Signs Along the Road, Part 4

Signs Along the Road, Part 4

Previous posts with a similar title told of selected miracles and signs of God’s love I had witnessed through 1996.  It is time that I share Part 4, lest anyone think I haven’t continued to have such experiences during the last twenty-three years. 

My purpose is not to boast but simply to testify that signs really do follow those that believe.  Anyone can and should have similar experiences.  All that is necessary is (1) to really believe, which implies acting on that belief, and (2) to pay attention.  The divine voice is “still” and “small,” and cases of divine intervention can be so subtle as to appear to be simply good luck.  These “signs” have a twofold purpose:  (1) to provide help and comfort from a loving Father in Heaven, who desires our happiness, and (2) to provide us with confirmation that we really are on the right road spiritually and assure us that if we continue on the same path, we will arrive at our desired eternal destination.

The following is just a sample of the dozens—even hundreds—of tender mercies for which we have been deeply grateful.  I could detail others, but I refrain in the expectation that it may be easier for the reader to see the “forest” if there are fewer “trees” obstructing the view. 

Mini-miracles during our mission in Mexico

Finding our way around Mexico City

One of the things that most concerned me about our call to preside over the Mexico City North Mission was the prospect of driving in Mexico City.  With a population over 20 million in the greater metropolitan area, it has the largest urban population of any city in the Western Hemisphere.  And for an Idaho farm boy, who had preferred not to drive even in Burley, Idaho, with its population of 5000, this was more than a little intimidating.  There were no GPS’s available.  Streets were nowhere laid out on a grid as they are in Utah.  I quickly found that stop signs and even stop lights were considered mere suggestions, not hard and fast rules. 

It did take me 45 minutes to find the mission office (just 2-3 miles away from our home) the first day.  And it took a similar time to find our way home from our first shopping trip, not much further away.  But to my amazement, before long I was quite comfortable driving around the city.  On several occasions, I felt divine help in taking the right exit or making the right turn to arrive on time just where I needed to be. 

Making missionary assignment changes without help after only one week in the mission

Not only the Provo Missionary Training Center but also the one in Mexico City fed missionaries to our mission.  But they were not on the same schedule.  Missionary transfers and assignment changes therefore occurred frequently.  At the end of our first week in the mission, a group of missionaries was scheduled to go home and others were to arrive.  It would require a significant reshuffling of assignments throughout the mission.

They had taught us during our week of training for new mission presidents that missionaries should never feel that the assistants to the president were the ones making changes.  But it seemed a daunting prospect to make the needed new assignments without some help.  I had briefly met all the missionaries in a series of quickly assembled zone conferences the preceding week.  But I really did not know the missionaries well.

But the Lord did.  I was amazed as I went to the assignment board in my office and started to move photos around, that everything just seemed to fall into place.  I never once asked the assistants for advice.  I was grateful to learn quickly that I was just an instrument in the Lord’s hands, and that it was He that was running the mission. 

Finding a lost file

Early in our mission I spent a half hour or so late in the afternoon looking in vain for the file of a specific missionary.  We had earlier had a disciplinary council on his behalf.   I now had to type up the minutes from handwritten notes I had taken.  I looked in each pile of paper and in every file drawer two or three times, carefully, to no avail.  Finally, I made it a matter of prayer.  I asked that if it was important to find the file that night that I might do so quickly.  Within ten or fifteen seconds of finishing the prayer the thought came into my mind of another place to look.  I had totally overlooked that location.  But when I looked after the prayer, the file was right there!  It was a great reminder that the Lord does care about even seemingly small things. 

More small and simple things

There were so many of these.  For example, one Sunday we spoke at a local stake conference.  Afterwards we had to go over to the temple to get a couple of new elders being transferred to our mission from the Puebla Mission.  But the stake where we had had the conference wanted to give us one of the large flower arrangements, and we had only a little Ford Escort.  We were initially in a quandary as to how to carry the flowers (which would have more than filled up either the trunk or the back seat) along with two elders and their luggage.

Just as we were faced with having either to turn down the kind offer of the flowers or inconvenience a good brother who offered to take them to the mission home for us, we discovered that the mission secretary had driven the mission’s big blue Suburban van to the conference.  We traded vehicles with him and would be able to get both the flowers and the elders home nicely. 

But there was more to come that same day. After an hour or so of training and interviews with the new elders, I took them by previous arrangement to their new area at 4:00 p.m., so I could get to a 5:00 p.m. meeting with the stake missionary leaders of another stake across town.  I had never been to these missionaries’ area before but found it without much difficulty.  However, the other two elders who were living there and who were supposed to meet us to let us in hadn’t arrived. 

I finally decided I didn’t have time to wait any longer and would have to leave a note and then bring the new elders back after my meeting, a significant additional expenditure of time for all concerned.  I drove on ahead to try to find my way back out of the area and ended up with the big van on some very tiny and crowded roads, which seemed to get tinier and steeper the further I went.  I finally decided I’d have to backtrack, and in so doing met the elders we’d been looking for walking down the road toward us!

Together we were able to unload the suitcases in time for me to dash off to my meeting, which I was sure I’d get to late.  But as it turned out, I reached an intersection near to the stake center just at 5:00 p.m.  I couldn’t remember for sure just where to turn to get to the stake center, however.  Just then I spotted two elders headed to the same meeting, had them hop in, and together we got there just as the meeting was about to start. 

None of this probably sounds like a big deal to anyone else.  But when things constantly work out just right, when it appears they won’t, we feel constrained to acknowledge the hand of divine providence in our behalf.

Avoiding a public relations disaster

My journal entry for October 5, 1997 recounted:  “I came close to a public relations disaster today.  I had been asked some weeks ago to speak at a stake youth fireside in one of our stakes tonight.  But somehow when I redid my October calendar a couple of weeks ago, I had neglected to include the fireside on the new calendar, and I had totally forgotten about the commitment.  We had been watching general conference at a member friend’s home in the morning, and for some reason we decided to make a quick trip home between the morning and afternoon sessions.  Before returning, I decided to check whether we had any telephone messages.  I discovered one on the answering machine from the bishop who had organized the fireside, reminding me of the same!  Happily, I was able to put some notes together during the afternoon session of general conference, and I guess the fireside turned out okay—certainly better than it would have been had I not shown up at all.  Another blessing was that the bishop even called to remind me, as that is probably the exception rather than the norm.”

Breaking into our locked car

One day I accidentally locked the keys to the Ford Escort inside the car during missionary interviews.  During a break in the schedule, a couple of elders and I went off on foot in search of a locksmith.  We couldn’t find one.   But we did find a dry-cleaning establishment.  The people there were kind enough to give us a clothes hanger.  Fortunately, one of the elders was skilled enough in its use to be able to get the car open while I finished up my last interview. 

Divinely guided in spite of myself

On February 11, 1999, I had a good but somewhat funny experience that was typical of how things seemed always to work out right in spite of our best efforts to foul them up.  After picking up our assistants that morning, I proceeded to head toward the entrance to the “freeway” to Cuatitlan Izcalli on the north edge of the city.  I had it in my mind that that was where the zone conference for five of our zones was supposed to be.  Rather than take my usual entrance to the freeway, however, I went further north on a parallel road to experiment with another way to access it. 

As I tried to enter the freeway, however, I discovered that that entrance did not put me on the freeway going north after all.  Instead, it crossed the freeway and put me back onto it going south!  As I pondered the best way to get turned around and going right, it suddenly occurred to me to check where we were really supposed to be.  Lo and behold, according to both my calendar and my assistants, the multi-zone conference for that month was, in fact, to be not in Cuatitlan Izcalli but in Valle Dorado.  Amazingly, my unintended detour had put us virtually in front of the Valle Dorado Stake center!  Though I didn’t know where I was supposed to be, Someone obviously did!

Nighttime impressions

At one point early in our mission, I discovered to my dismay that I had totally forgotten the PIN for our personal bank account.  In those days I hadn’t had the presence of mind to write down all such information in a secure place.  I unwisely relied on my fallible memory.   No matter what number I tried at the ATM, I couldn’t withdraw any cash. 

But one night, in a dream, I saw all four digits of our PIN!  Actually a couple of the digits were inverted, but it was enough of a hint that on my next trip to the ATM, I was able quickly to get the cash I needed.

On another occasion, I was meditating deeply about how to deal with some cases of missionary disobedience of mission rules.  I knew it was important to show love and kindness to the missionaries.  But I knew it was also necessary to teach that God Himself cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.  I was uncertain just how to balance those two principles.  But during one memorable night, I was given distinct impressions through that “still, small voice” to understand exactly what I needed to do.  It is not important to share just what the answer was.  But I did want to testify that the answer did come, and that I had no doubt of its source.

A couple of miracles recorded by Virginia

Virginia wrote in 1997:  “It has been interesting to observe and participate in the activities of missionary work.  We have been impressed repeatedly with how much the Lord is helping us and guiding us in His work.  One illustration is the healing of sick missionaries when we have asked for His help.  On several occasions, as soon as we started praying specifically for a certain missionary, that missionary has recovered before medical treatment was administered.”

On October 31, 1997:  Virginia recorded:  “All of you who have e-mail now know of the car accident Kathi and Debbi [our teenage daughters] were in on Halloween morning [as passengers returning from early morning seminary].  It’s a miracle no one was hurt badly, because neither the car nor the tree survived.”

For other miracles recounted by our missionaries during our time in Mexico, see my post entitled Missionary Miracles in Mexico.

Blessings during our travels

Through the years, while driving around the country, we often experienced mechanical breakdowns.  But it was almost always at a place help would be available.  Sometimes we could limp to the next exit, where we would find a repair shop.  Other times some kindly and capable stranger would stop to help.  Once, in the middle of a desert, our vehicle’s battery ran completely out right next to a construction site, where a worker was able to charge our battery  enough to get us to the next town, where someone was able to replace our alternator.

We had similar “good fortune” when flying.  My personal journal records multiple times when, while flying standby, we got the last two available seats, enabling us to get to our destination on time.  On at least a couple of occasions, when we had to transfer from one plane to another (even from one airline to another) to continue our journey, we arrived at the new gate just seconds before they were to have closed it.  Once when Virginia and I had to fly separately to London, we were amazed how easy it was to find each other at the very large airport there, in spite of some misunderstanding with regard to the gates.

Sometimes even navigational direction came through divine sources.  On February 11, 2002, as a Church Educational System coordinator, I was heading down to visit a seminary in Homestead, Florida.  I was about to exit I-75 onto the Florida Turnpike when I heard on the radio, with only seconds to spare, that the turnpike was closed in both directions because of a fatal accident.  I was able to continue on I-75 and take an alternate route to Homestead without ending up in a massive traffic jam. 

On the way home I determined to take Krome Avenue instead of the still-closed turnpike, but after getting onto it heard that it, too, was closed because of another fatal accident further up.  It took me 2 ½ hours to eventually get home via congested routes.  But it really didn’t matter.  At least I got to the seminary class on time!

Blessed with rain and cold during the Young Men’s and Young Women’s handcart trek

In January, 2003, Virginia was the stake Young Women’s president.  The young men and young women of the stake were scheduled to have a 20-mile handcart trek at the Church’s ranch near Orlando.  Virginia wanted very much for the young people to have weather conditions that would help them appreciate what the real handcart pioneers had experienced.  But when she and other leaders drove up to check out the trail prior to the event, they found just one spot where there was a bit of water.  Virginia wrote:  “I was wishing we could have a lot more water to wade through to resemble the many river crossings of the real pioneers.  Here winters are typically our dry season.  We had been praying for six months that the Lord would give us the weather conditions that would make this trek an impactful experience for our youth. At 2:00 a.m. the morning of the trek, a cloudburst let loose so much rain that it almost destroyed our back-up camp which had set up a day early.  It poured for hours!  We got all the water I’d hoped for and a whole lot more!”    

There was initially a bit of grumbling the first evening, as the youth pulled and pushed handcarts through sometimes knee-deep water for 10-12 miles. But it turned out to be a spiritual highlight in the lives of those who participated.  Virginia herself commented:  “I found myself wondering why I wasn’t miserable at 9 pm trudging along in the dark in an unknown swamp-like area which possibly harbored alligators.   But I was enjoying every minute of the experience.”

A couple of mornings later, the temperature got down to 34 degrees, further adding to the pioneer experience.   The concluding testimony meeting confirmed how much the young men and young women had grown spiritually through doing something which was difficult.  And the Lord’s blessing the area with lots of rain and cold was a significant part of what made it possible.

Experiences in Guatemala

From October 2004 through September 2006 Virginia and I served a mission in Guatemala, where I was the Church Educational System area director for all of Central America.  Since it was another somewhat challenging assignment, it was not surprising to receive divine help on numerous occasions.  Here is just a sample:

• March 2005: Trying to get to Quetzaltanango, we found the road completely blocked by demonstrators in Chimaltenango at 2:00 pm and were told it had been that way since 8:00 am.  We waited in line with all the buses and trucks for a couple of hours and were very close to deciding to turn around and go home and cancel our appointments when a man approached our open car window and told us of a detour whereby we could get around the blockade.  We followed his instructions and after several kilometers of very rough and dusty roads we were on our way again.  We passed several places where there had been or still were large rocks or trees in the road.  We wouldn’t have wanted to be driving there at night.  But we reached the turnoff to Quetzaltanango just before dark and reached our hotel without further incident.  To us it was the equivalent of the Lord’s parting the Red Sea for Moses.  He parted the traffic for us!

• April 1, 2005: As we prepared to leave for the U.S. and the annual Area Director’s convention, I couldn’t find my wallet.  We wouldn’t be able to go without credit cards and my driver’s license.  We had just moved into a new apartment, and I thought I must have misplaced the wallet among all the stuff we were trying to put up and organize.  Virginia finally said it appeared time for prayer.  We had scarcely begun when the thought came to me that the wallet could be in the car.  As soon as we finished, I ran down to check, and there it was!  The thought hadn’t even occurred to me until we began prayer.

• 2005, May:   I spent the night in a hotel in a now-forgotten city somewhere in Central America.  I had to leave the next morning at 5:15 for a Church Educational System appointment of some sort.  Waking up in the morning at 3:45 a.m., I found there was no water in the hotel.  A call to the front desk revealed they were doing repairs on the tank and water should be flowing again in a half hour.  It wasn’t.  Nor was it by 4:55 a.m., and I had to leave at 5:15.  I went looking in vain for some ice that I might melt and do a little clean up with.  However, after making mention of the need in my morning prayer, I was pleased to find a very brief flow come from the faucet in the tub long enough for me to half way fill the ice bucket. This allowed me to shave, have at least a sponge bath, and brush my teeth.  Much better than nothing!  I have no idea where the water came from, as it was turned off in the entire hotel, but I was happy to get it.

• October, 2005:  Luis Paiz, the CES coordinator in the office next to mine, told us of a friend who worked in the area near Lake Atitlán where a landslide from a nearby volcano almost completely buried a village under 15 feet of mud, killing hundreds.  Reportedly, there were only two homes in the entire town spared—that of the branch president of the branch of Santiago Atitlan and that of the only other member family in the village.  When the vast wall of mud slid down from the volcano, when it got to the branch president’s home, it divided into two and passed on both sides of the home, rejoining into a solid wall again a bit further down.  When it got to the home of the other member, it reportedly jogged just enough to the right to spare that home. Impressive!

• During a second mission in Guatemala, on July 8, 2010, we experienced what may have been one of our most dramatic incidents of divine protection.  We were driving from Guatemala City to Lake Atitlan, which involved going on mountain roads for a stretch.  We were going uphill on what I thought was a divided highway, with two lanes in each direction.  Coming upon a slow truck, I moved into the left lane to pass.  At that moment, another large semitruck came around the corner coming downhill directly at us in our lane.  Evidently, storms had caused landslides to cover the road on the other side, so all traffic, both uphill and downhill, was now on our side.  Somehow, I had missed seeing whatever sign may have been posted to that effect.

My first impulse was to put on the brakes and let the truck on my right get past, whereupon I could move over behind him.  But he was going so slowly that there was no time for that.  Nor was there time for me to accelerate and get past him before hitting the truck coming downhill.  The road didn’t seem wide enough that all three of us could possibly pass together. 

I did the only thing that seemed possible.  I moved as close to the uphill truck as I could get and said an earnest silent prayer.  There wasn’t much of a shoulder for the downhill truck to move onto.  But he moved over what he could, and zoomed past us, missing us by mere inches.  I hope my guardian angel got some vacation time after that one!

Can you have miracles even with garbage disposals?

On August 15, 2018, I wrote:  “Last night I was reminded again of the importance of the spiritual dimension in resolving even temporal challenges.  After putting a lot of cherry stems and eggshells down our garbage disposal, I finally succeeded in completely stopping up the drain.  The garbage disposal would still rotate and whirr, but the water wouldn’t go down at all.  I checked online to see if it was considered okay to use a toilet plunger on a garbage disposal, and what else would be recommended short of calling an expensive plumber.  I found the plunger idea was okay.  So, I repeatedly plunged with some energy, to absolutely no avail. 

“I read that other steps could include pouring boiling water down the disposal and using baking soda and vinegar.  I put water on to boil and located the baking soda and vinegar, while I continued to plunge in vain. 

“It finally occurred to me that there was one step I had omitted—one which was not on the internet list of possible remedies.  I simply turned off the garbage disposal, closed my eyes, and had a brief prayer.  I opened my eyes, turned the disposal back on, and the clog and the water in the sink cleared out almost immediately!  No more plunging, no hot water, and no baking soda and vinegar were needed.  I had learned as a young boy that I could find a baseball in an alfalfa field much quicker after prayer.  If I had remembered sooner, I might not have had to plunge so long.”

Multiple miscellaneous miracles

Space will not allow a detailed recitation of the majority of the other mini-miracles I have recorded in my personal journal.  But together they provide a powerful reminder to me of how often the Lord has intervened to make things work out well, when it appeared they could not.  The lost has been found.  The sick have been healed.  Missing or corrupted computer files have been restored.  Needed solutions have been discovered.  Perhaps we can give a brief summary of just a few more of them:

• I had coughed nearly constantly for days, but with prayer the cough subsided completely during a two-and-a-half-hour meeting where the coughing would have been a major distraction.
• We found a lost small SD card which had fallen into an unusual place—but only after prayer.
• In Guatemala, while we made home teaching visits during a torrential downpour, the rain stopped just long enough for us to get from one home to another without getting wet.
• Similarly, in Guatemala, several days of rain threatened to necessitate cancellation of a real branch “fireside” on a hill outside of town.  But on the evening of the fireside, the lightning and wind suddenly stopped.  A small clearing in the skies appeared right over our heads, assuring us of dry weather for the program, though the rest of the sky remained covered with dark and threatening clouds.
• With prayer I found a lost PDA (personal digital assistant—something of a forerunner of today’s smart phones.)
• During a cruise Virginia broke a tooth during our stop in Rio de Janeiro.  Though we spoke no Portuguese, we were able to make our way downtown, find a dentist, and convince her to fix Virginia’s tooth immediately even though she was with other patients.  We were able to return to the ship barely in time to go on a previously arranged tour of the city.
• In Panama we were able to get dental attention for Virginia when her jaw swelled up and turned red, in spite of the dentist’s office being closed at the time.
• While preparing for a satellite transmission from Salt Lake City to our district president’s home in Panama, we had technical difficulties right up until one minute prior to the transmission.  Suddenly, everything miraculously began to work.  We found that the district president’s young son had been praying for our success.
• Prayer helped us find 50 missing photos of the Panama City Temple.
• I’m sure divine help was involved in our getting our car in Panama to a mechanic when all but one lug bolt on a front wheel had broken off!
• We felt we received help with ideas for handling the logistics of the open house and dedication of the Panama City Temple, something we had never been involved in before.
• I was grateful for a prompting not to back up any further as I made a U-turn on a narrow dirt road in Panama.  I later discovered that to have done so would have sent me over the edge into a deep ditch.
• Priesthood blessings were regularly followed by at least temporary recovery from physical challenges.
• Going to the temple in preparation for a talk on the blessings of the temple, I found I was able to fill four notebook pages with ideas which came to me as I sat through the session.

More Meteorological Miracles

Written September 10, 2017 

For about a week Hurricane Irma was heading straight for us, at the time the strongest hurricane ever to emerge from the Atlantic basin in recorded history.  It devastated St. Martin, St. Thomas, Barbuda, and did major damage in Puerto Rico and Cuba.  It was mammoth and lasted longer as a Category 4 or 5 storm than any before it.  Our children uniformly urged us to evacuate.  We were concerned that we had made the wrong decision in going without homeowners insurance, and we envisioned the possibility of losing the roof or more. 

But we felt some responsibility to stay, given our assignment in the temple and our home teaching responsibilities, and we foresaw the possibility of other service opportunities after the storm passed.  We prayed that if it were the Lord’s will, He might spare our home and those of as many as possible of others in South Florida. 

Unexpectedly, the storm moved further west and diminished in strength.  Its new route was to take it right past our daughter Regina’s and Sean’s home [near Tampa], but by the time it reached them, it was only a Category 1, and Regina slept right through it.  We had significant wind and rain for a day, with gusts over 80 mph, but there was virtually no damage to our property.  We had neighbors who lost trees and some fencing, but our only casualty was a bent gate latch!  We felt truly blessed. 

Written on August 31, 2019

Hurricane Dorian for days had been projected to be on a collision course with the entire state of Florida as a Category 4 major hurricane.  As late as Friday, August 30, this is what the forecast looked like:

By way of reminder:  “A Category 4 hurricane has wind speeds of between 130 and 156 mph and is considered a major storm.  Catastrophic damage will occur. Well-built frame homes can sustain severe damage with loss of most of the roof structure and/or some exterior walls. Most trees will be snapped or uprooted and power poles will topple. Fallen trees and power lines will isolate residential areas. Power outages will last weeks to possibly months. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months.”

The storm grew to have sustained winds of 185 mph with gusts up to 220 mph.  W were forecast to get 8-10 inches of rain or more.  But:

I believe it was on Friday, August 30, when the Fort Lauderdale temple presidency sent out a note to all local stake presidents and bishops inviting them to invite their members to earnestly pray specifically that the hurricane might change its course and spare the temple and our homes from what could have been a disaster.  Though patrons and workers alike are generally asked to turn off their cell phones in the temple, I couldn’t resist checking the storm’s progress a couple of times during the day during my service on Saturday.  Here is what I found:

The storm was now projected to take an early and dramatic turn northward, with the eye staying out to sea!  Neither our home nor the temple was even within the cone of uncertainty anymore.   This new projected path turned out to be what happened, and virtually no damage occurred anywhere in the state of Florida.

There were many prayers of thanks for what seemed to us to be a miracle of nearly Biblical proportions.  It ranks up there with Samuel’s being unable to be hit by the Nephite arrows, the righteous Nephites being spared from execution by the unbelievers when the promised signs of the Savior’s birth appeared, and the Israelites’ preservation from the overwhelmingly superior Syrian armies in the days of Elisha, who referencing the “mountain … full of horses and chariots of fire” could truly say, “They that be with us are more than they that be with them.”  We were most grateful. 

Conclusion

The skeptic will ask, “What about those poor people in the Bahamas who suffered 185 mph winds from Category 5 Hurricane Dorian for a full day?  Didn’t they pray?  Weren’t they as deserving as those in South Florida?”

We may not be able to fully answer that question with our limited understanding of all the circumstances involved.  We do address the subject and offer partial explanations in our post at https://latterdaysaintandhappy.com/keep-gods-commandments-prosper-why-are-so-many-good-people-poor/.  But the fact that the Bahamas weren’t spared, for reasons best known by God Himself, does not make the miracle seen in South Florida any less real.

Skeptics may likewise find many others of the foregoing “miracles” laughable.  They will see mere coincidence, not divine intervention. 

No doubt many lost things are found just by human cunning.  And some “coincidences” may well be only that.  But I am personally convinced beyond any doubt that all of the happy outcomes I have recorded above, and the hundreds of others that we have necessarily passed over in silence, could not have come through chance alone. 

No one should be persuaded to begin to exercise faith because of any or all of them.  Signs are designed to follow and strengthen faith, not initiate it.  But it is the greatest blessing of my life to know that I really do have a loving Father in Heaven, who knows me and desires my happiness, here and hereafter.  I’m so grateful for all those little things He has done and continues to do to make my life happier here and now, even as I learn to endure the harder times with patience and faith.  And it convinces me that all that He has promised for the life to come will just as surely come to pass.