Lucky Number 14

In the days of my youth, my faithful Primary teacher, Sister Briggs would drag me from the car and convince me to go to class with her. Maybe it was because I was the only member of the class that showed up. Or maybe it was because I was the best one (not unlikely). But more likely, it was because she loved me. Anyways, thanks for that, and playing Mad Libs with me all during Singing Time, when they wouldn't let me sing the lower part of "A Child's Prayer" (or any other song for that matter). 

Sister Briggs. What a gem.

Thank you because Primary is where I first decided I wanted to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 
I remember this packet we got in Sharing Time once that was about the size of a grade school text book (meaning about 1/100th of the text books I currently devour) and it was all about missionaries. Most of it was like Oh, here's a word search, here's a map of the world, here's a picture of missionaries to color-I wonder if I should color his suit black or dark blue? But one of the pages had you calculate what year you would serve, and it turned out that I would turn 21 in the year 2014. 

It just looks like a good number. Honestly. 

Fourteen. The day of the month I was born. My basketball number (at least before I grew up to be the biggest one on the team-presently, it's 44). An even number-so my OCD child-self could spin around seven times in either direction and be satisfied. Fourteen is just a wonderful number all around.  And now, it represents the year I would serve a mission. 


I did have a vague idea I wanted to serve before, but this revelation pretty much proved the predestination of my fate.