Funny Conversation

While I was tucking the boys into bed tonight we had an interesting conversation about heaven. I was singing “Mother Tell Me a Story” to them which Matthew always requests. The part that says, “Can you feel that heaven is near?” got Kaleb thinking.

Kaleb: Is Heaven up in the sky?

Me: Yes, it’s somewhere up there.

Kaleb: What if Heaven came down here and we could walk into it? That would be funny.

This little conversation with Kaleb got Matthew thinking about a conversation he and Tyson had about baptism. Tyson told him we needed to be baptized to live with Heavenly Father. For some reason, I don’t know why, he seems torn about being baptized. Here is the conversation we had tonight.

Matthew: Do I have to be baptized?

Me: Do you want to be baptized?

Matthew: I don’t know what to do? (Said in an agonizing way.)

Me: We need to be baptized to go to the celestial kingdom, which is the highest kingdom.

Matthew: What are the other kingdoms? (I got the feeling that he thinks they would all be equally good because they are “kingdoms”.)

Me: The Telestial and Terestial kingdoms, but the celestial is the best and most glorious. We get to be with Heavenly Father. We can’t be with him in the other kingdoms.

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After this I told him that he had the choice to be baptized and that he could pray to Heavenly Father about it and also listen to how the spirit makes him feel when he learns about it in primary and at home. I told him my baptismal experience, about feeling that warmth everyone talks about after coming up from the water.

He then began asking me what heaven was like. Would we be able to hunt animals there? Could he hike in the mountains and live there like a man from the olden days? He said he wanted to wear the clothes he has here. He also asked about the resurrection? He wanted to know if we would all be babies when we were resurrected. After these conversations we had another about getting married. Here is that conversation.

Matthew: Do we have to get married?

Me: We need to be married to be in the celestial kingdom.

Matthew: I will get baptized but I don’t want to get married.

Me: You don’t need to worry about getting married now. Just worry about being a kid and having fun.

Matthew: (still concerned about it.) We have to be married to live with Heavenly Father in the Celestial Kingdom?

Me: Yes but don’t worry about that right now. You will feel different when you are a grown up.

Matthew: Do I need to marry a church girl?

Me: Yes.

Matthew: I don’t know any girls to marry. (Again he said with agony.)

Me: You don’t need to worry about that right now. I didn’t know who I was going to marry until I was grown-up and met daddy.

He seemed a little appeased but I could still see the wheels in his head turning as I left the room.