May 25, 2015

Okay, so I had a pretty heinous experience this morning.  I thought about not sharing it, the first reason was to not make anyone worry needlessly, and the second I believe at its true source was out of pride, but the lesson that I learned from the story is so incredible that I cannot help but sharing. 

I know that there are a lot of beliefs and religions and philosophies in the world, and that especially in our day there are many people that do not believe in God, in miracles, and in answered prayers.  I do not judge anyone, because faith and religion our personal things and take times, but I want you all to know that I do not believe in chance and coincidence.  For almost 17 months now I have prayed every single morning without exception with my companion before leaving the house.  We pray for many things, but we always ask Heavenly Father to protect us as we are driving during the day.  I have often said incredulously to my companions here that it really is a miraculous miracle (sorry for the redundancy it was necessary to help you understand at what point it is really a miracle) that we have never had an accident here.  The streets are so narrow that anyone from the U.S. would believe that they are one way roads, which is not the case.  People walk everywhere in the streets, there are dogs, people selling things on the sides of the roads, crazy/stressed taxi drivers, and at night there are not many street lamps.  Anyways, this morning we left the house to go to the grocery store not far from our apartment and there is a big round about that is part of the highway that we cross to go to the store.  I stopped at the line and watched to my right to see when I could go.  As soon as it was clear I started to pull out.  To my horror, I had not noticed a man on a motorcycle pull up next to us and he started to yell.  We thought that we had just scared him, but in rolling down the window we were able to distinguish one word in his screaming "FOOT!"  We were on his foot:O  (this is just my pride speaking, but I want you all to know that before today I had never had an accident driving)  we asked him if we needed to reverse or pull forward, he said to pull forward, and he got his foot out-_-

He got off his motorcycle and limped to the side rail to take off his shoe.  I was expecting blood and bones sticking out at odd angles, but luckily his foot still looked like a normal foot, just a little swollen and a bit purple. I had rolled over his toes for about thirty seconds QUELLE HORREUR!!!! I felt super bad, the poor man, all he wanted to do was go to work in the morning.  Well, there was a police man nearby (who had been directing traffic) and he came over and explained to us calmly that we needed to go to the police station to report the accident so off we went.  At the police station they told us that reporting the accident would cause a lot of nonsense with the court because of his injury and so it was better to just work out an agreement between ourselves.  Well the rest of the details aren't really important (we went to the hospital with him, he got an x-ray, he will get the results tomorrow, he could still walk--with a limp--, we called our leaders, it should all work out fine with insurance --luckily the hospital is free here and we didn’t touch the motorcycle, although I would have preferred that to running over his poor foot!), but in the space of about five hours we were finally free to go eat lunch. 

At this point Sr Liu and I felt pretty tired.  Everyone had been very nice which was a blessing, but as we were eating and reflecting on the day up until that point it struck us as obvious as could be where we had gone wrong.  Like I said, every single morning for 17 months we have prayed and humbly asked for protection in the car and that morning we had not prayed.  Now some of you may say that that is coincidence, but I testify to you that it is not.  What an incredible and a beautiful lesson.  Heavenly Father wants to help us and can, but he expects us to ask (and to thank him of course when he gives:) .  We had not prayed and so we were left to our own capacities and in the craziness of the roads here that was not enough.  I know that God is there and that he can protect us and will if we ask him in faith.  We felt very dumb to have forgotten to pray/to ask him, but be assured that we will not forget again.  I am grateful that it should all work out and that no one was hurt more, but I will be even more careful in driving from now on.

Anyways, I hope and pray that you will be able to feel the spirit as you read this true (and unfortunate) story.  I know that God lives, that we are his children, that he loves us, that he hears and answers our prayers.  You can just test it out this week, it’s simple, and it is like talking to a friend.  You say "Father"  and then you say whatever is in your heart (ask him for something, thank him) and you finish by saying "in the name of Jesus Christ amen" because it is thanks to our big brother and savior that we will be able to go home one day to our father:)  Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Wilson