Monday October 31st, 2011

We looked out the window Saturday morning only to see gigantic flakes of snow bombarding the green grass and flattening trees still crowned with leaves. Every Pennsylvanian I encounter assures me that they don’t get snow until at least Christmas. Autumn has been unusually wet this year.

I attribute my lack of investigators at Church to the wonderful white stuff that graced us Saturday and scared the people here more than anything dreamed up by the Hallowe’en hardcores in Hershey. However, although the wind, and the rain, and the snow blew through our bicycle-clad skeletons, we still managed to set Wesley and Ryan (the two young boys we’re teaching) and a former investigator from York we tracted into with baptismal dates. Take that Satan!

At catastrophic times like previously mentioned, I shamefully found myself wondering if this was“God’s way” in telling me “it’s ok, you don’t have to go out and work today.” But a scriptural spanking came in the nick of time, as it always does, in an unexpected way. While preparing for my district meeting on revelation through prayer, a scripture kept coming to my mind from the Old Testament. It wasn’t an obscure or hard to understand reference, but it had never rung with the same meaning as it did to my heart at that time. In 1 Kings 19: 11-12 it reads, “And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.”

I’m amazed at God’s humble way of communicating with us through the often quiet fruits of the Spirit and usually in hindsight do I recognize the wise promptings of Heavenly Father’s omniscience. Too often to count do the Lord’s servants appear to His wayward children at exactly the right time. This week we knocked on the door of an overdue referral, only to set a return appointment and teach them with one of their member friends present. We also stumbled into a lady who investigated the Church over ten years ago and desperately wants to be baptized and part of something more. We walked an hour and a half in the cold night to try a potential in a part-member family, only to have her drive up right as we get there and express her longing to join the Church.

Coincidences? I don’t think so. Coincidences are just miracles people don’t give God credit for.

-Elder Low

P.S. Each set of Elders in Hershey actually has their own apartment. They’re not far from each other, but it’s nice to have the space. Elder Sp and I are getting along wonderfully. He is continually coming out of his shell and is actually a huge example to me of loving boldness.