I had a little boy who was serious. Very Serious. Everyone would always say, "you're little boy is so serious." I was pretty sure that we were kindred spirits. He was serious on the outside, but man oh man, could I make that little boy laugh. (When he was 14 we were on the EXACT same page when it came to potty humor. Odd? Yes. Iffy? Probably. Fun? Extremely.)
But back to when he was a little boy, about 2-4 years old. Here's a sampling of the conversation we would have on a daily basis. Sometimes on an hourly basis... "Mom, which animal do you think would win in a fight, a cougar or a cheetah?" "Mom are rhino's considered 'wild animals'?" "which wild animal is the strongest?" He was so interested in wild animals. He was a lion for Halloween one year, then a tiger the next.
Then he got wild animal toys... plastic lions, tigers, gorillas, giraffe's, zebras, cheetahs, rhinos, hippos, gazelle's, hyenas... these were his action figures. More questions. This little boy read the encyclopedia at his grandma's house about every wild animal he could find. He would trace the pictures with his Grandma. His Grandpa told him story after story about wild animals and adventures they would have together in Africa someday. He became so interested in "ferocious animals". The questions continued... then the movie "the Lion King" came out. This boy was enamored with it.
Trips to the Bean Museum at BYU were a frequent family favorite. Seeing these animals up close was almost more pure joy than any other little boy had ever known. Now this little boy was telling his Dad and I wild animal facts continually. "Did you know that the peregrin falcon can fly faster than any other bird?" "Did you know that when a giraffe has a baby the baby flips half way down and lands on it's feet?" "Did you know that a hippopotamus weighs 3300-4000 pounds and is the third largest land mammal?" and on and on and on and on and on. This little boy devoured any book on "wild animals" that he could get his hands on. When he was in third grade his teacher called me in one day and said, "your son has an INCREDIBLE knowledge of wild animals.. he teaches us something new everyday about them". ....I smiled.
When he was a teenager he watched every video, DVD, or animal planet show he could find! For his 18th birthday all he wanted was the African Field Guide. He took one of his dates out to take pictures of turkey vultures!!
Do you think it is a coincidence that when this little boy grew up he was called to serve in the South Africa, Cape Town Mission?
I DO NOT.
Because of this experience I know that Heavenly Father loves his children. . .
I cannot see a picture or a video or hear anything about a wild animal without a tender feeling of love for my Heavenly Father and his gifts to his children....
Check out this email from Matt when he got to go to a wild animal game park a few months ago...
"Dear Mom,
this last p-day I finally got to go to the animal park. We had been putting it off because of the weather. I prayed so hard for good weather for days. The morning came and it was raining hard. I was really disappointed but I kept praying for good weather. Even though it was raining we decided to go. Once we got to the park the rain let up. It was a miracle. We got to drive through the park. Mom, I loved it so much. I have been waiting for that my whole life. I had been praying so hard, and God answered my prayer. That meant so much to me. I couldn't believe I got to do that. God blesses his children. He knows us individually. He knew how much a simple thing like that meant to one of his sons and let us have good weather. We saw awesome animals, Zebra, Giraffe, Springbok, Bontebok, Waterbuck, Cape buffalo, Cheetah, Rino, thompson's gazelle and warthogs. As soon as we were done the rain came back and rained all day. I have no doubt God is in control. I will be forever thankful for the expierence I had that day in the park. Not only seeing the animals I have wanted to see my whole life but mainly because I grew closer to the spirit"
I know that Heavenly Father knows us and loves us.
I dropped some not so subtle hints about what I wanted... 
I dropped some not so subtle hints about what I wanted... 
