Finding Miracles

          July 21, 2014

My most prolific greetings to you all!

 

So this past week has been crazy. Basically all of our appointments have fallen through the past week, but by some miracle our accomplishments have never been higher.

 

Small miracle #1: The temperature has been crazy low. As in less than 90. Without vast amounts of humidity. Yeah, it was fantastic. There as also a constant breeze blowing which both kept our favorite flying parasites off of us and also kept us nice and cool.

 

Small miracle #2: None of us were bitten by spiders last night. This could be an chapter straight out of a horror story. We got home from church and all of our activities last night and called up the District Leaders to tell them our numbers for the week. (How many lessons we taught, who we talked to, how they are progressing, etc...) During the middle of our conversation Elder Raiford noticed a very large spider on the wall next to my head. I grabbed the nearest object (a Book of Mormon) and proceeded to pound it into the wall. I then noticed that there was a smaller one on the wall behind his head. Before he killed it though we got a good look at it. It was a Brown Recluse. I grabbed a can of Raid bugspray from the closet and Elder Raiford examined the carcass of the newly-deceased arachnid. Right around the time I finished covering the second spider in white foam my companion decided that the first spider was most likely a Brown Recluse as well. We began a thourgh examination of our living quarters to try and find any others.

 

We went into the bedroom and started looking everywhere in the walls and in the closet. After examining all of the visible walls we closed the doors and looked at the walls behind those. Guess what we found on the ground behind the closet door? A Nickel! Hurrah for hidden money! Just kidding, it was another Brown Recluse, about the same size as the second one. (The first was about the size of a quarter and the second and third were about the size of a nickel.) I then proceeded to cover that one in white as well. Somewhere in the midst of all of this Elder Raiford mentioned that Brown Recluses are often resilliant to common poisons. As I sprayed down the newest invader I told him "Then it's a good thing over-kill will fix just about anything!" You couldn't even see the spider after I was done spraying it.

 

By this point both of us were thouraghly paranoid and were seeing every random spotch on the walls as a spider ready to attack us.  After scouring all of the walls and doors yet again, we decided that we probably/hopefully got them all and started checking out our beds to make sure there weren't any in there either. Mine was clear, but Elder Raiford's.... not so much. We pulled back the pillows, nothing; blanket, nothing; the bedspread, yep. A big fat one, sitting right in the middle of it. He screamed quite nicely, so nicely in fact that I wish I could have gotten it recorded, and proceeded to flick it off of the bed and beat it to a pulp. Apparently the myth that a well-made bed keeps the spiders out is true - mine was made and his was not. (both of us made our beds this morning; tucked the sheets in as tight as they could go.) We plan to buy a few more cans of bug spray today and go to war.

 

Small miracle #3: We were walking down the most run-down part of the town looking for someone to talk to. We did that a lot this past week. While we were walking we saw a guy I'll call Denny working out in his yard. He introduced himself and told us he was Pagan and really wasn't interested in what we had to say. We asked him if he believed in a higher power, to which he responded 'yes'. He told us a few of his beliefs, the majority of them being that there is a God, but that he doesn't care about us, and he wasn't going to serve a god who didn't care about his creations. We started talking to him, showing him in the scriptures about how God really did exist and not only did he exist, but he loved every one of us. Long story short, he became intrested in our ideals and has invited us back to talk with him. We plan on going back tomorrow or tonight. A bonus miracle to this story: we have been wanting to knock on his door for a while now, but never seemed to have the time to do so. Now we know why our Father in Heaven wanted us to go there! It was very much an Ammon and King Lamoni experience. (Book of Mormon, starting on page 250)

 

My testimony is this: God is there, and he still is a God of Miracles. They are there; you just have to look for them. Just as God performed many miracles in the biblical days, He still does so today. Some of these miracles are big and obvious, like the last one I shared. Others are like the first, far less visible, unless you take the time to look for them. Something kinda crazy I've noticed as well: The more you look for miracles, the more you will find. The more you thank the Lord for that which you recieve, the more you will recieve. So thank the Lord for the miracles you've got, and keep looking for them.

 

The Church is True,

The BoM is blue,

God loves you more than your mom,

Sorry y'all; it's true!

 

Stay classy, my friends!

-Elder Jayden Barker

 

Today's scripture: 2 Nephi 1:13-15