Sunday, May 8, 2016

An Unexpected Miracle




From Karsten Hinckley
Teaching in Thailand

One day while we were at the church making phone calls before we go home we get a text from someone who wanted us to call them back. What happened next was an unexpected miracle. I call the number and a lady answered. She asks, “Is this the Elders?" "Yes", I reply "Well I’ve been looking for you”, she said. This lady goes on to tell me that she is a less active and how she wants to get reconnected with the church again. I asked her how she got our phone number and what she told me I couldn’t believe. Someone that this lady teaches English to held out our inviting card and asked her if she knew who we were. I remember the lady this member was talking about because we ate lunch together one day. After that we could never contact her and her husband again. Anyways this less active member took the inviting card and wrote down our number. After about a week or so the spirit prompted her to call us and it went from there. 

That was only the first miracle. We met with this member one day for dinner. She told us her story with the Elders before us."One day I just prayed to God to have Him send me the Elders and the next day at the grocery store checkout line she saw the Elders. The next time is the time that I met you. I prayed to God because I needed the Elders again and a week later my student showed me your inviting card which I snatched up." This lady is amazing! We sat down to talk with her for a while. She told us soo many things! She is very well educated. That first day she called I felt prompted to tell her to watch conference because it would be on that day so she could watch it. She said," It was great to watch conference again. It has been a long time since I’ve seen conference." As we were talking with her she had mentioned to us that she had been to the temple before and the spirit told me to tell her, “You should prepare to go back to the temple." Well I told her that and she said that was the best advice she has ever gotten. Before we left we gave her a Liahona which she thought was great as well. 

The second time we met with her she told us about a dream that she had. In her dream she saw her father and her grandfather. They were just standing there in their Sunday best. She said, “What I got from that dream is they were trying to tell me that they have already received the gospel and are waiting for me to go do their temple work for them." She told us every since she has met with us she has been less stressed with work and knows the Heavenly Father is guiding her life more. Meaning she can feel His presence in her life more. I think that is great she understands the feelings she gets. Another thing is that she understands what she needs to do as well. She knows she has some problems with commandments but right now she is trying to do all that she can to start keep those specific commandments again. One thing that we told her the first meeting was," Heavenly Father still loves you." She was thankful we said that because she said," I knew that I was always to love Heavenly Father but I forgot that He loves me too." This whole experience has taught me that someone you invite can help others find you. If we didn’t invite that first lady, the less active member may have never found us. This member needs your prayers.