Tender Mercies

The summer so far has had its ups and downs.
and it has been filled with tender mercies as Elder Bednar Calls them.
I have personally felt the love of God for all his children more in the last 2 weeks than ever in my life.

This week for example I learned how to fast- from a Catholic girl. a group had decided to do a sweet thing and fast for my grandmother who is in the hospital. the best part is it was the girl that doesn't come to church who suggested it, and then it was the catholic girl that showed her vigorous faith when we thought we could just skip breakfast because we were working hard all day. she said 'No we're going to fast all day and make this mean something'. So we did, and i am grateful.

One night this week an old man came up to Marshall and said.. "so are you related to the Trading Post director." ... "yes," marshall replied. The man got excited "so do you have some oil i could borrow?"
The man's wife was so grateful when she came in the next day. she had had an accident happen that could have permanently damaged her hearing, but with the oil her husband was able to give her a blessing.

yesterday at 6am as i sat reading my scriptures while i served scoutmasters coffee in the trading post, one man commented on how nice all the mormons were.  not knowing what to say i said, "thanks! i love being mormon!"... "really?" he asked. "how can you say that? who honestly loves their religion that much? you really love being a mormon? why do you like it so much?"
at this point i might have looked around to make sure i wasn't in the middle of some church movie.
it was honestly the first time anyone had ever asked me something like that so sincerely. for the next 30 minutes, while he drank his coffee, we had a great conversation about the church. I mentioned that tom was going on a mission and was preparing to teach people all they needed to know. he got really excited and said, "you mean he would talk to me all about it, and i could ask him questions, and that would be helpful to him?" i laughed at that. yes that would be very helpful.

It has been one week, and the spirit of missionary work is all around me. this morning for our scripture study, tom and max and parker woke us up with a knock on our door and marshall and i pretended to be investigators. they taught us all about Charity and the pure love of God. They are all going to make great missionaries.

Then, today cute Megan asked Marshall to help her know what to say when she gave a boy a book of mormon. Tom gave his first one out to his Senior Patrol Leader his first week.

I am grateful for the tender mercies that i have seen this summer, i am grateful to feel so close to my Heavenly Father and to the Savior as i see His power in the beauty of the island and of the people on it. i am grateful today to be able to see our small community play a small yet wonderful roll in sharing the gospel.