Mission Miracle from Elder Benjamin Miles

This week we also had a really good day at the Blocks. We have been trying to be really organized in our block -knocking by making sure we hit every door! Usually we just go to a block and talk to the people that are home and if some isn't home they miss out and will have to wait till the next missionaries come. I know not the best way of doing things so we now have been keeping records of every door and if someone isn't home we go back and we do that block again. So this week we headed back to a block that we had previously down to make sure we had gotten every body! We went back to all the apartments were nobody had been home! At one of the doors we ran into an Orthodox Priest and we started to have a discussion with him, ended up calling him to repentance, really got serious with him, and told him that he needed to repent! Then we went to the next door and this older woman opened the door, and at first, she said to give her a second because she was still getting changed. She then opened the door, let us in, and we started to teach the first lesson. She was super interested and at one point she interrupted us and said, “Okay, if I'm not going to go to my church anymore, where should I go?” (implying that she wanted the address.) We told her, and we finished up with the Book of Mormon Promise and with our testimonies. She just loved the discussion and said she would read the Book of Mormon! It was the best first lesson I have had in a long time and we can't wait to go back! Her name is Doina and she is a physics teacher in Bucharest! It was a testimony to me that we need to go and make sure we talk with every one and give every one a chance!

Also, this week I had one of the greatest experiences of the mission! I was on an exchange with Elder Loveland, a missionary who is going home today because he is done with his mission, and he had set up for us to go and visit this member who is in the hospital. We went and planned on singing to this member. When we got there we met with her, sang with her, and afterward visited with her. After that we walked out and there were other people who were eating and we asked them if we could sing for them. They said “yes” and it was just incredible to see their faces and to see them smile. It was also incredible to see how the spirit came into the room and the lives of the patients as we sang about the Savior of the World and in some rooms people got up and sang with us. After we finished, people tried to pay and we told them no, that we were volunteer missionaries and that we wanted to sing just for them. We also had wrapped copies of the Book of Mormon with invitations to church and after every “concert” we did a little spiritual thought about the Book of Mormon, it is the greatest gift that we have to give, and that is the gift of our Savior! People took them so fast that we ran out!! Now we have to go back and give more and sing more because the people wanted it! After we finished at that hospital, we went to another and we went around singing. At one point we went into this room and there were two very sick old ladies that could barely understand us when we asked them if we could sing to them! So we started to sing and the lady went from being in the depths of despair, to crying and at one point during the performance we sang a Romanian carol and the old ladies sang along with us. They just kept asking us to sing and the spirit was so strong. So we finished up and I walked over to talk to her and she was crying. She kissed my hands and said thank you, I said thank you, and we went on to the next room. As I was half way down the hall, I heard a Romanian carol being played on what sounded like a harmonica and so I went back and there was that old lady playing a little children's harmonica. I started to sing with her and when she finished she looked at me and told me that she knew that the song she had played wasn't much and that it was just a kids harmonica, but she had wanted so much to play us a song. I went up to her and said thank you and told her that I knew that Christ was her Savior, and that even in these hard time she doesn't need to feel alone; he is always near and he will always love her because she is a Child of God. She was crying and she said “Slava Domnului” which means glory be to God. I have never felt more like a representative of Christ in any other moment then I did then in that moment, and I have never felt the love of our Savior and the Spirit of the Lord more that I did in that moment. For the first time In my life I think I finally understood the true meaning of Christmas and the mission of the Savior, and that is to love others, to bring joy to those who mourn, and at that moment I better understood my duty as a member of the The Church. It is to help those who can't help themselves just as the Savior suffered for me when I couldn't suffer for myself. It was a Christmas miracle for me and a lesson that I will never forget!