In this post, I'll share a letter from one of our zone leaders. Note that in the beginning he says this story isn't a 'huge miracle'. I don't know if I agree with him on that point, and I think if we were to ask 'Daivd', he wouldn't think so either. There is more to the story than Elder Mace has shared, and more than he probably even knows. It involves the softening of someone's heart and an entirely different person receiving and acting on a prompting at the right time. (What does it mean to receive a prompting? Well that's a story for another time! I'll try and post some notes about that from one of our zone conferences.) The Bible Dictionary explains that miracles are manifestations of divine or spiritual power. Who else but God know our hearts and has the power to change them? And He certainly loves us enough to send others our way when we need them. Certainly, this story fits that category. Sometimes, as missionaries we see so many miracles, we don't realize just how big they are so we look harder than we need to in order to see the Hand of God. In some ways, I believe there's no such thing as a small miracle. Let's not be shy about sharing them and giving some credit when its due. Thanks, Elder Mace, for sharing this one with me!
Sister Bassett,
This isn't a huge miracle, but to me it was neat. I thought I would share this recent one with you.
I got an impression to stop by a former investigater's house this week. His name kept coming to my mind, and I had a distinct impression that I needed to visit him. His name is David. Elder Gomez and I taught David for a long time, and he was suppose to get baptized but didn't quit smoking cigars in time. So we pushed the baptismal date back a few weeks. Then Elder Page came, and David suddenly started avoiding us. He stopped coming to church; he wouldn't answer the door for us (even when we knew he was home), and he wouldn't even answer our phone calls. In fact, he wouldn't even answer any phone calls from his friends in the church. We finally stopped trying to go by and call him because it just wasn't working.
After a while, I forgot about David. But this week I strongly felt like we needed to go back and try him again. I didn't know why, because I figured he'd still just ignore us. But Elder Seaborn and I went. Something changed, because when we knocked on his door, he warmly welcomed us and invited us in. It turns out that he will be moving to Pheonix soon because of financial problems, so it's a good thing we caught him. We can teach him a few times, get his new address, and help him find the other missionaries in Phoenix.
It was a neat experience to me, because Heavenly Father knows when His children are prepared. And He'll let us know.
Thanks,
Elder Jason Mace
"Commitment is doing the thing you said you would do, long after the mood you said it in has left you." George R. Zalucki
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When I was 14 or 15, I had a teacher that prided himself on being a thinker. We had some enlightening discussions in his classroom. He helped me ask some great questions that led to tremendous answers that still guide me today. We agreed on many things, but were at odds on a few. One of them was religion. I had a lot of respect for this man, but it amazed me that someone who claimed to be open minded was blind to just how closed minded he was when it came to God. He was always challenging my faith. He considered my beliefs to be a sign of my weakness. His claim was that unless it could be acknowledged by the 5 senses, there was no proof that God existed. I struggled as a young person to help him understand that he was limiting his understanding to what he had personally experienced, cutting himself off from other possibilities. The best that I could do was to try and help him understand how I knew; that things of the spirit could only be understood and perceived by the spirit. Years later, I still don't have a better answer to this one fundamental question, but I face the same dilemma. This blog is dedicated to preserving stories and experiences of missionaries in the Arizona Mesa Mission both during and after their formal missions. Some stories are fun and light hearted, but others are of a spiritual nature. The blog forum is so convenient, yet the format is limiting. There is more to these words than letters on a page. To truly understand the messages requires not only an open mind, but a soft heart.
After all, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a Heaven for?- Robert Browning"
After all, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a Heaven for?- Robert Browning"
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