Man, I just feel so blessed serving in the Chicago mission in the Bloomingdale 1st Ward. in 2013 the Year of the Lord. I started of last week with a awesome Prep day with a Zone activity, Playing Instruments, basketball, Frisbee and get-to-know you games with my new Zone. Following that I went on Exchanges with my zone leader Elder Tanifa, a really swell missionary. The funny thing about the exchange was that my zone leader is a Spanish speaking Elder and so I was praying that night for at least a little bit of the gift of tongues. Well the next day I didn't even need it because everyone we taught spoke English too hahaha. I had such a great experience and touched a lot of people's lives that day, more than I can speak about but it will always be written inside my heart. This week I truly felt blessed and lucky. Using iPads in missionary works makes things a BREEZE and I love it! Sharing a Mormon message in a home quickly brings the spirit and helps teach people with out us even talking, really making them think on their own. It also helps because it makes us be able to go paperless. There are so many things we can do now through our iPads that help us hasten the Work!:D But, even at that, that was not were I felt truly blessed and where I saw the hand of our Lord. One of our recent converts had lately been going through colon cancer. His life expectancy is not even to the end of the year and its truly a blessing so see him everyday. We found out that he was in the hospital on Wednesday and the assumption was that he wasn't going to make it out. We had to wait all day to finish all our appointments so we could get there asap.
We got there around 7:30 and the true blessing was he just woke up from getting out of surgery. We were talking with him and he looked like a million bucks We didn't know till later that in surgery the doctors made an executive decision and put a couple of stints in him to help drain the cancer's toxins from his body. He said he would be in there till Sunday. We shared with him some messages and gave him some hugs and took off. Later in the week a bunch of appointments fell through so we decided to go check on the him. When we got to his room, he was gone. They were cleaning his room and his bed, it was completely empty, which meant 1 of 2 things, he had passed or was discharged from the hospital. Well to our sweet news he had be discharged earlier that day. I jumped with Joy to Hear he was okay. We Drove straight to His house and visited him. He was just too happy to see us and told us he was praying that we would come by soon. I feel so blessed to be orchestrated in Gods handy work. Our recent convert likes to compare God to a watch Maker. The world and the universe and our lives our so intricately put together that even one missing tooth or an event in life and all existence would be thrown off. I love that because that means just as the scriptures are God's handy work and testifies of Him so does the Universe and our lives, even our bodies. I know that God lives because I am his son and his countance shines upon me.
-God is our Loving Heavenly Father.
-Elder Herdt
