This day....God Won!

Where do I even start.....

Well I feel sooo much better this Monday and I can actually type correctly. Fall is here and little Steilacoom is so beautiful.

We witnessed one of the greatest miracles this week and I will begin to try to tell you a smidge part of it. Emails just do not do enough!

Do you remember little Ben and Sid the brothers we are teaching?

They were on date for baptism on Friday and the whole week we were over there probably everyday preparing them and making sure the little details were worked out with the family and such. Thursday we took them to the church and tried on there baptism suits and taught them more about the holy ghost that they would receive on Sunday. The cool thing was that there mom came. Their mom, Brenda has been less active most of her life and had a hard time coming into church buildings, but she did it! She felt comfortable and that prepped her for there baptism the next day.

Friday:

Sister Grenfell and I both felt impressed that we should fast for them on the day of there baptism. So what happens? All day Friday we both had an odd feeling, but kept shrugging it off because we had just checked on them the night before and everything was good to go. We also didn't want to admit it because we wanted to have "Faith" so not admitting it would make it seem we were being more faithful?! haha.We couldn't quiet figure out what was going.

Around 3:30 pm we are outside knocking on doors and we get a text from Brenda that says, "The boys dad just passed out, we might not be able to have the baptism tonight." What? We rushed over to there house and Brenda was gone, so we got a little bit of the story from there sister. She told us that he went to pick sid up from school and he just passed out, so Brenda went to go pick up sid. There dad is from Elma, which is about an hour away. Brenda was not texting us back for a while, so we weren't sure what to do? Do we just cancel or wait?

The only thing we knew to do at the time was to pray. Sister Grenfell and I prayed so earnestly that we knew that whatever happened, it was in God's hands and we would be ready to do whatever he placed before us.

We headed back to Brenda's and we ran into her sister to receive the news that there dad just passed away. He had a massive heart attack right in front of Sid. My heart was shattered for this family. We hurried over to tell the Stower's (there neighbors who brought them to the church and mom in primary president) and when we told them the news instantly they thought to pray. We gathered around in a circle with a big Samoan family and heard a recently returning member give one of the most heart felt, faith filled, sincere prayers I have ever heard.

Tati (the mom) said, "they need food", so she gave us all chores and left to the grocery store. One her way there she heard the spirit whisper to her, "Tati go home", so she turned her car around and came home. When she got home she heard the spirit again whisper to her, "go out the front door". This was an unusual thing because this family never used there front door. But as soon as she walked out, she saw little Ben just receive the news from his mom that his Dad had passed away. Ben ran into Tati's arms and cried. She walked over to there home and as she was talking to the mom the spirit whispered to her again, "Ask them if they still want to be baptized." She thought, no way, there is no way. Again the spirit said the same thing. Tati asked them, "do you guys still want to be baptized tonight?" Brenda said no probably not tonight, but Ben spoke up an said, "Yes, we need to." Then little Sid came around the corner not knowing what they were talking about and said with a calmness, "Ben-we still need to be baptized tonight, Dad wants us to do this."

As soon as they said that we walked up to  there door and felt this amazing spirit that was present. Then all the sudden Tati says, "Sisters does 7 pm work?" 7 pm? Yes 7 pm for the baptism? What? We were floored. I looked at Brenda and she had a smile on her face-she had this sense of hope about her. She said, if this is what the boys want, lets do it! Sister Grenfell and I frantically hurried and got everything back together. About 30 min ago we had just called and texted everyone that it was cancelled and then we had to call and text everyone again telling them its back on. It was so great, NO-it was a MIRACLE!!!! There were around 40-50 people there from the ward that changed there schedules and all came to support Ben and Sid. We had a full house! 

It was a bitter sweet baptism. The boys were so confident that this is what they needed to do. They showed me what Childlike faith was that night. They could have chosen to be bitter toward God about loosing there Dad, but instead they chose to draw closer to Him. Just the night before we had taught them the rest of the Plan of Salvation. They remembered it. They remembered that if they lived faithfully and made and lived worthy to their covenants or promises through baptism, they would see there Dad again!

 

There wasn't a dry eye during there baptism. Tati gave a very inspiring talk about the baptism and at the end of the talk she said, "TODAY, THIS DAY....GOD WON!" I get so emotional even telling this story because God truly was in EVERYTHING that day. This all happened because we listened to the small promptings of the spirit. That to me was one fo the greatest miracles that I saw that day, following the spirit. And because of it, two boy's lives were changed forever and now there mom is coming back to church :)

 

I know the Gospel is True. I know that God loves and watches over his children. Don't forget to use the special gift of the Holy Ghost that we have been given to guide our lives. We can put our full trust in him and when we do, everything works out for our good and our testimony is strengthened through the power of Christ!

I love you all, Sister Phillips