Mission Miracle from Elder Benjamin Miles

I just wanted to write you about a miracle we had this week!

So I was on an exchange with Elder Nelson! and we spent the day contacting, and at one point during the day we were at the church and I didn't really now what to do with our time and then I felt prompted to go outside and invite people to an activity that we were going to have that night! So we went outside and I tried to stop this one man and he just kept walking and then I heard somebody say “Elder” and I looked around to see who was there and there is this boy by the gate of the church and he told me that he is a member, and he told me that he hasn't been to church in a year but that he wants to come back and so I offered to have a lesson with him and he said yes! We went and had a lesson that went really well and he came to church and everything and it was like he had never missed a day. I just love how the lord takes care of all of his children! He knew that kid was standing outside of the church and that he needed something spiritual in his life and so the Lord prompted his servants to go out there and find him. Phillip, (the name of the boy) told me that he had gotten off at the wrong bus stop and was heading to the bus stop next to the church when we were exiting and he decided to stop us! It was a miracle!

Mission Miracle from Sora Elizabeth Lovell

Is everyone ready for something AMAZING!!!!
MAIA IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY!!!! That is Alina's Mom!!! She finally doing it. I will tell you what happened. It was VERY unexpected.

So this past planning session I was reorganizing our white board (where we list who we work with-investigators, recent converts, less actives, and so on)and I actually moved Maia down to the end of the list of investigators to show she was no longer a focus, she was not progressing and I basically accepted that she would be an eternal investigator always saying "I'll get baptized in December...I'll get baptized in January...I'll get baptized in February" but never actually making any commitments and never actually entering the font. THEN...on Sunday (after a week of both Maia and Alina being sick and actually thinking they were not coming) Alina and Maia come in to church. Sacrament meeting has ended and it is time to start the Investigators' Sunday School class. I sit down next to Alina who is next to Maia. The lesson was fabulous (by our fearless district leader and his amazing companion) and Maia answered questions (not super surprising she is an intelligent women and studied the bible in her life) and her and Alina sat next to each other in their skirts (I was at least grateful when Maia came she also wore a skirt because neither of them liked the idea at all when I suggested Alina, being a member, needs to come in a skirt) and again the thought came into my mind that Maia will just never get baptized (pathetic, I know). Then after the class, Alina got up to use the restroom and I have NO IDEA WHY but I suddenly found myself scooting over next to Maia and asking, "Deci, cand vei fi botezta?" or "So, when will you get baptized?" I could not believe the words coming from my mouth. Even more surprising was her answer, just as bold as my question "I need to look at the calendar because I am ready now."
WHAT????? When or how her heart was changed I am not exactly sure but WOW! I told Sora Howard and she could not stop smiling and then Janyela and Mariana came over to congratulate her. We were already planning a lunch together (Sora Howard, me, Janyela, Mariana, Alina, and Maia) for Saturday so Maia decided why not just do the baptism then and then get confirmed on Sunday. What did I say to that? "SURE!" Oh, and when Alina came out of the bathroom Sora Howard told Alina to ask her Mom, "what is the surprise?" Aw, when Maia said "I am getting baptized on Saturday Alina's face just lit up!!! She gave her Mom a big hug. It was so cute.
Sora Howard and I have tons to do before Saturday! MAIA IS GETTING BAPTIZED. We are probably scratching the lunch and just having treats after cause we have tons to do.

Another miracle though also came from listening to the promptings of the spirit. Our district leader gave us a challenge this week to place 10 Russian Book of Mormons. We do not have missionaries that speak Russian right now but SO MANY people speak Russian and there is a whole lot of other reasons why we were given this assignment that I will just tell you when I get home if you really want to know but anyways....Sora Howard and I prayerfully chose where we needed to go block knocking in hopes that on this particular day we would place 5 or those 10 books. Oh man, on the Maxi Taxi (tiny van bus way of traveling) over there I placed 2 with the two men that sat next to me (We really are focusing on men because we have so many women in the church) and they were both really neat then when we finally found the street we wanted to go to we went to the top of the first block and after 2 floors we already gave out the last 3 and we were able to make it to our last appointment of the night. When Sora Howard and I left the block we could just feel the spirit so strong (she was really on a spiritual high... she could not stop smiling and laughing for joy) and we just felt the spirit confirm that we did what God wanted us to do. We planned, found, and taught by the spirit. I love this work. God's hand is really in it.

Mission Miracle from Elder Devon Fitzgerald

This past week we got a new investigator named Ioan. The way he found us reminds me of several stories that I've heard of in the Ensign. Growing up, he studied to be a priest and was for 10 years of his life. To be a priest, he had to get married, and unfortunately did due to demand rather than love. 10 years afterward, he was devastated when his wife left him for someone else. According to him, that was the first time that God told him that his place was not in the orthodox church. However, he still wanted to serve as a priest. He was required to remarry and serve somewhere outside of the city for 5 years. After that he was promised stewardship in Bucuresti. So he did exactly what he was asked to do. After the 5 years he was denied the stewardship that was promised to him. The second time God told him that his place was somewhere else. He said that it was at that moment where he began to search for his answers. He said that he was clearly told that there was something else for him. So he went to every church he knew of but it didn't fill his emptiness, using his words. That search lasted for almost 6 years. Then one day he came across an article about a problem that a certain orthodox priest had with mormon missionaries in Pitesti. From reading the article he understood that the priest wasn't worth listening to (his words again) and that young boys teach English as well as religion. My favorite part of this story is the fact the Lord created a referral from an article which was an attempt of somebody to give us negative press. So he took the address which was written incorrectly in the article and started looking. He talked to several taxi drivers and individuals on the street until someone realized that He wanted to find Str. Florariei (our actual address) instead of Str. Florilor (the incorrect address from the article). After finding our villa he was discouraged by the fact that no one was there. So he came back again and again, a total of 12 times! On the 12th time we were at the villa. A piano lesson had just ended and we were in the kitchen speaking in English. He entered the villa and saw that there wasn't anyone there. So he looked around. I can't think of the courage it would take to come into a foreign church unannounced, and then to approach the individuals in a separate room who were speaking a foreign language. But to him, he wanted nothing more than to find his answers. He asked us a little about the English classes and we took his information and told him that they will start again in about a month and a half. He then asked us if we could discuss religion before that because that's far too long for him to wait. Surprised, we were excited to take him into the other room and have a discussion. We promised him that all of his answers were in the Book of Mormon and he was more than excited to take one. He told us about his life and how he's been searching for us. We could only just sit back and be amazed at his diligence and how prepared he was to meet us. He wants to do everything to find God and help everyone else to do the same, especially his 4 children and wife (he remarried). We literally couldn't ask for more. This was an answer to a lot of prayers. Last week we were talking and were saying that the only thing that Pitesti did have was a serious, progressing investigator. I personally had started to think that people like Parley P Pratt didn't exist anymore. People educated in scripture, yet humble enough to want more, and even realize that there is more. This whole thing happened on Wednesday. On Saturday, we met with him again and were able to talk about the restoration. He told us about the first time He read the Bible and he had a feeling which made him know that is was true. That was actually when he wanted to be a priest. He said he hasn't had that feeling again... until he picked up the Book of Mormon and started to read it. We are promised that people will be lead to us. I learned quite abruptly that this is very true. Unfortunately he was unable to come to church because he lives 30 km outside of the city and he hadn't been home for a week. But the story isn't over yet.

Mission Miracle from Elder Kent Herrick

During my exchange with Elder Davis we found a man on the street, who recognized us as missionaries by the name of the church on our nametags. He came up to us and started saying "Doctrine and Covenants" and "Pearl of Great Price." At first Elder Davis was worried that he was just a trouble maker, but it turns out that he didn't know much about the church, but he had just found the LDS version of the scriptures on the internet while searching for the King James Bible. So we had a good discussion with him on a park bench. He had a lot of deep doctrinal questions and is really interested, so we gave him a Book of Mormon. He's going to school here, but lives out of town la tara. So he might be hard to meet with, but I'm just glad we found him.

I think a large part of the miracle is how we found him. Earlier in the day, I had decided against going home to make lunch, and instead we grabbed a quick shaorma in centru. And just before we found him I had decided to walk on that certain side of the street. If we hadn't of done both of those we never would have found him. We definitely had the spirit with us, I think largely in part due to Elder Davis' great job of having us SYL. Plus we had some other really good lessons that day too.

Mission Miracle from Elder Benjamin Miles

We had a miracle!
We had an exchange this week with Elder Boyd from Craiova and it went really well. Our goal was to listen to the spirit and follow him! So we walked around and searched and when we felt prompted we stopped the people. The best part is that we were stopping a good amount of people and it was going ok. A lot of people listened to us and we gave out a lot of information about the church. I noticed that I was doing a lot of the stopping and I really wanted Elder Boyd to stop someone and when he finally did it turned out to be a really cool guy who said he was totally willing to read the Book of Mormon and to meet with us! This is a miracle because I really wanted Elder Boyd to know and have the faith the he can find the elect and to find such a wonderful investigator was really good for him!
After that we donated all of our time to getting ready for the open house which was a huge success! 60 people came to see the open house 37 of them being non members/investigators, it was such a cool experience! One of our investigators came, and I almost missed him but he came and so we were super happy to see that!
Also we had another miracle this week, we have been praying really hard to have investigators at church and this Sunday, God answered our prayer and we had 3 show up! One of them is this investigator from Syria and we are going to give him a b -date tonight! We are visiting him with one of our recent converts!

Mission Miracle from Sora Kimberly Ertel

1- I was street boarding a week or two ago and wasn't having tons of success, but eventually felt a strong prompting to stop a certain woman walking towards me. She was probably in her early 30's, and I stopped her, asked her a few questions, and told her we had a message about Heavenly Father's plan for us. We had a decent 5-minute conversation or so, but in the middle she starts to cry and proceeds to tell me that she had a strong feeling as she was walking by that she needed to stop and talk to us and that she was so thankful that I stopped her. She had had a recent death in the family, so I was able to testify to her of the power of the plan of salvation for us and how she needs the gospel in her life. I haven't gotten ahold of her yet but we should be able to this week! It was truly one of the coolest little miracles I have seen on my mission.
2- We commited our main progressing investigator, Ani, to stop smoking almost 2 weeks ago. She smoked a pack and a half (about 30 cigarettes) a day, and has smoked since she was 13-ish (she's in her late 20's) just because everyone else was doing it. She really wanted to stop, and has stopped once or twice before, so we knew she could do it. My companion and I have just never had to deal with this type of situation before, so we didn't know quite how to handle it. We asked her to smoke 5 cigarettes less by the weekend (about 4 days away) and we would call her and check up/help out every night. Well, to make a long story short, she went from 30 to 8 in one day, 2 after one week, and 0 the day after that. As of today she hasn't smoked at all in 5 days! She is so amazing and so prepared! We had no idea she would be able to quit so quickly, and she testified to us that neither did she- she thought it would take her 1-2 months. And her testimony of the Word of Wisdom is already so strong, as she tells us that she already feels so much better, more free, peaceful, and hardly any cravings or temptations at all. The effect of the gospel on her life has changed her so much, and she and her family are already so much happier. She truly is our miracle investigator! (She has a baptismal date for Dec. 7th currently).
Thanks for all of your help, especially in our interviews this week. It was great to see you and great to get some new insight into our work here in Arad. I am loving it!

Mission Miracle from Sora Kiss-Maxim

Here's a miracle... it's a personal one that many would not really get. But it's a big one. I talked to my mom the other day after she went to the doctor for a check-up. She went there, and the doctor told her that she is one of the very few lucky ones to discover the cancer in the first phase, that they were surprise of the test results that they did on her kidney. She doesn't have to go through any additional treatment. The doctor checked the rest, to see the tumors and cysts on her ovaries and uterus, and they are all gone. The doctor asked my mom if she was sure that she had any. She showed him the papers from the last test, and he was shocked! Apparently, my mom is fine! She can run the marathon... not really, but she's not dying! She told me that our home is not dark and gloomy anymore, that no one talks about death anymore, that they can smile again. That's my miracle!