Moments that change you.

Throughout my life I have had only a couple of moments that have really changed me. All of the ones I can remember are the ones that have changed me for the good. Just for simplicity I will leave it to be understood that Marriage/Kids and similar experiences go without saying. I'm talking about the ones that change your view of the world.

While I was in the MTC and trying to become the best missionary I could be despite my groups efforts to the contrary. One night all the missionaries when to the auditorium for some talk of some kind, (come on, it's been ten years, you can't expect me to remember). It's understood as a rule that all the missionaries wear their suit jackets. It was winter at the time and overall there really wasn't a problem. Well, this particular day I sat next to a guy who didn't have is jacket on and was wiping his head every little once and a while with a handkerchief. I asked his if he was sick, because it looked like he was hot. He said that he wasn't hot, and in fact he couldn't tell. 'Why?' was the question that came out of my mouth uninvited. He then explained to me that he was recovering from brain cancer, and that when they operated they took out the part of your brain that controls your body temperature, in other words, he was cold-blooded. I asked him if they got it all and if he was going to be okay, he didn't know.

"Then why come out on a mission if you don't even know how long you are going to live?" I asked.

"Because there are more important things..."

Those words must have turned to fire and burned themselves in my brain, because to this day I can hear him say it. I never learned his name, because his words effected me so much I just sat there dumbfounded.

My whole life I have tried to make sense of those words and apply them. What are things that are more important then living? And as I pondered that question I never seem to run out of answers.