Dear Gospel Blog Readers,

We have some exciting news for you. While playing around on social media, we discovered a digital time warp that allows us to send typewritten messages to ourselves back in time. So, Older Me can write a letter to Younger Me. Pretty neat, huh? We’re publishing our letters here on the blog in hopes that you can also benefit from our hindsight, as we explain some of the things we wish we’d known or that we’d learned earlier in life.

We call this series of articles “Letter to My Younger Self,” and you’ll be seeing them sprinkled around the blog over the next three weeks.

Following is the first of these letters. Enjoy!

Dear Me,

Sister Michelle gave us this assignment to write a “letter to my younger self.” I think she may edit out the part where I tell you the lotto numbers and the Super Bowl champions!

I am writing a letter to you from yourself in the future. We found a glitch in a thing that will be called “Snapchat,” which makes this possible.

Please stop fighting Mom about going to Church every Sunday. She is going to win anyways, and you are going to eventually realize that it is not Mom that you are really fighting.

Please thank the elders in your branch who pounded into your head to “find work close to the church.” (And they thought you weren’t listening!)

Turn off that Atari, Nintendo, computer game, Xbox, etc. You will never get that time back, and nobody cares if you can save the princess without losing a life.

Always, always, always work on watching your mouth. That mouth will get you in a lot of trouble, and, besides, once you learn to shut it, people will mistake your silence for wisdom.

Finally, when the preacher at Church tells you to hold onto the “rod,” that means to grab God’s Word with both hands, and don’t you ever, ever let go. God’s Word will answer all your questions — well, just all the important ones — and it will show you how to be a man, how to be a husband, how to parent, how to find true joy, and how to find peace during some rather rough times. It will show you what it is that is really important.

If you decide to dismiss this advice, I will slap you myself in the future.

Bro. P

This article has undergone ministry review and approval.