Sunday, June 14, 2015

Sara

I want to show you how the Lord prepares those who will hear his Spirit and open their hearts. In the scriptures he calls them his own or the ones that the Father has given him. When they hear the truth, they recognize it because it is the way that they have been thinking for some time. This because of the experiences that the Lord has given them in their lives. I should also point out that the Lord is no respecter of people and loves us all equally and gives us all experiences to draw us unto Him, but these are the ones that hear his voice, the voice of the Shepherd calling.

Sara has a beautiful spirit. Soft and tenderhearted, she often cries. It is nothing for her to spend hours helping a friend in need. And though she is a very busy person, providing for two daughters who are going to school, she always has time to talk to even strangers and to make them feel that they are important. For this reason, she was willing to talk to Elder Ortiz when he stopped to chat with her one day. What he had to say immediately touched her. Chrise and I were with Elder Ortiz and Elder Long when they gave the first discussion. The contrast between Sara and others in her family was especially apparent when the elders asked everyone to pray about what they had heard and to read the Book of Mormon. She committed immediately. The others would not. The next day the elders were changed to another location, leaving us with Sara.  

One of the experiences that the Lord gave Sara was a very hard one over fourteen years ago. She lost a baby. What made this even worse was that this baby was not able to be baptized in Sara’s religion before it died. For someone as sensitive and tenderhearted and spiritual as Sara, the pain went very deep and lingered continually for fourteen years. She could not accept what was supposed to have happened to this child. She worked very hard, literally trying to lose herself in her service of her family and her job as a food provider for the community, but the pain remained, always just below the surface.

Last night it was just Chrise and I and Sara. Her daughters were not there and though her husband started the discussion with us, he was called away. The sister missionaries were not there either. It was a chance to really talk. My first question to her was, “How do you feel about the things that we have talked about and what you have read in the Book of Mormon.” She said that we and the Book of Mormon spoke to things that she has always felt. “I know they are true.” I then asked her what she thought of the baptism last week that we had attended together. She referenced the fact that the clothing was not like the gowns that were used to baptize babies in her church. Chrise understood part of this and it stirred a memory of something Sara had said briefly about the loss of a child weeks before. Chrise looked up Moroni 8 and as I was about to go into something else, she pushed the scripture toward me. I looked at it, realized what it was saying and asked Sara to read a few verses in which Mormon said that little children have no need to be baptized. Sara asked if she could continue reading and read several more verses and then burst into tears. It took probably ten minutes before she could talk again. She said, “I had feelings as to the truth of what you taught before this, but nothing like what I have just felt. You have answered a prayer and question that I have carried with me for fourteen years.” I told her that we believed that little children were all saved in Christ’s atonement and that her baby daughter was waiting for her. She burst into tears again.


Driving home from the discussion, Chrise and I marveled at what we had just felt and witnessed. The Lord had just used us as instruments in His hands to answer a woman’s prayers.

1 comment:

  1. What a marvelous testament of how blessed we are to have the knowledge and understanding that we have, in the restored gospel. So grateful you are so willing and diligent in your service. You are truly God's emissaries, nurturing and harvesting the foods of the vineyard as they are ready. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

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