~by Amy (not her real name)

I was studying away when I received a text from my roommate, saying that one of her friends with whom she had been in contact was just diagnosed with COVID. “I’ve been feeling symptoms,” the message said, “so I will be getting tested tomorrow.”

Feeling a slight sore throat myself, the sudden shift was a little too much for my body and brain to handle. 

Even though I kept trying to tell myself everything was going to be okay, and even though in my heart I knew it would be, I broke down. I am scheduled to receive my temple endowment in a week and a half, and that could all change if they come back positive (or if I do). 

By this time, I was no longer able to focus on my heavy load of homework, so I decided to read an email from one of my friends who is currently serving as a missionary. He wrote:

“Miracles happen. Remember that. Be on the lookout….”

I realized I needed a miracle, so I immediately prayed I could have God’s help somehow. 

Exactly thirty minutes after my first roommate texted, I received another text. This was from a number not in my contacts. She said, “I made some minestrone soup today. It’s nothing fancy just a pot of vegetables and juice. Just wondering if that is something you guys would eat. I’d love to bring some over!”

Minestrone happens to be one of my favorite soups. I could not believe that so soon after I felt so overwhelmed and alone, I got this text. I still didn’t know who it was from but I thought for sure it would be someone in the ward…maybe my ministering sisters or something? How could they choose something so perfect and healthy as minestrone and it not be for me?

Well, the longer we texted back and forth, I realized she had sent this message to the wrong number!

After all the confusion, this woman (who lives more than 20 minutes away from where I live) called me and apologized because she thought she was texting someone in her ward [congregation] who just had surgery. As we cleared up the miscommunication, she said, “Well I’ll pray that someone can bring you food!”

The call ended and I started walking home. I was still so tired and maxed out but so grateful someone reached out right when I needed it. I thought, “It’s the thought that counts here,” even though the kindness was for someone else. 

About twenty minutes later, she called back again. I think she had the realization that she needed to be the answer to her own prayer for me. She said, “Have you had dinner yet?” I told her no. She said, “Well, we are going to bring you some minestrone.” And they did! A random family from several cities over brought me dinner (a favorite food, no less) on the very night I didn’t have it in me to cook, I wanted to feel peace, and I needed a miracle.

I have no doubt in my mind that God hears our prayers. Miracles are real! I’m grateful for my missionary friend who encouraged all of us to look for them.

This experience reminded me of a story President Thomas S. Monson told years ago, “We Never Walk Alone.” Tiffany had fallen into a deep depression because of high levels of stress and was losing weight (which she couldn’t afford to lose). But she could not eat. Friends and family were trying to deliver her some of her favorite foods, but to no avail.

One day, when prodded about what might possibly sound palatable to her, Tiffany could envision eating homemade bread. “But,” President Monson shares, “There was none on hand.”

The next morning, on the other side of town Sherrie had a prompting from the Spirit to bake an extra loaf of bread that day. She felt to take that bread with her in the car when she went to have lunch with a friend. After lunch, and with a very tired toddler in the car, Sherrie had the unexpected thought to deliver the bread to Nicole, someone she barely knew, and who lived 30 minutes away.

She tried to rationalize away the thought, wanting to get her very tired daughter home and feeling sheepish about delivering a loaf of bread to people who were almost strangers. However, the impression to go to Tiffany’s home was strong, so she heeded the prompting.

When she arrived, Tiffany’s husband answered the door. Sherrie reminded him that she was [Tiffany’s sister’s friend] whom he’d met briefly [months before], handed him the loaf of bread, and left.

And so it happened that the Lord sent a virtual stranger across town to deliver not just the desired homemade bread but also a clear message of love to Tiffany. What happened to her cannot be explained in any other way. She had an urgent need to feel that she wasn’t alone—that God was aware of her and had not abandoned her. That bread—the very thing she wanted—was delivered to her by someone she barely knew, someone who had no knowledge of her need but who listened to the prompting of the Spirit and followed that prompting. It became an obvious sign to Tiffany that her Heavenly Father was aware of her needs and loved her enough to send help. He had responded to her cries for relief.

_____________

*Image from Katrin Morenz from Aachen, Deutschland, posted at Wikimedia Commons (originally found here), shared under this Creative Commons license (Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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I stumbled on a website that invites people to read President Nelson’s talks since his calling as an apostle. (I found this website before hearing of Sister Andersen’s effort to read all of President Nelson’s talks, but was even more energized about engaging in this effort after hearing Elder Andersen’s talk.)

The owner of the site has curated a list of all of those talks, and I thought I’d give reading the talks a try. (I love watching for patterns that happen between different leaders of a current time, across different leaders over decades/centuries of time and within the lifetime of any given individual leader.)

I was excited and humbled at what I found in only the first two talks! President Nelson has been pondering truths (that we saw him address again this weekend) for a long time. This could come as no surprise, but what surprises me is how easy it is to miss the patterns.

Here is a link to his first talk ever given as an apostle. It appears he may have been called from the audience, without prior foreknowledge of his calling. But without hesitation, he said,

“I have implicit faith in the Lord and in His prophets. I have learned not to put question marks but to use exclamation points when calls are issued through inspired channels of priesthood government….Feelings of commitment well up from the depths of my soul. My sweetheart, Dantzel, and I first made those covenants in the temple of the Lord over thirty-eight years ago, to consecrate our lives to the service of the Lord. Today, I reaffirm that promise, to give all I have to the building of the kingdom of God on the earth. In accepting this call, knowing that challenges, charges, and keys will be conferred and that buffetings will likewise come, I commit my effort, my energy, and my all.”

“Now, I understand fully that the call to the Holy Apostleship is one of witness to the world of the divinity of the Lord Jesus the Christ. I know that salvation is centered in Him! … His message is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ; and it is administered by the Church that bears His name. He directs the affairs of His church by the power of the priesthood and by revelation through prophets who proclaim His doctrine to all people of the world.

“The testimony that I bear is but an echo of the resounding testimonies of the eighty-four who previously have received this call to the Twelve since the spring of 1820.”

I’ve started to notice a pattern in the last couple of years that President Nelson talks about the responsibility the Church has to help prepare the world for the Second Coming. Guess what he mentioned in that first talk he ever gave as an apostle?

“[W]e are of the house of Israel…charged with the irrevocable responsibility to prepare the world for the second coming of the Savior.”

The second Conference talk President Nelson ever gave also carries threads that were covered in last weekend’s conference addresses. President Nelson talked to us about the critical nature of prayer, for example. In 1984, he was teaching similar things. On one hand, it should come as no surprise, but on the other hand, to me it’s a reminder to listen carefully to our prophets and apostles.

“It is possible to disregard or even misuse spiritual power. Some have misused the power of prayer by making that sacred communication trivial….But the Lord places the initiative upon us. He expects us to reach for his power, just as we must insert the plug in the outlet for electricity. He said, “If thou shalt ask, thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge, that thou mayest know the mysteries and peaceable things—that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal.” (D&C 42:61; italics added.)

And then consider the focus of all the changes that took place, and how they centered on ministering rather than just going through the motions. Here’s what he said in 1984.

“Some well-meaning Saints even do the right things for the wrong reasons, if they narrowly center on the percentages they report rather than on the precious people they serve.”

My husband noted that in his priesthood session talk on Saturday, President Nelson urged priesthood holders to harness the blessings and power of the priesthood more fully — and then he used his own priesthood authority by virtue of his role as our prophet to bless us as he concluded the conference!

“Rewards result from the righteous use of the spiritual power belonging to the priesthood! And they are so great that they are almost beyond human comprehension.”

(I loved his insights around how ultimate promises of the priesthood are inextricably connected to committed partnership between men and women…something that has been talked about by various leaders in recent years … but it clearly was not new to President Nelson.)

And, given some of what was happening in the news along the Wasatch Front and on the internet prior to conference, I wanted to add these words from then-Elder Nelson. He’s long cared about how wrong abuse is.

Like cutting the cord with clippers, it is possible to use spiritual power so carelessly as to destroy one’s very connection to that power. I know a husband who dominates his wife as though she were his possession. He seems to regard her about as he does his automobile or his suitcase, which he uses for his own purposes. And I know a wife who dominates her husband to the point that he has lost all feelings of worth.

Remember, “The rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and … the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.” (D&C 121:36; italics added.)

I look forward to reading and re-reading what we were taught in General Conference. I also plan to continue to read past talks from President Nelson to understand more of how the Lord has prepared his mind, heart, spirit, and body to receive this mantle of being our prophet in these hastening days of the history of the Church and the world. Echoing again the words of Elder Holland: “What a prophet!”

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“To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, the most memorable moments in life are those in which we feel the rush of revelation.”

– Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, April 1, 2018

What an amazing “rush of revelation” members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints experienced this weekend! As I listened to Elder Holland also say, “What a prophet!” my heart felt like it would burst.

After the conference sessions were over, my husband said something like, “We’re going to need to work to keep up with President Nelson!”

(For those not of our faith, he’s 93, but you would never know. Not only is he physically strong (one of the leaders quipped that they are just trying to keep President Nelson off the ski slopes); he also is already proving to be a visionary, action-oriented leader.)

But my husband’s thoughts went deeper than that. I felt like his words were inspired, and so I can’t paraphrase them well, but the idea was that President Nelson is ready to help lead us through more of the hastening work — but our willingness to respond to his inspired leadership is what will allow him to keep receiving the inspiration necessary to press this work forward.

I was reminded of what was mentioned again in this conference — that when President Monson urged us last year to read the Book of Mormon, President Nelson was immediately and specifically responsive. He modeled what he now needs us to do as prophet. It’s up to us to help hasten the work.

We’ve been called to minister like never before, with a unity like never before — between men and women, between adults and youth, between leaders and members, between heaven and earth.

In this conference, we were also reminded, yet again, that the tumultuous times of the last days will require our own spiritual centeredness like never before. There is and will continue to be a lot of opposition in our individual and our collective lives. We will need the anchor of a personal connection with God and deeply-rooted personal experience communicating with Him and leaning on Him.

There are amazing things happening. It was a gift to participate in General Conference this weekend. What a blessing to participate in the solemn assembly, to sustain two new apostles and other leaders, to hear of the changes that came to priesthood quorums and home and visiting teaching (read the FAQ here) to hear the announcement of seven more temples. 

And there are amazing things ahead. President Nelson and others reminded us that we are preparing for the Savior’s Second Coming! We are engaged in a work that is wonderful, powerful, and eternal.

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