Grandpa Holyoak

Last night Aly sent everyone in my family a message via facebook! In her message she recapped an experience she had during church earlier in the day. It is such a sweet story. I am re-posting the message so that everyone that I know (or that reads my blog) will know what kind of family I come from and everyone will know that I am proud to be my grandpa's grandaughter.

Hey Family,

I had a cool experience today and I thought I would share it with everyone! Today I was sitting in sunday school and we were talking about missionary work. The teacher asked if there were any converts in the group who were "self converts". Meaning they went out and investigated the church themselves. One of the kids raised his hands and this is the story he told. I will try to remember it as close to how he told it. He, himself, is not a self convert, but his mom was. She grew up in Utah. When she was about 13 or 14 years old she was reading a teen beat magazine (or something of the type) and read an article about Donny and Marie Osmond. In the article in mentioned they were Mormons. She went to her grandma, who was raising her at the time, and asked what Mormons were. Her grandma told her to stay away from Mormons. Her being a 14 year old did the exact opposite as her grandma said. She knew her band teacher was a Mormon and had a close relationship with him, so she went and asked what Mormon's believe. He gave her a Book of Mormon and told her to read it. After she read it, he had the missionaries go to her house and give her the discussions and she was then baptized. After he told the story he mentioned that his mom still has a picture of herself and this teacher hanging up in the house and tells everyone "That's Mr. Holyoak, the man who changed my life." Turns out that man was grandpa. What a small world, eh??

Afterword I went up to the kid who told the story and told him that's my Grandpa and he got teary eyed and told me how excited he was to tell his mom he'd met Mr. Holyoak's grand daughter. I'm stupid and didn't even ask what his mom's name is. I'll ask him next week at church. His whole family lives here in Orlando now. Just thought I would share the story with you. I thought it was pretty awesome.

Love you all!

Aly

I know this story won't have the same affect on you as it did on me and my family. But I wanted to share with all of you the pride and love that I felt.

I was very close to my grandpa and I love him sooo very much! It's amazing to think that my grandpa had that kind of impact on somebody's life (Although it doesn't surprise me). I am sure this is only one of many stories about him. He was an amazing man, and I miss him everyday. Heaven is lucky to have such a great man.

Thank you Aly for doing what is right and being in church so that you could share this story with our family.