"It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas"

December 03, 2017

Dec 1, 2017 Missionary Miracles

Two Sisters enjoyed attended the town’s tree lighting ceremony and were sharing invitations to “Light the World” where Mormon.org challenges everyone to do kind things every day of December until Christmas. There is an accompanying video for each day also. They purchased a a ticket to the raffle and won a new bike that they are going to give away to a deserving youth in their area for Christmas. There were only about twenty people who won prizes with over 200 people attending. It was a miracle to be a conduit for good and make so many positive contacts.

One of the Elder’s lost his name tag and the Sisters found the back of it in the apartment parking lot, but never could find the front. On preparation day these Sisters were headed to an appointment for dinner when they realized they had locked their car keys in their apartment. So they were locked out of their apartment too. They ran over to the Elder’s apartment, but they were not home, but they found the front of the name tag in the grass where they had searched before. The name tag was used to open their locked apartment door and retrieve their keys. They felt so blessed to be on time to their appointment and also find the lost name tag!

President Sainsbury followed with an additional story of an Elder that was locked out of his apartment who grabbed his name tag and slipped the lock open! President Sainsbury said, “You did that so fast like you have done it several times before!” The missionary replied, “Oh, most of the missionaries know how to do this because we are so frequently locked out.” President finished saying, “Great, you all come to Alabama on missions and learn to break into apartments!!”

Two Elders were on exchanges with other Elders when they were walking along the darkening street and they saw the silhouette of a man lighting his cigarette. He was big and burly and one Elder thought he needed to speak with him and overcome fear. The man turned out to be a Frenchman that was a brand new home owner and his wife was from the states and both were very receptive and wanted to meet with the missionaries again!!

Elder Barfuss has made several efforts to find an apartment in Hueytown where President Sainsbury wants to open for missionary work. After taking an afternoon and looking at several apartments, only one face to face contact was made after multiple phone calls. Sister Tuck said that Steve Ware had been mayor of Hueytown and might know the safe areas to find an apartment. When Elder Barfuss called, he learned that Brother Ware was the first convert to the church in his family, several years ago, and one of his sons served a mission in Boise, ID!! Brother Ware gave Steve some apartment leads and volunteered to take some time and look for availability. Brother Ware shared how his missionary son was going on splits prior to his mission and set up an appointment with his Grandmother and his Aunt. Brother Ware cautioned his son that there may be resistance and not to be disappointed. Brother Ware was nervous as he and his son went with the missionaries to his mother and sister’s home. The missionaries turned the lesson over to Brother Ware’s son who taught a powerful lesson on the restoration of the Gospel!! He asked his Grandmother if she learned these things to be true would she be baptized? She told him “YES!” This was such a miracle in Brother Ware’s family and he is excited to have the missionaries serve in Hueytown!!