Let me tell you a missionary story about prayer that came to me
recently in a letter from
Cherill
and Jack Warnock. They’re friends who
were serving a mission in
Fort
Apache, Arizona. Cherill said a new elder
had recently been assigned to
their district.
“He was a farm boy from Idaho, and we don’t think he was very anxious to come out. He’s the first in his family to do so. The last three weeks have been difficult ones for him, wracked with homesickness and a certain degree of humiliation at being a greenie. Those things are surprisingly hard on a young fellow who was a big-time senior, who raced his car up and down the main street of some podunk town just a few months ago. He has suddenly discovered that he is not nearly as independent, important, or significant a person as he had himself figured to be just a very few short weeks ago.
"He told us that he was totally disgusted and thinking of throwing in the towel. Here he was walking the streets of a strange town where a lot of the people have absolutely no interest in him and what he has to say. He was even wondering if the Lord had any interest in him. He was sort of argumentative in his prayers. ‘Just show me one person that this benefiting,’ he told the Lord, ‘and I’ll consider sticking around.’
"The Lord definitely heard him. The next couple of days he received a letter from his father up on the farm. The family had been in debt all of the boy’s life; he knew that. They always made a living; but what with up and down crop years, they just couldn’t seem to get money ahead. The father always had to borrow money to operate, and the debt seemed to hang permanently over their heads.
‘You wouldn’t believe what has happened since you left,’
the father wrote.
‘We’ve never gotten over sixty dollars a crate for our onions; this year they shot up
over a hundred. Remember those new potatoes we planted to see
what they would do: Well, they produced three times what the
oldest ones did, and we get a much better price for them. Even the grain has made
money this year.
That’s the first time it’s done that in years!
We’re out of debt,
son, we’re out of debt,’ his father continued, ‘and we’re
putting money in the bank
already with more to come. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe
it.’”
My friends said, “(The Missionary) wept as he told us...And I’m afraid
we were a little dewy-eyed
ourselves.
The smart-alecky kid who raced his car up and down the street was
starting to turn into a man in front of our eyes. "I guess I know now who it’s
benefiting.’ He said.”