Mission Miracle from Elder Brian Foote

May 29, 2009

My miracle for the week is last Monday I was feeling awful. We went to an Internet place close to the church so that I could print off a prescription then my plan was to go home and just sleep. I went to the church after I got my prescription so I could get a drink of water and take the first pill. When leaving the church the Zone leaders were walking inside starting a tour with a lady from the street. We decided to stick around with all the tables outside and to try and talk to people even though neither of us were feeling that great. We ended up talking to several people including an older lady and her friend. We gave her a couple of pamphlets and invited her to english classes the next day. She promised to come as well as to read the pamphlets. She not only came to english the next day but also had read all the pamphlets, told me she knew they were true. She said she knew the message inside them was true. Got online and ordered a Book of Mormon, but wanted to read one real soon so she also asked me for one right then. She gave us her address and phone number, and promised to come to english on Saturday, the fireside Saturday night, and church on Sunday. The sad news is that she seemed to drop off the face of the earth after Tuesday, but the miracle is that the Lord showed me and Elder Lainhart that when we are willing to go the extra mile, not make excuses not to work, and diligently choose the right, the Lord blesses us and will put His elect in our path.

Mission Miracle from Elder Andrew Boynton

May 25, 2009

Elder Barclay and I have been street contacting and working to look for people who would make great leaders and help firmly establish the church in Romania. Well, on Saturday, a man passed us on the street, and Elder Barclay said, "Man, we should have stopped that guy, he looks like a leader!" So I suggested that we walk around the roundabout that the man was walking on in the opposite direction and meet him on the other side. We took off and quickly half-jogged and when he turned left, we turned right and things worked out that we met right into him. However this time Elder Barclay randomly threw out a question, which puzzled me a little, and said, "I have a question, where is the city hall?" The man pointed us in the direction, and we said we had another question, but he was in a hurry, so we said we would just walk with him. Anyway, while walking with him, EVERYONE on the street was saying hi to him, he was greeting and talking with everyone, and Elder Barclay and I were thinking, "This is a leader, sweet". Anyway, eventually we stop walking with him, tell him who we are as missionaries and talk to him about the church, and asked if we could meet with him sometime in the future. He said, "yeah sure, you can find me anytime at the city hall." and we said, "City hall? Why are you always over there?" and he responded, "I'm the mayor of Deva". So we just contacted the mayor of Deva, and will be able to go and visit him sometime soon! We have a goal of meeting up with him again within the next couple of weeks. It was amazing how we were lead right to him, and that Elder Barclay was able to follow that prompting of the spirit to just throw out the first question, "Where is the city hall?".

Mission Miracle from Elder Brian Foote

May 17, 2009

Earlier this week, we were able to find a great new area to villa knock in. We went and found a group of teenage kids. They all come to the church and played basketball with us, but left before we got a lesson in. Later that night I saw them again in the villas and they talked to us. They started by telling us all about how we shouldn't be missionaries, it is impossible to have a living Prophet today, the Book of Mormon can't be true, and stuff like that. The story ends with us placing a Book of Mormon and telling them to read the book and to ask God if it was true. The miracle is first, I had been wondering how my testifying first was really making a difference and I saw that my simple testimony when I explained my purpose here in Romania and why I am here stuck in their heads and they had obviously thought things over. Second, even though it wasn't an official lesson, the Lord provided us with a teaching opportunity to a group of kids that we missed having one with earlier that day.

Mission Miracle from Elder Benjamin Miles

May 17, 2009

First off, one that really had a huge affect on me and my faith. This Wednesday we had plans to go street boarding with our district in the center of the town. That morning when we got up, the sky was covered in grey clouds and rain was looking like a sure forecast for the day. But we decided to grab our street board and head into the center of town. We got there and it hadn't started to rain and we waited and the wind started to blow harder. So I started to pray right there in the middle of Brasov. I prayed to Heavenly Father to hold off the rain so that we could do what we had planned. And while I was praying, I started to feel drops of my arms and then I prayed even harder and just kept believing that this rain could be stopped. But I kept feeling the rain on my arms and I kept praying. And then all of the sudden the rain stopped, and the gray clouds started to move over the mountains. They just came and went for the next two hours--- gray cloud after gray cloud and not one drop of rain. There wasn't one drop of rain until we packed up our street board and ended our activity there. To wonderful lessons reviewed: God listens to our prayers, god Answers our prayers, and That to which we pray is a God of miracles. This is my testimony that with faith anything is possible.

Mission Miracle from Elder Robert Davis

May 17, 2009

April 13 we talked to a lady named Dma. Nadejda on the street walking her granddaughter. We testified about the Plan and she said that she wanted to know more. We took her address but she didn't have a phone number. We tried going over to her house the first time and she was busy with Easter preparations. The second time we tried and someone started in Romanian but then when we said we were the missionaries they began in Russian (I thought that she didn't want to know anymore). This past week we had put her on Friday as a backup plan since we were going to be in the area- we figured that she was sincere on the street and we should at least try one more time. Friday came around we found ourselves walking home next to her apartment. We were going to go plan for English class and if we had time to begin weekly planning, but I felt like it would be good to see if she was home since we were there. We entered the front yard area and there were two ladies outside with some kids. We went up to one and began talking and it was Doamna Nadejda. We were able to talk to her for a little bit, as well as some Jehovah's Witness neighbors, and set up to meet Sunday evening. We got there Sunday and her daughter answered the door and immediately let us in. She had read the pamphlet with her mom and they both really enjoyed it. The first question that Valentina (her daughter) had was what is the Book of Mormon. We began with a prayer and about 45 minutes later we had discussed the entire first discussion and they loved it all. We didn't discuss it how it is written out in PMG ( I love how the Spirit directs us and when we follow, miracles happen) but we went from one subject to something else, and it all was explained and to our knowledge they understood it (it just goes to show what will happen when they have a desire and keep commitments, in this case they read the pamphlet). Valentina even said the prayer at the end and it was pretty close (she addressed most of it to Jesus Christ, but we talked about it aferwards). Another part of this miracle is that Valentina lives in Germany with her husband and was here mainly so that she could give birth to her (now 7 mo. old) daughter, and said she will have to go back soon. Of all the times that we could have picked we were able to talk to Dma. Nadejda and also talk to her daughter. They have a return appointment set up for Thursday, and they have a copy of the Book of Mormon in Russian.

Mission Miracle from Sora Deborah Thompson

May 10, 2009

So now to tell you about “miracle day”. The night before miracle day was Tuesday night and we went to go teach Ani (investigator who we have helped to get ready for a wedding and a baptism). When we went there we found out that she just found out that there was one more thing that had to happen before the Primarie approved their wedding. Her soon to be husband, Lica, had been married before and was divorced forever ago, and she had to got to the archive record building and get the papers of divorcement and turn it in to the Primarie by 5 pm the next day. So she was worried about it, but we decided to set her baptismal date in faith that all would be well, and we set it for this Saturday the 9th of May. Ok. So the next day (Wednesday = miracle day) we were doing lessons and interviews at the church, and of course we forgot our phone, which annoyed us at first (because it was kind of an important day to have our phone with us) but we kept going and in the middle of our interview with the Assistants, Ani came into the church and said that she couldn't get the paper. They said it would take them about 1-2 weeks to find the paper of divorcement and so they wouldn't be able to get married on the 7th and so they would then have to get more money and re-take the analysis that had been the speed-bump before and it was crazy. She said that she was disappointed, but that if the Lord didn't want her to get married right now than it won't work out, but if He did than something would happen. My reaction was “Of course He wants you to get married.” And we need to do something if anything is going to happen!” We were determined that there HAD to be something that we could do. We finished up with our interviews and such, and then tried to put our thinking caps on. And the answer came. Call our most useful resource, Gabi.
Gabi is one of the most amazing men I think I have ever met in my life. He's pretty much an eternal investigator who wants to get baptized and acts like a member, but can't get baptized for reasons only known to him. All we know is that he will do anything for the missionaries, and has the most random yet important connections of anyone I've ever heard of. So we called up Gabi and he said he would do what he could, just go home and he would call us in a little bit. Ok. We started praying and were ready to leave the house as soon as Gabi said “GO!” He called and then we went to the Archives place where Gabi found the “head-honcho” lady who didn't think it was possible to find but she would try any ways. We gave her the information and she couldn't find it because all the info we had was wrong except for his name. We didn't even have the correct year that he had been divorced. (Sora Karina and I were praying sooo hard!) But through Gabi in his snazzy suit and his great connections and business mind, and of course with the help of the Lord, she kept looking. And in 45 minutes, not the week they said it would have taken, the paper was found. Yay! But there were still more stops to go to. We went to the Primarie to turn in the paper and to make sure that everything was in place and there was a little bump because she doesn't want to take his name, she wants him to take her name. So we got that figured out, and by the 3rd stop we didn't even know what we were doing, just that Gabi knew what we were doing and that the Lord was hearing our prayers and so we just kept following him. Finally Gabi walked out of a room and said “It's done, I'm done, we're done.” And in the time frame of 1 ½ hours, just one hour before the Primarie wouldn't have accepted anything else and canceled their approval on the wedding, everything was settled and final! After thanking Gabi profusely for his help and being completely relieved and saying many prayers of gratitude in our hearts, we called Ani. I talked to her and said “Ani, on the 7th of May 2009 you will be marrying Mircea Banici at 1:30 at the Primarie in Arad. Are you ready for this?” She said Yes! And after an excited scream started to bawl on the phone. It was amazing.

Now time for perspective (because the miracle isn't over). At the beginning of the transfer, Sora Karina and I wanted to have some things happen in the work, and so we decided that we would do all we could do to get these things happening. One thing we decided to do was to pray in every prayer for three things: 1. for Ani and Lica to be married before the end of the transfer. 2. for Lica to quit smoking and 3. for Bogdon to quit smoking. We also had a special fast for these three things the weekend before all of this happened. Since we had given Lica the commitment to quit smoking he started smoking double, but on Tuesday (night before miracle day) we asked him and he had only smoked 5 cigarettes! Apparently since our fast, it's been hurting his chest immensely each time he smokes, so he had been smoking less and less! And Bogdon had started out with smoking 3 packs a day and had got down to 1-3 cigarettes per day. He went on a picnic with his friends who were smoking, and put a cigarette in his mouth, but couldn't light it. He said his desire to smoke had completely left him and he hasn't smoked since! And now with Ani and Lica being married, it took work, but the Lord performed miracles. And the neat thing is that the Lord allows us to be tried so that we can increase in our faith. The Lord knew that we wanted these things to happen (not for our benefit, but because we love these people and know their lives will be blessed through them) and that we would do anything to help them to happen. Which is what happened on Wednesday, our day of miracles. Something got in the way of what needed to happen for these people's lives to be blessed, and we did all that we possibly could in faith, and trusted the Lord that He would do the rest, and it happened. Now we are for sure having a wedding on this Thursday, and Ani is going to get baptized on this Saturday. I love it! The Lord's hand is in our lives and it can be seen at any time when we are striving to keep His commandments and do what He asks us to do. The blessings that come from it are amazing.

Mission Miracle from Sora Kara Staley

May 10, 2009

We met a really cool girl named Lidia on Monday. The person we went there for, told us she didn't want to talk because she was never going to change. So we went straight to contacting in the park. Lidia was sitting in the park, doing Sudoku puzzles. We immediately testified of God’s love for her, and how He called a prophet on the earth again so that we could have direction in life. After an hour of talking with her, she got chocked up and told us that she really needed us right then. She's been thinking about her life and purpose here. She said we were angels sent at the right time. She has called us a few times to talk, and last night she finally called us to set up an appointment on Tuesday. We are really excited to teach her more. She's read a little from the Book of Mormon as she finds time. She works a lot, but sincerely wants to know more. It's really cool that the Lord works with our schedules. The appointment we'd set in the park fell through, but there was someone else there for us to teach. That's how He works with us. I love it!