Day 7, Things that Matter Most

Sunday at the MTC has been familiar in some ways—same meetings for example, but very different in others. For example, about 15 or 16 Tongan missionaries sang the special number in sacrament meeting. In their own language, they sang beautifully a hymn found only in the Tongan songbook. I wish I could have recorded it and included it here; everyone would have loved it. It was a distinctly island sounding melody with this cool under-song that was a steady drumming sort of sound, sung in very deep baritone. It’s impossible for a non-musician to describe, but really amazing. Also unusual was the woman’s meeting (Relief Society) because song composer, Janice Kapp Perry was the speaker. During her talk she led us in a medley of her now-world-famous songs for children and sang another one herself.

What I wanted to write about though was an observation from a week of watching the 123 senior missionaries interact during the week. By this time in our lives, our physical bodies have changed enough that you would never know who was the home coming queen, who was the football star or who might have been considered the nerd. It doesn’t matter who among us might have had a perfect body because we’ve all grown a little fat, a little soft or a little saggy. Unless we specifically ask, you couldn’t distinguish between who has a doctorate degrees and who never graduated from high school. You don’t know who had the biggest house or the latest car because no one brought them along. For us and for everyone, by the time you get this far through life those things have far less importance or don’t matter at all.

There are only a few things that matter most, our relationship with the One that created us; who we have become during our time here; whether or not we’ve made life better for anyone else along our way; and the people we love and who love us. In the long view, it seems that the things that matter most are the only things that matter at all.

By the way, the only thing we have been prohibited from talking about here at the MTC as senior missionaries is the "g.c." word :) I'm sure that our sweet g.c's are about the hardest thing to leave (evidence shown above :) My kids and their spouses really are also part of what matters most but they aren't quite as cute to make a collage of :)