Faith in Every Footstep

Dear family,

I am loving life as a missionary. Sometimes, I take moments to stop and think about what it is I am doing. What a blessing!

This week was especially great. I am still recovering from excitement from the baptism last week, and I am being swept up in the exciting plans for a baptism this coming week.

Once again, I didn't really leave any time to type a real email for you all. I am so sorry. I will try to sum up quickly the joy of this last week by telling a story from yesterday.

We found out Saturday night that we wouldn't be able to use the Bishop's car to take our investigators to church. This was an extreme bummer since we were really relying on this to transport our investigators. I looked at the money I had and asked myself if I was willing to pay the price to have my faith bring our investigators to church. I decided that we would have to pay the way for all of the members of this large, poor family to get to church. Well, we had to arrive at their house earlier than usual. When we arrived, we found that no one had woken up yet. This was the first blessing of the situation. We had been inspired by the situation to get to the house earlier and were able to make sure that they went to church. Then we found out that the matriarch of the family (who has a date to be baptized this week) would not be able to go to church because she was not feeling well. That would not do. She had to go to church in order to be baptized. We entered her tiny room and found her on her bed. THe pamphlet about the gospel of Jesus Christ was on her pillow. She can't read, but told us that she had been studying the pictures, pondering and praying about baptism. She said she got an answer from God that she needed to be baptized. She said she needed to be baptized before she died. This sweet 73-year-old grandmother was filled with faith. We offered to give her a blessing of health so that she could go to church. She accepted. My companion anointed and I blessed. With chilling wonder words of power came to my mind as I commanded this daughter to arise and that generations of her family would bless her name. After the prayer, she did arise and accompanied the rest of the family to church. It was a moment of surrene and simple goodness. I am so grateful for this chance to fight against the works of darkness and to establish light in the lives of the children of God.

I love you. I am grateful for your love. May God bless this family so that no unhallowed hand may stop the work of God in the loves of those who matter most to us.

Love, Elder Parker Ayer

Scavenger's Handcart