Missionary opportunity

It's late and I can't sleep. Got lots of stuff running through my mind- so I figured I'd stop tossing in bed and hash out some of my thoughts.

First, want to share a missionary experience I had the other night. It's pretty cool because in our ward we've been talking about missionary work a lot this month and I've been thinking- how am I gonna find opportunities here?! Well, the Lord answers prayers.

Friday night. Jake's on a young men's camp out and I'm at home with the boys. Just got done cleaning up dinner when I hear a knock at the door. Open the door and see a young guy standing there with the "salesman grin". "Great." I think, "Doesn't he see my NEW 'no soliciting' sign?" but I open the door and he says, "I'm not here to sell you security systems or pest control..." and so I start to listen, but then find out he's really selling me a newspaper, now I'm not a fan of papers (they just pile up and I can get my news for free online) but I don't know if its his pitch about coupons that I'll get and how I can just get the weekend paper and blah, blah, blah, but I agree to the free trial (I'm a sucker). Then he pulls out his pad to collect my information and I'm realizing how cold it is and I'm standing there with the door open, and I remember my days as a missionary and so I say, "Why don't you come in to fill that out so you can warm up and I don't get cold?" He's asked me if I'm LDS and is telling me how I can get the Church news with my trial, and so I've assumed he's LDS too- but as the conversation continues I realize he's not. Some how it come up about how there are so many big families around here and he asks, "Why is that? Is it a religious belief or something?"

Okay here it goes. Don't think I've ever been asked this one before:

"Well, we do believe that God commanded us to mulitply and replenish the earth, and so that is part of it. But I think its for our benefit really; children teach us about love, patience, and selflessness in a way nothing else can- and I believe that that's what Heavenly Father wants- is for us to learn those things."

That was the highlight. I was thinking later that there's a lot more to answering that question- the plan of salvation, the Abrahamic covenant, etc- but I feel that this answer was the one the Spirit wanted me to give. I think most of the time missionary work is about giving simple answers people can understand, and having a positive conversation with them that they can feel good about later when they think about Mormons.

The whole conversation was good. He told me that he was from New York and had come out here randomly to live with an aunt and uncle who told him they'd give him free room and board for a year to get him going in school. He said that he grew up AMISH (wouldn't have guessed it since he was total "imu" style and well, you just don't meet many Amish) and explained that in their society when you turn 18 you are free to choose if you want to stay or leave the community. He chose to go live with a protestant uncle for a while and hasn't been home since, although he's hoping to return to visit soon. He's been living here about 2 years now- and the whole conversation just showed me that just because someone lives here in Utah doesn't mean they already know everything about "the Mormons" and a that sometimes they really do want to know more.