Today as I sat in the temple and was pondering a couple of
things, a verse of scripture popped into my head. I hadn't read that chapter of
the Old Testament in a long time, and I realized that there just happened to be
a Bible on the table next to me. So I picked it up and started looking for that scripture. I
found it, and started reading the whole chapter. To my amazement, the chapter
was just what I needed in that moment. It was like God had inspired that
chapter for me and for that moment and for those very circumstances.
God truly works in mysterious ways to answer our prayers. He
inspired me to look up that verse, and as I read that chapter, I found the
response to my prayers.
We are teaching a younger married couple that we found about
3 or 4 weeks ago. We lost contact with them for a week, and when we found them
again, the wife had gone out of town to visit her parents. She's been gone for
2 weeks now. When we talked to the husband, who is a member of the church, he
said that she had called him recently. She asked if we were still visiting him.
He said that we were, and she said that the sister missionaries in that distant
city were also visiting her in the home of her parents, who are not members. My companion and I almost started singing Hallelujah in the
street because were so excited. They said that when she gets back, they want to
go to church together. God truly does know how to do His own work. We arrived
at a crucial time in their lives, and when she went away for a few weeks, God
went looking for her, and sent the sister missionaries so that she would keep
progressing. There was never any communication between us and the sister
missionaries. They just showed up out of nowhere.
There are always tough things that happen in our lives and
God lets our faith be tried, but if we remember our faith and the things we've
experienced, and we keep moving forward, God is always there with His tender
mercies to remind us that we were right to trust in our faith, and He will
strengthen us.
Brother Quezada shared a really great parable in a talk this
Sunday. He said a man once was late for an appointment in a big city, and was
looking for a place to park his car. He prayed to God, pleading him for a
parking spot. He said "If you bless me with a parking spot now, I promise
I will never again miss going to church on Sunday." The minutes were
passing by, when suddenly he noticed that a car was pulling out of a parking
spot. As he pulled in to that parking spot, and got out of the car, the man looked
up at the sky and said: "Thanks anyway, I already found one." Sometimes we act like that man, but we should always try to
remember and recognize the things that God does for us.
One night, as we planned for the next day, I felt like we
should knock some doors in a certain part of town. But when we got there the
next day, my companion and I looked at each other, and we both said, "No,
let's go somewhere else, this is lame." So off we went on our bikes.
I saw a man walking down the street. I'm pretty sure he was
the only person in the street. As I got closer to him I felt like I should talk
to him. I stopped and said something like "Hi, how's it going
neighbor?" He said "I'm doing good how are you, Elder?" I told
him I was doing well. His next question was a little weird. He said "How
old are you?" That's not the normal sequence of questions when we contact
people, but I responded anyway. He asked me "Elder, why did you stop to
talk to me?" I said, "I don't know, I just felt like I should talk to
you." He then said "I know the Holy Ghost told you to talk to me. I
served a mission in Colombia when you were just a baby. I've wanted to come
back to the church for a long time. I've always seen the missionaries, but I
never went out of my way to talk to them." He recently had found out that his girlfriend was also an
inactive return missionary who had also served in Colombia and who also wanted
to come back to the church. He said that they'd been talking and had set a goal
to be sealed in the temple. He told me he knew that God is looking for
him.
God doesn't forget about us.
Chao.
Elder Joseph Garrett
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