"Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality."

The switch up:

I was having one of the hardest weeks of my mission. I had been praying hard, working hard, and having hardly any success. The melancholy was deep and i was pretty lost. I kept on trucking, but my head was barely up. Sunday came and after sacrament i was making my rounds, talking to a bunch of different families. I sat on a bench and smiled at little 2 year old Lucy. She always made me smile. Her mom reach for her, but she ignored her hands and climbed up on the bench herself. She looked at me and then walk over on the pews to where i sat.

She hugged me... and i swear i almost cried right there. For a good long minute, she just hugged me and suddenly everything didn't seem so bad. It was an incredible experience.

I was feeling pretty lonely and sometimes there's just not much you can do. I was reading my Grandpa's biography, well near autobiography i suppose. I read story after story of the amazing things he used to do, from the mission, the war, to wooing my grandma, to all the other incredible events of his life. This time i did shed a few tears. I felt inspired and i felt hope. And the loneliness went away. It was ironic that in those moments i missed my grandpa so much more but his example gave me strength, his love of life gave me direction.

I was 18, just graduated high school and i was making my rounds to say good bye to everyone. I was leaving for the summer before i went on my mission. It was the morning i was leaving and i made it through everyone besides my brother, his wife, and three kids. I had babysat these kids near every day for a year and spent loads of free time there besides. I'm not very good with goodbyes as it is. I made it through, touching and sad, and got out to the car. Right as i got to my door, my eldest nephew Zaymes came running out. In his most sweet, innocent, and slightly broken words yell "I'yl miss yew Cobin". That touched my heart.

My first area on my mission, on my second day there, we met our neighbor. He was smoking a cigarette out on his back porch. He was in his 70's and told us that he hadn't smoked for years, but that his wife had just passed away about a month ago and he was just so sad. That first day of talking, he said he wouldn't come for a while, but eventually he would come to church with us. We continued to see him the next few weeks. We mostly watched church videos with him because he had the thick coke-bottom glasses. He called us "his boys" and gave us big hugs every time he saw us. He told us that while he was in World War II he was stationed with a bunch of guys from Utah. While with them, he read the Book of Mormon three times, which was why he wanted to come to church. He got more and more depressed, but visibly brightened when we came around. Having lost my grandpa three years previous, this guy was pretty special to me. Christmas that year was on a Sunday and Clifford was set to come. He came out in a scally cap, an embroidered, double pocketed button up shirt, and an old school tweed jacket. He had a great experience at Church.

I found out I was being transferred on Wednesday. Tuesday I went and said bye. Friday he passed away. Clifford's love and acceptance, his life's story was a huge blessing to me.