I have had so many thoughts floating around as we've been preparing for your baptism. Can you believe that I had 3 other letters I tried to write besides this one? And this one is 3 letters in one. Some other time we can talk about the other letters. But today we'll talk about these three ideas.
I. Love God
I wanted to make today about you. You are, after all, a really great kid. You are bright (oh so exceptionally bright), empathetic, easygoing, and fearless. I still remember the nurse who helped take care of us both after you were born. She asked what I was going to name you, and when I told her, she said, "Good. He is going to be a strong man so he needs a strong name." Maybe she said that about every baby, but it felt prophetic then and true today.
So, yes, I wanted your baptism day to be about you. Before coronavirus hit hard I had big dreams of everyone we would invite to help celebrate -- cousins, second cousins, friends from your school, friends from grad school, neighbors, teachers, everyone. But then it became a quiet gathering of 20 people who could come to your baptism, all wearing masks.
But maybe it's better that way, keeping it small. Maybe it helped us really remember what today is about. Even though you are a great kid, today isn't really a celebration of you. Today is about your choice to follow the Savior.
In the video, when John baptizes people, he says, "I baptize thee, having authority from the almighty God, as a testimony that you have entered into a covenant to serve Him."
That's a little different than the baptismal prayer we say now, but I like that it talks about what our baptismal covenant is. There are lots of scriptures that talk about different promises we make when we're baptized, but all of them are about serving God.
One of my favorite things in life has been meeting people who are excited to serve God and get baptized. It is amazing to watch people learn about Jesus and how much He loves them. Sometimes when you were little I would go with the missionaries when they taught these people. When they taught about commandments, sometimes I would think, "Oh dear, they are going to think this is a hard commandment." And sometimes they did. But other times they would be so excited to keep the commandments because they knew it was a way to serve Jesus. They were so grateful that He had come to Earth to save them that they would do anything He wanted them to do. And so they would get baptized.
Sometimes I wonder why Jesus wants us to get baptized instead of just repenting. But I think baptism is a gift because it's something real you can remember. You can ask any member about their baptism and they remember the day pretty well. I bet you will remember today too, especially with everyone wearing masks. And when you remember today, I hope you remember how much Heavenly Father and Jesus love you. I hope you remember how happy you feel when you serve them. Maybe right now you don't feel a huge burst of excitement when you think about Jesus, but as you get older and make some mistakes you will start feeling that excitement and gratitude more and more. I know I do.
When I was baptized many years ago, I thought it was really cool that my sins would be washed away and I would be perfect, at least until the next time I messed up. We ate lunch with family and friends right after the baptism. My friends and my sisters did something that bugged me and I got mad at them. One of them looked at me with a glint of triumph in her eye and said, "Ha! You messed up! You're not perfect anymore!" I felt like I had failed because I wasn't totally perfect anymore. But really, I think I just didn't understand what baptism was about. I thought it was about being perfect. But instead it was about following Jesus. We can make a million mistakes and He will still love us. As long as we do our best to serve Him and repent when we make those mistakes, we are still keeping the promises we made at baptism.
Jesus doesn't need us to be perfect. He just wants us to follow Him and learn to be like Him.
And I'm proud of the big step you made today to follow Him.
II. Love your neighbor
As I said before, I sort of want to write all about you and how great you are. I want to celebrate the wonderful person you've already become.
But that's not what baptism is about.
And from now on, now that you have promised to follow the Savior and take His name upon you, your life won't ever fully be about you.
Of course, your life has never been fully about you, especially once your siblings started coming along. The undivided attention you enjoyed for more than three years was soon split several different directions, and moments alone with you are rare and wonderful. Most of the time you and I are practicing what it means to belong to a family -- everyone climbing on top of us, me figuring out not only how to keep a house clean but also enlist your help with it, all of us coping with all the noise all the time. It's a real adventure learning to get along with each other. But it feels good belonging in a family.
When you are baptized, you start belonging to another family -- your church family. "Belong" is one of my favorite words. I love the feeling of belonging to something good. When I went to college, there were lots of buildings that I would get lost in at first. But once I learned my way around, I felt like I really belonged. I didn't have to worry about getting lost and feeling silly. I knew I had friends in that building and they would help me if I needed anything. When you feel like you belong somewhere, happy things feel happier and sad things don't feel quite as sad. You feel like you have a net of friends ready to catch you.
I believe that Heavenly Father and Jesus are happy when we feel like we belong, especially in a church family. They want us to feel comfortable and happy at church. But that's not all they want for us when we start belonging to a church. They want us to make sure we help other people feel like they belong, too. That's one of the most important ways to serve Jesus, because when we serve other people we're also serving Him.
After Jesus was baptized, He immediately got to work serving everybody. There were some people who were very, very poor and very, very sick. Some people would say, "They don't belong. We want them to go away." But Jesus would say, "They need my help, so they belong." There are still many people who are very poor and very sick. Like Jesus, we can help them. We can listen to them and learn what they need. Then we can figure out how to help them. Since you like math so much, I have some good news for you -- a lot of times a way we can help people is doing a lot of math. There are lots of hard problems for helping people who are poor and sick, and I believe if you have a good heart, a good imagination, and good math, you can change the world!
And the world definitely needs lots of changes! Lots of people in our country are finding out that many, many people here have been poor and sick for a long time, and instead of helping them we have been ignoring them or hurting them more. It is making a lot of us very sad to find out that Black people have been told over and over they can't belong, even though good people tried to fix the laws 50 years ago. When we are sad like this, it reminds me of when Alma the Elder baptized people at the Waters of Mormon. He said we should mourn with those who mourn. When we try to understand how other people feel, we can start understanding how to help them and how to help them belong.
Sometimes we hurt people by saying mean things or ignoring them when they need help. It can happen in our family, with our friends, at church, or really anywhere. It can happen without us even realizing it. It might be an accident, but we can still do our best to stop hurting them and help them feel better. That's what repentance means. I know that when I repent I feel excited to start choosing the right again, especially when it means loving people better. It's like getting baptized all over again!
And, just like being baptized, I know that when we do our best to help people belong, Jesus is happy with us.
III. Love and light
Yesterday, Grandma and I were talking a little bit about scary things in the news. Lots of people are angry, and lots of people are scared, and bad things are happening, so bad that people even have to go to the hospital because they're getting hurt.
I want you to know that it is okay to feel angry. When you feel angry it's a sign that something needs to change. You can choose to make a good change or a bad change with the anger. When I am angry I try to make good changes like make the house really clean really fast, or maybe do some exercise. I have learned that when I'm angry it's good to not to think too much because angry thoughts keep me mad longer than just feeling angry feelings. When the anger has gotten all burned out of me I feel ready to fix the problems without saying mean things.
It's also okay to feel fear. It is good to be afraid of some things, like driving off a cliff or swimming where there are sharks. It is important to listen to our fears. Fear can help us be better prepared for bad things and help us protect ourselves. And then, once we decide we are prepared enough, we can thank fear for its help and send it away.
A lot of people don't understand this. They think that if there is a good reason to be angry, then anything they do when they're angry is okay. This is definitely not true.
They also don't understand fear. Some people think that if they're scared of someone, then that person is definitely scary. And if you think someone else is scary then you might think it's okay to hurt them because maybe they would hurt you. But you can be scared of someone without them actually being a scary person. And doing mean things because you are scared can turn you into a scary person.
Anyway, people are making a lot of bad choices with anger and fear right now, and it's causing lots of problems right now. There are a lot of really sad, horrible things going on. When I was talking a little bit about it with Grandma, you asked, "Why I am alive right now?"
"Do you know why?" Grandma asked.
"Because I was born eight years ago."
"You were born right now because you are one of Heavenly Father's special children that will help make the world better," Grandma said. And I know she's right.
It made me think about someone else who was alive during a difficult time. His name was Mormon. When he was ten, he found out he would be in charge of the gold plates. When he was fifteen, he began to lead the Nephite army. And for years he tried to help them choose the right even though they kept making choices based on anger and fear. They did some horrible things and it made Mormon very sad.
Lots of the time, people get so worn out from seeing so many yucky things that their hearts become hard. Sometimes it becomes very hard for them to see that people, even people who make bad choices, are still children of God.
Maybe Mormon had this happen a little bit too. But he also was able to keep his heart soft through all the fighting and wickedness he saw. This was because he loved Jesus and could feel Jesus' love in his heart. He said this in a letter to his son Moroni: "And I am filled with charity, which is everlasting love; wherefore, all children are alike unto me; wherefore, I love little children with a perfect love." This isn't somebody who let fear and anger get in the way of loving people!
Now that you have the gift of the Holy Ghost, you can feel Jesus' love in your heart. Lots of the time when you learn about the Holy Ghost, you hear stories where it warns and protects people, and they are always neat stories. But I think it's even more important the Holy Ghost protects your heart from becoming hard and mean and prickly. After all, it doesn't matter how many good things happen to you if your heart is hard, because you still won't be happy no matter what!
It takes some practice learning how to let the Holy Ghost keep your heart soft. It's something I struggle with at least once a day! But I know that the more you try to follow what the Holy Ghost tells you to do, the more you will become like Jesus. People will see it in your eyes. They will be able to tell that you follow Jesus.
One day when you were little, I was very, very sad and very, very mad. While I was feeling sad and mad, I had to go get my blood drawn. The nurse talked to me and said she could tell I loved Jesus because of the light in my eyes. I didn't feel like I had any light in my eyes that day because I was so sad and mad, but I did still have the gift of the Holy Ghost. I did still try to follow Jesus, even if I didn't know exactly what He was saying. And so that meant that His light could still shine through me even if I was feeling dark and gloomy.
I know that His light will shine through you, too. I know that you will be like Mormon -- that no matter how many bad things happen in the world, you won't let your heart get hard. Because you will choose to trust Jesus, you will be able to keep the Holy Ghost in your heart, and the love that Jesus fills you with will overflow and bless the whole world.
I'm so glad you got baptized today. I love you.
I want you to know that it is okay to feel angry. When you feel angry it's a sign that something needs to change. You can choose to make a good change or a bad change with the anger. When I am angry I try to make good changes like make the house really clean really fast, or maybe do some exercise. I have learned that when I'm angry it's good to not to think too much because angry thoughts keep me mad longer than just feeling angry feelings. When the anger has gotten all burned out of me I feel ready to fix the problems without saying mean things.
It's also okay to feel fear. It is good to be afraid of some things, like driving off a cliff or swimming where there are sharks. It is important to listen to our fears. Fear can help us be better prepared for bad things and help us protect ourselves. And then, once we decide we are prepared enough, we can thank fear for its help and send it away.
A lot of people don't understand this. They think that if there is a good reason to be angry, then anything they do when they're angry is okay. This is definitely not true.
They also don't understand fear. Some people think that if they're scared of someone, then that person is definitely scary. And if you think someone else is scary then you might think it's okay to hurt them because maybe they would hurt you. But you can be scared of someone without them actually being a scary person. And doing mean things because you are scared can turn you into a scary person.
Anyway, people are making a lot of bad choices with anger and fear right now, and it's causing lots of problems right now. There are a lot of really sad, horrible things going on. When I was talking a little bit about it with Grandma, you asked, "Why I am alive right now?"
"Do you know why?" Grandma asked.
"Because I was born eight years ago."
"You were born right now because you are one of Heavenly Father's special children that will help make the world better," Grandma said. And I know she's right.
It made me think about someone else who was alive during a difficult time. His name was Mormon. When he was ten, he found out he would be in charge of the gold plates. When he was fifteen, he began to lead the Nephite army. And for years he tried to help them choose the right even though they kept making choices based on anger and fear. They did some horrible things and it made Mormon very sad.
Lots of the time, people get so worn out from seeing so many yucky things that their hearts become hard. Sometimes it becomes very hard for them to see that people, even people who make bad choices, are still children of God.
Maybe Mormon had this happen a little bit too. But he also was able to keep his heart soft through all the fighting and wickedness he saw. This was because he loved Jesus and could feel Jesus' love in his heart. He said this in a letter to his son Moroni: "And I am filled with charity, which is everlasting love; wherefore, all children are alike unto me; wherefore, I love little children with a perfect love." This isn't somebody who let fear and anger get in the way of loving people!
Now that you have the gift of the Holy Ghost, you can feel Jesus' love in your heart. Lots of the time when you learn about the Holy Ghost, you hear stories where it warns and protects people, and they are always neat stories. But I think it's even more important the Holy Ghost protects your heart from becoming hard and mean and prickly. After all, it doesn't matter how many good things happen to you if your heart is hard, because you still won't be happy no matter what!
It takes some practice learning how to let the Holy Ghost keep your heart soft. It's something I struggle with at least once a day! But I know that the more you try to follow what the Holy Ghost tells you to do, the more you will become like Jesus. People will see it in your eyes. They will be able to tell that you follow Jesus.
One day when you were little, I was very, very sad and very, very mad. While I was feeling sad and mad, I had to go get my blood drawn. The nurse talked to me and said she could tell I loved Jesus because of the light in my eyes. I didn't feel like I had any light in my eyes that day because I was so sad and mad, but I did still have the gift of the Holy Ghost. I did still try to follow Jesus, even if I didn't know exactly what He was saying. And so that meant that His light could still shine through me even if I was feeling dark and gloomy.
I know that His light will shine through you, too. I know that you will be like Mormon -- that no matter how many bad things happen in the world, you won't let your heart get hard. Because you will choose to trust Jesus, you will be able to keep the Holy Ghost in your heart, and the love that Jesus fills you with will overflow and bless the whole world.
I'm so glad you got baptized today. I love you.
Thank you. There were a few I had missed. I appreciate the links, too.
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