Dylan Melton

Oh my- I had the coolest thing happen last night!! One of the little boys in my Primary class is almost 9 and hasn't been baptized yet. He comes from an interesting family because his Dad is in jail and his Mom lost her custodial rights, so his Aunt and Uncle who live in my ward adopted him, and his 2 brothers and sisters. He doesn't know any of the scripture stories, he can't sing any of the Primary songs because he doesn't know them, and he won't pray because he said he hasn't ever done it before. He is the cutest little blonde haired and blue eyed little boy I have ever met, who is more humble than most of the people I know!! =) Of course I got all excited I could be a missionary again, so I sent the missionaries over to his house to start teaching him. He (Dylan) says they come all the time but I haven't gotten a hold of the Elders to find out any other details.

Every week before class, Dylan goes to the library to borrow a Book of Mormon because he doesn't have one, and when the missionaries come over, he told me he just uses their scriptures to read from. On Sunday I had an overwhelming thought that I should go get him his own scriptures, so yesterday I went to the Distribution Center and bought him his own set. I wanted to put FUTURE MISSIONARY on them but I thought he might not like that, so I just made sure his name was printed on the front. I was driving down the block and couldn't remember what house he was now living in, but then I saw him standing in the window with such an excited look on his face, as he pressed his face as hard as he could against the window!! His Aunt told me later that he likes to sit by the window and wait to see if his parents were ever going to come back....oh my gosh- could my heart break anymore than it did last night? Anyways, so I walked up to the door and I heard him yelling to everyone in the house that "Sister Christensen is here!!" So I'm getting all pumped up and so excited to give it to him, but what happened next is something that I was not prepared for and made me cry the whole way home.

He took the package, all excited that I had brought something just for him, then he set it down on the couch and just stared at it, trying to peek in it. By this time, all the other kids and his Aunt had gathered in the room- they have 6 little kids in that house now, so there were quite a few people in the tiny room! Dylan finally took the scriptures out of the package and was grinning from ear to ear, with the biggest and happiest smile I've ever seen. And you know what the first thing he said was, as he hugged his new scriptures to him??? He looked up at me with his perfect blue eyes and he said, "Now I don't have to go to the library anymore." OH MY GOSH- I couldn't hold my tears back any longer! The Spirit was so incredibly strong in that room, it took me back to all my missionary moments where the Spirit was converting those perfect people that I got to teach. His Aunt started crying and all the little kids kept trying to touch it, while Dylan just kept repeating, "It has my name on it!" WOW- who would have ever thought that a set of scriptures with his name on it would be the coolest thing a 9 year old could get?? He never stopped smiling the whole time, and when his Aunt was talking to me, he kept hugging the scriptures and then leaning them out so he could look at his name again, then he would hold them against his chest again, and smile even bigger (if that was possible!). There's a scripture in Numbers that totally explains what he looked like last night. Numbers 6: 24 says "...The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee..." Dylan was glowing!!! He even interrupted his Aunt and pointed to the scriptures and said, "That's my name!!" Man- what I would give to be a missionary again. I just don't get those moments here in Utah because everyone's already a member!!!!