I forget sometimes...

It was Stake Conference yesterday, but I'm afraid I wasn't able to follow the talks very well. Bucket was sitting next to me and he kept asking me questions. Since they were good questions, I figured talking to him out-ranked the conference talks.

I sometimes forget (because he is SO different from his big sister and tends to be overshadowed by her...) that Bucket also thinks deeply and feels deeply about things. He started by asking me about baby's born with birth defects and conjoined twins. He wanted to find a way to fix their problems and was concerned about their quality of life. (How hard it would be for a baby with two heads - they would want to do different things. They would each only be able to control some parts of their bodies. And what about babies born without an arm....) He said he should invent nano-robots that can fix a baby's body before it is born. I also suggested using his interest in robotics to make better prosthetic limbs.

Later, after a speaker who was about to leave on a mission, Bucket told me he wants to serve a mission in Egypt because there's a war there and the people need the gospel. When I mentioned learning to speak Egyptian he got teary and asked, broken hearted, how he could do that. It would be SO hard! So we talked about the MTC and the gifts of the spirit. I shared experiences from my mission. I also explained that he has ten years before he is old enough to be a missionary. He'll be more grown up then and be ready to learn and do those things.

A while later he asked me, with tears in his eyes, if it was hard to be married. How could he do it? I explained that yes, marriage was hard sometimes, but it was also very wonderful. Just like being a parent. Again I had to remind him that he has a long time still to grow up before he needs to worry about marriage. Right now his job is to learn - to learn about the gospel, to learn about life, to learn - how to learn - - to get ready to be "grown up", but that he isn't "grown up" yet and doesn't have to be.

Such deep thoughts for someone who isn't even nine years old yet. Is it any wonder he has anxiety problems? My poor little boy who worries about toxic mold, lead paint, birth defects, war, the realities of serving a mission and how to have a successful marriage. Oh, how I love him!!