Mission Prep?

By Rebecca Talley

My oldest child is a boy. He was born with a full head of hair. In fact, he had so much hair, many people thought he was a girl. Since he was a boy, I couldn't do much with his hair except admire it.

When I gave birth to my daughter, I expected another baby with lots of hair. Somehow, the hair fairy skipped my daughter. By the time she was 18 months old, she finally had enough hair that I could put it in barrettes and curl it. I was thrilled I could fix her hair after waiting for so long.

One night, we went to home teach a family in the ward (I was my husband's substitute partner). While we adults visited after the lesson, the kids ran off to play in another room. After a time, we called the kids back in and they sheepishly returned. Apparently, they'd been playing "barbershop" with my daughter as the customer and my son as the barber. Yep, he'd cut a large chunk of her hair off in the back of her head. All her pretty hair that I'd waited so long to fix was just a pile on the floor. I was not pleased, to say the least, and spent the better part of the next year trying to hide her shortened hair in a ponytail. It finally grew out and my daughter now has thick, luxurious long hair (she doesn't let her brother near it).

My son? He's serving a mission in Italy and wrote in his email a few days ago that he is now cutting his companion's hair. Hmmm. That gives me pause. My son, the barber? I suppose he was simply preparing for his mission all those years ago when he left his sister half-bald. Hopefully, his companion's hair looks better than his sister's did, or all of the mirrors have been removed from their apartment.

I guess they can't ever be too young to prepare for their mission.