"A Miracle, A Miracle, I say!"

"A miracle, a miracle, I say!" I can just hear Grandma M. say that after she hears this story...

May I begin at the end of the week, as to get to the climax and to the point of how much the Lord has seriously changed and helped me, as well as used me to build his kingdom.

I have been working on purifying my life in every aspect. The main thing I have learned to purify our lives is, we must have the spirit with us. Which is to say, we must testify of Christ, learn of him, humble ourselves in his sight, and become what we say we are: A disciple of Jesus Christ. This means, we will think as he would, act as he would, and teach and bear witness of him. I have realized as a missionary, my life is no longer mine. It is His and through the agency and freedom of choice, I have by choosing Him, he endows us with power.

I was laying in bed on Friday at about 11:00 PM and could not fall asleep. It kept running through my head to get up! Just get up! I fought it for a bit. Finally, I did get up. I went into the hall, knelt down and prayed. I thought nothing of it and went back to bed. I then received a prompting, call Frere D. He is a Portugese, less active member who has been having a rough time. He was just released from his job. His wife is not interested in religion and his 2 daughters speak only french --not Portuguese. He speaks very little french.

Elder Graham and I have use a translator, Frere B in the ward to help us communicate. I received this prompting to call Frere D and I kept fighting it and fighting it. Finally, I said, "Elder Graham, we need to call Frere D." He said, "Are you serious? He can't even understand us and it's 1130"! This time I have no rational for this thought. So I completely ignore the spirit of the Lord. HOW IGNORANT I AM.

Thankfully, the Lord loves us!

The following day, which was a Saturday (which by the way, was the 6th week in France) which in turn means TRANSFER calls! Elder Graham and I expected that president would move Elder Graham. We expected a call in the early afternoon. Which led us the day before to not plan so much because we thought we would have to go get pictures with friends and leave him time to pack. So we waited and waited and waited and then did some contacting and then waited and actually went and got pictures with a few friends-- talk about two dumb missionaries, golly!

We went to our meeting at 7:00 PM and gave the lecon horribly! We walked out with Elder Graham angry with me and me angry at him. It was just a horrible day and we couldn't wait for that dang call to confirm our assumption! So we walked from the meeting to the bus stop at about 8 PM. I stopped at the bus stop to take us to the church so that I could play piano. Elder Graham stopped at the bus stop to take us home to eat because it was the beginning of dinner hour. We both wouldn't budge! My bus came first and I got on and he quickly followed. We than tried to smooth things over before getting to the church.

We arrived at the church and there was some sort of activity going on, which we had no clue about.

Here is the miracle:

Frere D's car was in the parking lot. We run inside the building and find a young women's activity and Frere D and the translator Frere B sitting talking. We walked into the room and apologized for being late, thinking we had forgot to plan it. They apologized for being late, as well! They thought that they were late! They thought we had planned something, got there, and then left. We had no clue what was going on, other than we all showed up at the church at the same time: they thinking they were late, us not ever planning a meeting and so we: Elder Graham and I were in aw!

We sat down, asked him how he was doing. He said, not good! He said a few weeks ago he got up and left everything and went back to Portugal for a week! Hence why he is losing his job! Then he said that last night-- the night I felt impressed to call him, he was in the depths of despair around 11 p.m. I immediately felt horrible and wanted to just cry for not following the prompting of the spirit.

He said, I remembered that we had a meeting planned the next day and so it gave me hope. A meeting we did not have scheduled, what a miracle!! Frere D came to church yesterday and I know he is back on the right path.

I absolutely know that the Lord is here and that He knows each one of us and what we need. I testify that all of us are children of our Heavenly Father! It is only through our exercising the promptings of the spirit and continually trying to be better that we will be blessed. The scriptures tell us, we are saved by grace after all we can do.

I know that God has a body of flesh and bones. Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost and Heavenly Father are three distinct separate beings. I know this because the Holy spirit has born witness to me that it is so. I challenge each one who reads my testimony to search the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and desire to know if the proper power and authority is restored on the earth again. Just as in the times of Adam, Noah, Moses, Abraham, and Jesus Christ. Joseph Smith restored the Gospel to the earth. We have a living prophet, Thomas S. Monson.

God leads and directs his church today and there is no other way to know of the truth without the power of prayer and searching the Book of Mormon. Follow Christ. Have faith in Him. Repent in His name and follow his commandment to be baptized.
Love,

Elder Garlock