God's Tender Mercies

Wednesday we ate dinner at this funny family's house. First thing that happened when I walked in the door was this goofy teenage REDhead kid asked me to see my tag. He didn't waste any time. I was like sure, and gave it to him. He looked at the back of it with a bit of disappointment. No decorations. Some Elders will put cute little stickers and things on the back of their tags. I guess I put my cute little keepsakes elsewhere. So this kid told me not to worry and he went off and got a bunch of silly stickers. Smiley faces and butterflies and such. Ha. I'm a good sport though, so I selected myself a darling butterfly and slapped it right in the middle. The redhead was pleased. So that was that and I pretty much forgot about it completely.

The next day Susan Powers (who is great, thank you Susan!) sent me a nice little short story about a wise man and a king. The king was a pig and saw all men as pigs. But the wise man saw all men as butterflies because he was a butterfly. Like, we see the world the way we are kinda thing. It was nice. I didn't even make the connection to the butterfly I had recently put on the back of my tag. Possibly because I never look at the back of my tag. Anyway, after I read this story I gave it to Elder Tanner and said read this, we should give it to Talitha and tell her we think she is a beautiful butterfly. Talitha is one of our wonderful investigators and she's the type that would probably appreciate something like that. He read it and agreed.

So the next day we were pretty busy and never had a chance to go drop it by her. But Saturday she called us and was having a pretty bad day. Hate to hear that. So we figured we better drop it by. We'd really been wanting to sit down and talk to her, but it wasn't working out. So Saturday night we went by her place (she wasn't home but we knew that). I had the butterfly story, and I wrote a little note on it to her, and we were sitting there thinking what exactly to do with it. We didn't have any envelopes or much of anything else to put it in. It was just a tri-folded thing of paper (we didn't want just anyone to be able to open it up and read it). We sat there, and Elder Tanner was like WAIT! He reached over and grabbed my tag off my shirt and said "THE BUTTERFLY!" Of course! I must have forgotten that there was a butterfly on the back of my tag, possibly because I never look at the back of my tag, and I might not actually care a great deal about butterflies on a regular day. Ha. But on this day I cared about butterflies. So I carefully peeled this butterfly off my tag, as it was a poorly made sticker that really wanted to fall apart and leave the white remains on my tag, you know how cheap stickers are. But I got it off and we sealed up this folded up paper with a butterfly. Perfect.

Talitha lives in an apartment building condo-plex type place. We walked in the entry-way, and were trying to figure out a way to finagle it into her mailbox, but it wasn't quite working. See, we couldn't go put it on her door because the door into that part of the building is locked. We knew she was going to be coming home late and would probably be tired and if she didn't look over at the mailbox, she'd probably walk right past it. Hmmm. So again we were standing there kinda thinking about what to do. How could we get ourselves in this building to put it right on her door? ... Well suddenly while we stood there, the door randomly buzzed us in! I don't know who did it, or why or how or what, but the door just buzzed. We quickly opened it and looked at each other with the most surprised confused looks on our faces. Thank you??? We slowly walked into the building dumbfounded, put the letter on her door, and left. With really big smiles on our faces.

This probably seems like a super long and insignificant story just to say that we gave our investigator a short story and had a couple coincidences while doing it. But man, I'm telling you, for whatever reason, this all just worked out way too perfectly. We were laughing so hard when Elder Tanner remembered I had that butterfly on my tag! How random! And then 2 minutes later we totally got into the building by some magical miracle! Who knows. It was great. Basically it was just a really fun little experience for us. We thought to ourselves wow, surely we were supposed to give that story to Talitha.

Just earlier that day, I had the opportunity to watch one of those Mormon Messages videos. It was on God's Tender Mercies. God's Tender Mercies! So I was kinda looking out for them after that, and then that evening all these finny little things suddenly come together and make this happy little miracle for us. Again, might seem too silly to some, but it was great. God's Tender Mercies man, they are the best!

So, it sounds like the story is over, but its only like 45% over. The butterfly business is over. But this God's Tender Mercies stuff with Talitha keeps on going. A lot! Its crazy and I can't even believe it. I don't think I've ever seen anyone who the Lord wants in His church so bad. Usually when random little "coincidences" happen, we(I) tend to just pass them off as like, oh that was cool. Move on. But they happen ALL THE TIME with this lady! Twice we have sang a song at our appointment with her, and then proceeded to sing that song in Sacrament meeting on Sunday. By total coincidence. I guess we just pick good songs. Talitha is constantly opening up right to the page of the manual or scriptures or hymn book or whatever we are turning to. All these random little things that probably seem like nothing, and usually get passed off as nothing. But they are happening all the time! Its really wild. All this little stuff about songs and pages isn't even included in the remaining 55% (that's an estimate I could be wrong, might be like 50 or 59) that I haven't told you about. The past 2 days have been so cool. I love it. It seems to be the story of this area so far. Funny coincidences, people looking familiar, deja vu kinda stuff. Really interesting. Makes me wonder.

So I really want to get into all the details of what happened after that until Sunday afternoon, but I think it will take me way too long. I'd say its a story worth asking me about when I get home. I'll try the concise version. We didn't drive to church on Sunday because of a sequence of things involving trying to get some other investigators to church, who didn't end up coming. Because of that we needed a ride home, and Talitha offered, but she couldn't because we can't ride in cars with just another woman. But this young guy who was sitting at the table talking with them (there was what they call a "linger longer" after church yesterday, basically eat and talk with people. its for fun), he offered to ride with us so that she could take us. Be the "chaperone." Ha, missionary rules are great. So it turns out this guy is a convert! He's just a young looking dude, just like Talitha. He told her his conversion story and it was PERFECT! Many things I know she needed to hear. I was riding in this little Toyota Yaris just wanting to jump and shout PRAISE THE LORD! like I was from Mississippi or something. It was fantastic.

The tender mercy part of all this that I don't want to get into cause it would take too much time is that there was like 5 or 10 things that happened and didn't happen, which if it had been any other way, we would not have ridden home with Talitha, neither would this member, and she wouldn't have been able to hear all these wonderful things. If those other people hadn't told us they were coming to church, we wouldn't have found them a ride and put ourselves in the situation where we didn't drive to church. If those people had actually come to church, we again wouldn't have found ourselves in the same situation because we would have had to get them home. Again, like 5 more things that all just came together absolutley flawlessly to make this all go down. It was amazing and I am completly dumbfounded by it all. That somehow all these things happened. "For we know, all things work together for good for them that love God..." Boy was that scripture fulfilled. Totally blew my mind. The Lord seems to work everything into His plan. Even things we think are going wrong! So good. Aahhh, I love it!

So Talitha is wonderful and she's gonna get baptized, we're just not sure exactly when. Unfortunately it might be like RIGHT after Elder Tanner leaves... we'll see. This woman is great. One of those people you just love immediately. A beautiful person. I always think it is amazing that people like that come out of such awful circumstances oft times. Talitha has. God has a plan man, let me tell you.

Okay, so that's Talitha. Alexandra and Nicholas - well they continue to be completely golden in pretty much every way. I am amazed how the Lord has prepared these people! I am amazed that I am here teaching them! I feel so blessed. I was studying Mosiah 2 this morning. It talks about how God has already granted us all these wonderful blessings. So many that we could NEVER adequately repay Him. All He wants is for us to obey Him, and then he blesses us even more. None of which we deserve in the slightest. Its just beyond me. I can't believe it. That God would have so much love and mercy. Always waiting for us to turn and repent. A line stuck out to me in sacrament yesterday in the hymn #180, 3rd verse - "...and bid the sinners live." Its nice of Him. Difficult to comprehend though. Anyway, I'm very grateful to be here right now with all these wonderful people.

So yes - Alexandra and Nicholas. We taught them an awesome plan of salvation lesson. Ha it was way fun. Once we got to spirit world, they had aaallllllll kinds of questions. I love when people have legit questions because I know they are understanding and actually grasping what we are telling them. It was so sweet. Man, they started asking about what if he or she's spouse died and they got married again and all that wild stuff. But their hearts are open, so its not difficult even when they have interesting concerns. Its like a game with them. And they don't just expect the answer from us, they are willing to research it more on their own. Gosh. I have never taught someone like that. Baptized on July 17th. People like this I just feel like I don't have to do anything. Just teach them the doctrines and walk them into the water. But there are still good experiences in the teaching. Times when I say to myself, wow I'm saying this really well, why can't I always explain this principle so clearly? When I know I have the spirit helping me. Man its amazing that these things happen.

Things are good. I like where I'm at in the mission. I feel like I've got a pretty decent feel for things, and I still have a good portion of time left out here. It really is starting to move quickly. But this transfer and the last have been my two funnest companions, so I suppose that kinda makes a big difference. I'm definitely starting to dread the thought that this really will come to an end one day. Its such a strange thing. Certainly I miss you all so much and miss so many things about life as a non-missionary. I probably long for it in some way every single day. And doing this work is SUPER hard, but I still would never trade places with anyone! I can't explain it. Coming home will definitely be bittersweet. This is a work that will be missed more than anything else I've ever missed. I think its amazing that it carries that kind of power in it.

Okay well I got nothing else at this point. Been a fun week and a great past few days. Today is humid outrageousness. You're all great, sorry to just tell a big story today, but it was a sweet story for me. I wish I could have been through it with you guys so it would feel the same to you. All these strange little "coincidences". God's tender mercies baby, God's tender mercies. They're the best! Keep an eye out for em!