Prayer

To add to my last post, my point is that many people want God to move mountains for them, when really all he needs to do is nudge us a little.

On my mission once I was confused about what to do one evening. We were meeting with some ward members and needed someone to visit. So at the time we had some index cards with the names of less active members in our ward with notes and such about them. I looked through the names and didn't really see anything that popped out so I decided to pray about each of them. I said a little prayer about each person and asked if we should visit them, and I waited for a response to my prayer.

Soon my pile of 20 or so names I had narrowed down to I think around four names that I felt inspired to visit. It was not long before we were knocking on the door of one of the names that the guy who answered almost turned white. I looked at us in complete shock for a moment and then let us in. He told us that his brother had died that day, he had just got off the phone with his family, and our visit made him feel like God really did care about him. Had we arrived minutes earlier he would have just turned us away.

It was an amazing experience for me, my companion, and that soon to active member. I know that God can answer our prayers. I think people just get too caught up in expecting answers from God on their terms, and not on his terms.

Meeting my business partner.

I attended the Bellevue Singles ward for 3 years. I regularly attended the Monday night Family Home Evening (FHE) Activity. The whole time I was there I always drove myself to the activity. Well almost the whole time. One fateful Monday I decided to call new convert and ask him for a ride to FHE, really it was just a ruse to try and get him more involved, but it worked and that one Monday I got a ride.

Now this FHE was a pretty cool FHE. We went onto Mercer Island to one of the public parks and met up with three different boats and we all took turns riding around Lake Washington. I ended up waiting towards the end to go out and found myself on the last trip of the day for one of the boat owners.

Once the ride was over he said "Is there anyone here who got a ride tonight that could help me dock the boat?" Now I knew that he really wanted on of the girls to say yes, and I waited and waited for one of them to do so. However it was not his lucky night, well not at least with the ladies. I offered to help as I had gotten a ride that day and soon we were off together on Lake Washington.

We starting having a conversation on the boat about what we both did for a living. We ended up talking about a millionaire that I was working for and he had met and he asked me "Why don't you have a million dollars in your account right now?" I thought about it for a moment and told him, well I do have one idea..

That conversation started what has become a friendship and business partnership that has lasted over 3 years now. And although I still don't have a million dollars in my account I'm closer now than ever before.

San Juan Islands

So last week I went with my youth group at my church on their annual "High Adventure." We spend 6 days biking around the San Juan Islands. I had a lot of fun and I heard no complaints at all from the boys so I think it went well for them as well. There were two experiences I'd like to share that added to my faith in God during the trip.

First off on day two we had to ride a ferry from Lopez Island to San Juan Island. While we were waiting in line a fellow biker had a flat tire. I gave him my canned flat fix, and we used our air compressor to fill the tire. He gave us $10. I normally wouldn’t have accepted the money but he gave it to one of the boys when I was unaware and later the boy gave it to me.

When I arrived at San Juan State park, (I drove, and the boys and the other leader rode their bikes.) I was suppressed to find that we had to pay a $10 fee for having too many campers. At first I was worried that I was going to have to drive all the way back into town, as I only had my credit card, and they only accepted cash and checks, or just hope the other leader had it on him when they arrived. Then I remembered the $10 I had in my pocket and I was able to pay the fee.

The other thing that happened that was cool was that we got to see the Orcas that second night. We had been to a whale watch point earlier in the day and it said that there was only a one in five chance of seeing the whales on any given day. I also had talked to a number of people before our trip that had been to the islands and had not seen them. I don't think that God made them come out just for us, but I would believe that he inspired us when we picked the dates of the adventure. Maybe it was just luck, but it was a blessing anyway.

Faith

I would like to spend some time talking about my faith. I am not sure how many times I will post about this, currently I feel like I could post every day and not run out of things to say and so perhaps I will post a lot about this, or perhaps it will only be a few.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I love my religion and I know that it is the true church of Jesus Christ. It is not some mind controlling organization that just brainwashes me to be a good person. (as if being brainwashed to be a good person is really a bad thing?) It is something that leads and guides my life, and has been a source of unending happiness for me. (so far!) :)

I am not perfect. I do not deserve the blessings I have received. I can only account it to the true grace of God that allows me to be as happy as I am with life. I would like though to talk about spiritual experiences. I cannot point to any one experience that gave me my testimony because this did not happen to me. Instead I started with a small seed of faith, and God answered my prayers. One at a time.

Often I talk to people and they say “I don’t believe that God can answer prayers, therefore I will not pray” I say to them “Do you believe that is it possible that God exists” if they say “Yes, I believe it’s possible” then I say “Then this can be your prayer: God I don’t know if you exist, but if you do exist will you help my unbelief?” Prayers are not always or even often answered in the way we expect. But if you learn to listen to the still small voice of the spirit of God, you will hear him say “I do exist, and I love you”

Here is one experience I’d like to share.

While serving a mission in the Denver Colorado South Mission I was teaching a woman who told us she believed in the Bible and in Jesus, but she did not believe in The Book of Mormon. We talked for a bit about how we know there is a God and eventually I read a few verses from the Bible in Luke, Chapter 4. As I read them I stopped and asked her ‘how are you feeling?’ Her response was ‘I feel something inside of me that is giving me Goosebumps’ I told her that feeling was the spirit of God telling her that what we were reading was true. Then I read from 3 Nephi, Chapter 4, and again asked her what she was feeling. Again she said to me she was having the same feelings as when I read the Bible. I then explained to her that this was the spirit again testifying of the truthfulness of the Gospel.

This to me is a great example of how we feel the spirit of the lord reveling truth to us. And it is not about her faith, but my faith. I knew that the spirit was talking to her and that was special to me.

Now I’d like to share another experience.

When I was about 12 years old I was diagnosed with a deadly cancer. The tumor was large and on the tip of my right middle finger. I was told that it was going to need to be amputated. I was very afraid of what my finger was going to look like after the surgery. I was given a blessing by members in my ward. I do not remember who they were, likely our bishop or elders quorum presidency. During the blessing I saw an image of my hand perfect with no tumor, then I saw another hand come from above and touch my middle finger there was a small flash of light and as the hand moved away I saw what my hand looks like today. It was still scary as I had hopes that the blessing could somehow make it so they didn’t have to remove my finger, but it was comforting too that it looked fairly normal. I can look at my hand today and see that same thing I saw during that blessing. You don’t have to believe me because I say so, but it is part of my faith.

These are just two of many, many experiences that I have had that have solidified my faith in God and Jesus Christ.

More to come!