A Great Missionary Story

Last Sunday evening we were invited to dinner at the home of one of our friends in Fairport.  Their daughter, Sabre Ann, who is living at home while she is working on her Masters degree was there.  She said she wanted to share an experience with us that she had on her mission.  Sabre Ann is two years older than our youngest son, Scott, but still did a lot of things with the church kids even after she graduated from high school and was attending the local college and was good friends with Scott.

She recieved her mission call a few months before Scott was called to Argentina.  She was a "greenie" out in California on her mission when her parents wrote her about Scott's death.  The news came at a low point in her mission when their investigators had fizzled out and they didn't have anyone in their teaching pool.  They were spending most of their time tracting and weren't finding much success.  The news of Scott was a very heavy blow when she was already down.  She said that she locked herself in the bathroom and cried for over an hour That night she started having nightmares and they continued for the next three nights.

After four nights straight of having nightmares, she pleaded with Heavenly father to please make the nightmares stop and to please help them find someone to teach.  That night she dreamed that she was sitting in her apartment when the doorbell rang.  When she answered the door, Scott was standing there grinning at her.  She exclaimed, "Scott!  What are you doing here?!"  He answered that he just wanted to know how she was doing and they sat on the couch and talked for a while.  Then he asked her how the missionary work was coming.  She answered that it wasn't going very well.  He asked to see their white board where they kept tract of their investigators.  On it were the names of four families that had lines drawn through them.  They weren't making progress or had asked the missionaries not to come anymore.  Scott pointed to one of them and said "Tell me about this family".  She told him they had been teaching them until a few weeks prior.  They had been very interested and she and her companion had grown to love them.  They had then stopped making progreass and could not get an appointment with them.  Scott then told her she needed to go see that family again.  She explained that there was no point in doing that.  They were not making progress and they needed to spend time on finding others.  He continued to insist that she needed to go see them.  Then her alarm clock rang and she woke up.

That day as she was planning with her companion she noticed that they were going to be tracting where this family lived.  She mentioned to her companion that she felt they should go back to that family.  The companion rehearshed again, why they had dropped the family but Sabre Ann asked if they could just go see how they were doing.  The companion said "OK" but we won't go inside, just say hello at the door. 

After they finished tracting, they went to the famly's home and knoced on the door.  They were greeted by the wife and was very happy to see them.  She told them that she and her husband were talking the night before and decided they needed to go to church with them.  They began teaching again.  Two weeks later Sabre Ann was transferred but she heard later that they had been baptized.

The Lord had answered her prayers, she had no more nightmares and they had found someone to teach.  She felt that it was a very "tender mercy" from Heavenly Father that he would send Scott to answer the prayer.  She felt that it gave her the closure she needed with him gone, and he helped her with the work in the area.

Scott and Sabre Ann (in white)

We are so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who not only blessed Sabre Ann but prompted her to share that with us.  It was almost like "getting a letter" from our missionary.  We miss that with the mission he is on.  But we do know where he is and what he is doing.  We also know that God lives and loves us all.  His hand is in the work of the kingdom and it is exciting that Scott is a part of it.

God Bless You All.