Six Plates

Only six plates on the dinner table tonight, and every night for nearly two years, and then it will be five plates, when his brother leaves. It will be three and a half years until we put seven family plates on this table again.

Most young men leave home about his age, and this mission is the very best reason for him to leave. I am truly proud of his worthiness and desire to serve. But the table looks bare, somehow.

Did our heavenly parents feel like this when we left them, even though our step into mortality was progress, too? Our mortal birth meant the end of even our memory of them, and so many of us never pause to think of them—or communicate as often as we could. Even I, and I know better. How thankful I am for the prophets and missionaries who brought the message of the gospel and bestowed upon me the right to the gift of the Holy Ghost. I am thankful enough to be happy to set six plates on my table, that my Father’s table can be more full.—Louanne Brown Barrett, Dover, Delaware