it any worse for someone because of their particular failings.  You know your own shortcomings and I doubt anyone needs to tell you of the pain they cause you.  So please don’t exacerbate anyone else’s pain by making them feel unworthy of the blessings they’ve worked so hard for.  It may not be the same way that you got there but it doesn’t make their journey any less valid.  In the words from another favorite talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland –

Why should you be jealous because I choose to be kind?”

The next time you feel slighted because someone is getting a blessing that you feel maybe they don’t deserve or haven’t worked or sacrificed for the way you did, I want you to apply President Uchtdorf’s iconic advice from Conference of April 2012–

 Stop it!

Choose to love others and to be grateful for the commandments that you’ve been blessed to keep.  Be grateful that you didn’t have to go through the pain of sin that others have had to go through, and rejoice for those who have made their way back into the fold.

Today my brother Cody enters the Missionary Training Center for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to begin his two year mission preaching the gospel in Spanish to the people in the area of Morristown, New Jersey.  I am so proud of him.  In the picture above you’ll see over 80 muffins that I made in honor of my little brother receiving his mission call.  Ever since I can remember my brother has had the nickname “Cody Muffin”, so making muffins for his mission call opening party seemed appropriate.  I don’t know why we call him Cody muffin, but the name stuck.  He even has a song that goes along with this nickname.

Cody Muffin (sung to the tune of the Indiana Jones theme song)

Cody muffin, Cody boy

Cody muffin, Cody muf-fin boy

Cody muffin, Cody boy

Cody muffin, the muffin, the muffin of boy

Yes, we’re very creative lyricists in my family 😛  As he was playing basketball in high school this nickname spread as they called him “The Muffin Man” and we’d joke about “Do you know the Muffin Man?”  But the nickname itself isn’t what I wanted to write about.  As I was making several dozen muffins for my brother I realized that me baking muffins for Cody is nothing short of a miracle and I wanted to share with you the miracle of the Cody muffins.

When my mom was pregnant with Cody she started having severe pain in her stomach when she was about 6 months along.  She went to her doctor a few times and the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with her so he sent her home saying “Well Mrs. Anderson, pregnancy can cause pain sometimes.”  This rather ticked my mom off as this was her fourth pregnancy; she pretty well knew that pregnancy could cause pain, and that this particular pain was NOT normal.  Finally the doctors figured out that she had a kidney stone, and not just your regular run-of-the-mill kidney stone, but a stone that was about 1cm in diameter.  In terms of kidney stones that was a veritable boulder.  She couldn’t pass it normally and they couldn’t do anything about it surgically until after the baby was born.  So she was stuck for the last three months of her pregnancy with this extreme pain that they couldn’t do anything about.  They put her on codeine and bed rest for the last few months of her pregnancy.  We joke that Cody is so named for the codeine that made it so our mom could continue her pregnancy without dying in pain, but my parents insist they had liked the name before my mom was given the drug.  During that time my family was so blessed by our friends and neighbors who helped take care of us.  I remember there was one lady who would come over and make me a lunch to take to school every day.  I don’t actually remember if she came over every day or what but she would always make me a ham sandwich.  To this day I still don’t care for ham sandwiches and I attribute that dislike to an overabundance of ham sandwiches at that time.  But I now realize more clearly what a simple but incredible act of service that was for her to make my lunch every day so my mom could take care of herself at this time.

Finally on 19 December 1993, Cody Allen Anderson was born, 3 weeks before his due date.  He had some difficulties at first so he was placed in the NICU until he was strong enough to come home.  After coming home my mom could tell that Cody had difficulties she hadn’t seen with her other children.  He would break out in hives and had a very difficult time breathing.  The doctor put him on Nutramagen, a special hypo-allergenic formula that was very expensive but kept Cody from having these reactions.  My mom knew he had allergies, but the conventional wisdom at the time was that people didn’t develop allergies until they were at least 2 or 3 years old, so my mom couldn’t even get a referral to an allergist from Cody’s doctor.  When they finally did get him in Cody was diagnosed with some severe allergies and asthma.  There were three things that Cody absolutely could not eat or he would need to be hospitalized almost immediately – eggs, milk and peanuts.  His airways would close up and he would go into anaphylactic shock.  My mom started having to carry around an epi-pen in case of any severe reactions and even though it was only the mid-90s, my parents were early adopters of cell phones so that they could be reached any time in case Cody had a reaction to something.  Cody was also more mildly allergic to a wide variety of other things – wheat, rice, soy, corn, grass, dust, mold… you name it.  In other people they would have considered these to be substantial allergies, but compared to his trifecta of anaphylactic allergies these were almost disregarded.  Feeding Cody was a very difficult task because so many basic things were off limits.  He ended up most of the time eating things that he *was* allergic to, but not as severely as the major allergies because there was so much off limits that it was hard to find something that worked.

A good example of Cody’s allergies – for his first birthday my mom realized that she wouldn’t be able to make him a birthday cake.  So instead of cake she opted to make him some red Jell-o.  However if you look at the pictures of Cody’s first birthday you’ll notice he has dark circles around his eyes and some hives.  We found out that day that Cody was allergic to Red 40, a common dye in many foods.

As the years went on we got used to living with Cody’s food allergies.  We became experts at reading food labels and knowing that dextrose meant that there was milk inside (this was before the advent of common allergens being listed out separately and clearly at the bottom of the labels).  One of our favorite Cody allergy stories happened when Cody was 4.  My mom found him walking around eating a peanut butter chocolate chip granola bar, an obvious choice for something Cody could NOT have (remember anaphylaxis for peanuts and milk?).  She told him to hand it over, that he couldn’t eat it, and Cody told her “Don’t worry mom, Zach checked the ingredients!”  Zach, of course, was Cody’s best friend, who was at the time 3 and obviously had no reading capabilities and certainly was not a qualified choice for an ingredient checker.

Of course, being limited in what he could eat was difficult on his little growing body.  Despite having great athletic talents Cody wasn’t growing and developing as quickly or healthily as we’d have liked.  He was cheerful and a delight to be around, but he constantly had Benadryl in his system making him tired and not as capable as he would have liked.

When Cody turned 8 he was baptized, as most children in our church are.  After the baptism our dad had the privilege of laying his hands on Cody’s head to confirm him a member of the church and give him the gift of the Holy Ghost.  At this time it’s also customary for the person performing the confirmation to give a blessing to the person who has just been baptized.  As my dad was giving this blessing he suddenly stopped speaking.  He had a really long pause and we all started furtively looking around the room wondering what was going on.  Then, my dad started crying and we were really wondering what was happening.  Then he pronounced in his blessing that the allergies that had plagued his body for so long would no longer affect him the way they had.  There was a collective jaw drop and a sort of stunned moment for everyone there.  Typically blessings of this magnitude are not part of a confirmation, usually more general knowing the love of our father in heaven, being a good example to siblings, maintaining righteousness etc.  Not that those aren’t awesome blessings as well, but they don’t have the same sort of effect.  Everyone in that room knew about Cody’s allergies, heck, pretty much anyone who had ever met Cody knew about his allergies and it was an incredible thing for him to have been blessed with.

After the baptism day we all went home and pondered this declaration of healing.  It’s something we all knew and believed was possible, but not something we were expecting to witness that day.  Ironically, before the baptism I remember my parents discussing how they weren’t sure how prepared Cody was for baptism.  He’s not a super deep kind of guy, and that started from when he was pretty young.  What you get from Cody is pretty much all surface level.  Which isn’t a bad thing, I think what you get right there at the surface is pretty awesome, but he’s not one to go and sit and ponder on the things of the universe.  My parents weren’t totally sure that he’d done the sort of thinking about this choice as they thought it would merit.

The next day was a fast Sunday and we agreed as a family that we would fast to figure out the meaning of this great blessing.  The blessing hadn’t been that he was completely healed of his allergies but that they wouldn’t affect him as they had.  So we all fasted the next day.  We decided that what we would fast for was that if what the blessing meant was that he really could eat just whatever he wanted that he would have a desire to eat the foods.  That might sound silly, a kid who has been refused these things all his life and we’re asking that if he *wants* to eat them that’s an answer?  But you have to understand, these foods could have killed him the day before.  Only a week or so previously he had accidentally touched some ranch dressing at a class party and despite having the dressing washed right off he had hives breaking out all up and down his body.  The idea of eating something like that was incredibly frightening.  It would be like wanting to eat ice cream laced with cynide.

At the end of the day as we were breaking our fast Cody came up to my mom with a container of yogurt and asked my mom if he could eat it.  She asked him if he wanted to, which he said yes to and so she let him eat it.  I’d like to say that we all had perfect faith at that point and didn’t think too much of it, but the truth is that we all took mental note of where the epi-pen was, calculated how much Benadryl he would need and considered whether or not we should just hop in the car right away to go to the hospital.  But as we watched him with great trepidation… nothing happened.  We watched for the hives that we knew so well to break out – nothing.  We listened for his asthmatic breathing to get really bad – it didn’t.  We looked for any sign that we were wrong to have believed that this could happen – and we came up empty.  Cody truly had been healed in a way that can be described as nothing short of miraculous.

Later Cody told my parents that as he was under the water being baptized he’d had the thought that if baptism could wash away his sins then it could wash away this trial from him as well.  We also found out that his sweet best friend Zach had been praying every night that Cody could get better from his allergies.  Oh the faith of little children!

The few weeks following Cody’s baptism were nothing short of a celebration for those who knew what had happened.  That night we attended a baptism for a young woman who had recently converted to our faith.  Afterwards they had the traditional open house with different refreshments.  The mother of the young woman noted to a family friend afterwards, “There was a little boy there who looked so happy, you’d think he’d never had a cookie before in his life!”  Little did that mom know at the time, he really hadn’t had a cookie before in his life.  Different friends called dibs on taking Cody out for different firsts.  His first cheeseburger, his first ice cream, his first time eating scrambled eggs.  His descriptions for the different foods were mind blowing, things that we take so much for granted were a whole new world for him.  It was an incredible experience.

In the years that have followed we’ve come to better understand why Cody was blessed that his allergies wouldn’t affect him the way they had rather than that he was completely healed.  While the foods that were so toxic to him before have diminished, there are still a very few things that can cause him the same distress as before, mainly almonds and walnuts.  He still has some minor asthma and is allergic to cats, but comparatively this is NOTHING when viewed in light of what his problems once were.

So the miracle of the Cody muffins?  A few months ago I had the privilege of making muffins for Cody – with eggs, milk, flour and all kinds of things that once would have killed him – and he was able to eat them.  When Cody was younger the prospect of him going on a mission was pretty grim.  The chances of him ingesting something lethal and not getting the care he needed in time by the time he was 19 were extremely high.  But beyond that, how could someone with the difficulties he had go and spend most of his time outdoors among dust, pollens and molds while going door to door to preach the gospel?  How could he leave an environment where a very controlled diet kept him alive to go eat at the homes of different members eating whatever might come his way?  The little 8 year old Cody would have been disqualified from serving a traditional mission based on his health.  I cannot express what a great miracle I was blessed to witness and how grateful we are as a family for it.  I’m so grateful for and proud of my little brother – his faith, his personality and his commitment to serve.  We’ll certainly miss him, but he’s going to be a great missionary.

Note: I wrote the outline for this back in June, when April’s conference talk was obviously much more on my mind.  However, finishing off this post apparently took a backseat for awhile and I only just re-discovered the draft.  Please accept my apologies for being so delayed in posting this.

In April’s General Conference President Uchtdorf related a story at the beginning of his talk of a mother who had requested that he speak on a particular subject.  She had two children who were estranged from one another and she wrote to President Uchtdorf  saying that if he would just speak on a particular topic that her children would be reconciled.  President Uchtdorf said that among other things that letter had prompted him as to what to speak about.  He also said before beginning his talk “Dear sister, I pray that the Spirit will touch your children’s hearts.”

I was so touched that of the multitude of topics he could have chosen to speak on, to a church of millions of people, this good man directed his comments to one particular sister and her two children.  I felt like the request was a bit audacious to feel like your children’s fight warranted the intervention of someone of such standing who doubtless had many other things to do.  However, I was more impressed with President Uchtdorf’s fulfillment of the request, regardless of audacity.

Tonight we read the book of Enos.  In this single chapter book we read of a man’s prayer for his nation, his enemies and other things.  One of the particular things Enos requests is the preservation of his people’s records.  I couldn’t help but think, what if the only reason we have the Book of Mormon today is that this one man had the audacity to ask the all-powerful, all-seeing, surely busy God to look out for the things he and his people had written?  Surely he could have thought – if the Lord wants our records preserved, he’ll preserve them and I don’t need to ask for it.  But he didn’t.  Rather than just seeking for his own personal forgiveness and things that he could control, he put his faith in God and had the faith that his own requests – however small or insignificant – were being heard by one who has the power to fulfill those requests.

In the Bible Dictionary we read –

“Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work, and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings.”

What if Enos had neglected to perform that work and because of that we didn’t have the Book of Mormon today?  Perhaps the simple prayer of this one man have since affected millions of lives.  What if that one woman hadn’t taken the time to ask President Uchtdorf to speak to her children?  Perhaps this wonderful talk, which is so needed in our day, wouldn’t have been given.  Maybe we would have heard more about airplanes, or something else.  I’m sure whatever else President Uchtdorf could have spoken on would have been wonderful, but perhaps not this often quoted, well beloved talk that we were blessed with back in April.

This made me wonder, what blessings am I being denied simply because I don’t have the faith to ask?  I have a new resolve to strengthen my prayers and pleadings in behalf of those I care about, our nation and our world. I think our prayers have more power and import than we realize and we need to be diligent in using it to benefit the world.

So if you were listening to General Conference this morning you heard a most amazing announcement.  *Spoiler alert!  If you haven’t listened to this morning’s session you might want to hear this from the prophet before you hear it from me 🙂 *  They changed the eligible missionary ages for young men from 19 to 18 and for young women from 21 to 19.

I was stunned when I heard this news.  At first the focus for me was for those young men, what a difference that age change makes for them.  They can now go on their missions straight out of high school instead of having that awkward year between graduating high school and going on a mission where their lives are somewhat on hold while waiting for the next thing.  It made me think of  my little brother who just received his mission call, but if this change had been made sooner he likely would have left sometime this summer instead.  I also thought of a young man that got lost in that year between 18 and 19 and has now made some life choices that have changed his life forever.  I wondered if his life might have been different if he’d had the option to leave a year sooner.

Then when they announced the age change for the sisters I didn’t really know what to think.  A large part of me was elated for the sisters that will be able to go on a mission.   But I couldn’t help but think, “why couldn’t this change have happened 10 years ago?”

Let me give you some background on me.  When I was a little girl I lived in a ward that had sister missionaries.  I *loved* those sister missionaries.  They were the coolest people ever in my opinion and I wanted to be just like them.  As I was growing up whenever primary teachers or Sunday school teachers or whoever would ask “Who’s going to serve a mission” my hand would shoot up as one of the first.  I always wanted to serve a full-time mission.

As I graduated high school all of my guy friends were preparing for missions and I was completely jealous of them.  I’d heard that daughters of mission presidents got an exception that they could serve missions early and I started hoping that my dad would get called as a mission president.  I took mission prep classes in my ward and at BYU, I read books and studied as best I could so I could one day serve a mission.  Everyone told me that I would never make it that far, that I’d be one of those girls who got married my freshman year, but I wanted to serve SO badly.

At the end of my junior year of college I had the decision to make, in November I would finally be turning 21 and I could finally actually put in my mission papers.  I got my mission papers and filled them all out so that I could be ready.  As I was getting prepared to turn them in I stopped and prayed about my decision.  I can remember what the place looked like where I prayed about this decision, I was looking at a huge grassy field and praying about what I should be doing in the next couple years.  I had a year left of schooling, and after  three years of schooling I’d finally found my niche at BYU, so of course the decision was a bit harder.  But I still wanted to serve a mission.  The answer I received then was that it wasn’t the right time for me to serve a mission and that I needed to wait another year.

During that next year I met, dated, got engaged to and married my wonderful husband.  I’m glad that I was able to be in the right place at the right time to make the most important and best decision of my life.  I truly think that one of the major reasons, if not the reason, I wasn’t supposed to serve a mission at that time was so that I could be at the right place  at the right time to marry the amazing man that I did and so that we could start our family.

However, had the opportunity to go been available to me at age 19, as I so desperately wished it could have been at the time, there isn’t a question in my mind that I would have gone.  When I heard today’s change in policy I was stunned for a little while.  Then, as I took my baby upstairs to nurse him, I laid down in my bed and cried.  I feel like my hopes and prayers for that opportunity for mission service were answered… but too late for it to do me any good.  It would be a lie to say that, while I’m ecstatic for the young women who can take advantage of this opportunity, there’s a part of me that cries out, “why couldn’t it have been me?”  I don’t at all regret my decision to forgo a mission in favor of marrying my husband.  Not even a little bit.  Starting a family is the most important thing I believe I will ever do in my life and I am grateful for the opportunity.

But at 19 my life looked totally different than it did at 21.  At 19, I wasn’t at all ready to settle down and start a family.  I still had things that I wanted to do with my life and experiences to have.  I wanted to explore the world and do lots of things.  A mission was exactly what I wanted to be doing and I would have gone in a heartbeat.  There isn’t a single doubt in my mind that had that option been available to me then that I would have gone and served a mission.

At 21 though, things start looking different.  At 21 I had to look and realize that most of my guy friends were home from missions, and starting to look at getting married and starting the next part of their lives.  If I left for a year and a half at 21, then I wouldn’t be returning home until I was nearly 23.  Within Mormon culture those are fairly prime marrying years, they’re the years where a young woman is still approximately the same age as the young men who have recently returned from their missions.  At 23 the main pool of eligible young men has dwindled significantly and it’s much more difficult to find the kind of person I would want to be marrying.

Also, at 19 I was nowhere near finding my niche.  Actually my 19th year was one of the hardest of my entire life and had I been on a mission then that would have changed everything.  I only had a single year of schooling under my belt, no declared major, and nothing that would hold me back from serving the Lord.

There is a huge pang of jealousy going through me right now.  But at the same time I think it’s important for me to stop and realize that the options that were available for me were good options.  I don’t regret not having served a mission, I got in the experiences that I wanted to before settling down with my family.  I traveled the world with the Young Ambassadors and completed my college degree.  I had lots of time as a single young woman to go and serve in the temple and make good friends and do many good things.  It doesn’t really do me any good to consider how my life would have been different had these options been available to me – because they weren’t available to me.  I believe that I was put where I was and when I was for very good reasons and I am very happy with where the path of my life has led me.  It’s hard to do, and I’d be lying if I were to say that knowing these things intellectually is making the feelings of jealousy and sadness go away completely, but I still think it’s important to remember and I’ll get over it by and by.  Also, I always in the back of my head knew I wouldn’t get to serve a mission as a young woman.  I fought against that feeling HARD.  I was definitely “kicking against the pricks” just like Paul.  The truth is I didn’t need to pray about whether or not I ought to serve a mission just before I turned 21, I had known for certain the day I received my patriarchal blessing that it wasn’t meant to be for me.  The way some things are worded let me know that it wasn’t what I was needed for.  I would be a different person today if that option had been available to me, but I wouldn’t be the person Heavenly Father needed me to be.

It’s been interesting to think today on the ramifications these changes will have on the youth of the church.  I think that this is going to make a HUGE difference in the way that our young people see a mission.  It makes a mission so much more feasible for young women without asking them to sacrifice opportunities dating and marriage if they want to serve. But if they’re coming home by the time they’re 21 that gets them back still in that prime age for marrying.  I think we are going to find that having younger sister RMs is going to change the dating scene amongst our young adults.  These young women will likely come home much more serious about dating and marriage and will expect the young men to step up.  I think before there were young men who would come back from missions serious minded, but find that the young women they had left behind hadn’t changed their mindset in quite the same way and the result was a lot more non-serious dating for both groups.  I think this change will result in marriage rates increasing among our young adults at an earlier age.

I think it’s going to make a difference in how the young men prepare when the young women are preparing alongside them.  I can’t help but think that having cute girls at mission prep will help entice more young men to come to the classes 😉  I also think that the young women might be more drawn to those same classes knowing it will be where the eligible, righteous young men are.  I think that having young men and women coming home from missions at quite similar ages and being at the same point in their lives is going to affect how they date and get married.  In the past it seemed like many of the young women were given this big blank slate after high school.  Education, marriage, mission, all of these things were on the table, but not in the same sort of laid out mandated order as they were for the young men.  Now there’s a much more feasible, structured order that the young women have that coincides with the young men.

Anyways, I’m SO excited for these changes.  Even if they’re too late for me, I think they’re going to make a huge difference in the missionary force for the church and the church membership as a whole.  Now I need to go back and make some adjustments to the FHE lesson I prepared about missionaries a couple weeks back…