October 23, 2017 Blessed to Hear from the Lord!

This week I had the amazing opportunity to hear from an apostle of the Lord twice!! The first was at a mission wide conference that we had to wake up at 5:30 to get to on time. But also the next day, Elder Stephenson just happened to pick the Syracuse stake to go to on Sunday. :)

   Elder Stephenson told a story when He talked on Sunday that I thought I would attempt to retell.

This story is about a 10 year old boy named Thad. Now Thad grew up during the Great Depression and was the 9th out of 14 children! Can you imagine that! When food was so hard to come by, and with such a big family, the cattle that was raised really was the only way that they survived.  Thad's job was to get on his cow pony, a horse named Smokey, every day and check on the cattle. Smokey was a good horse and knew exactly what to do. You could basically get on him, and relax for he knew the routes to take and where to go. The only Problem was- Smokey was hard to catch. He seemed to make a game out of it. Thad could never catch Smokey and would always have to have his dad get him and place the saddle on him. Well this particular day was one of many during a drought. Out past the gates near the railroad tracks there was some greener and more fresh grass that Thad knew the cows would enjoy. So he opened the gate and Smokey expertly lead the cows out and down to where they lazily grazed on the greens that they had not been able to reach before.

   The day was just perfect and the breeze so nice that Thad got off of Smokey and sat on his reigns to just relax and enjoy the moment. Well Smokey was not going to pass up the opportunity to wander so he pulled away from That- but that was nothing to worry about. The cows seemed content and nothing could have been more peaceful.

   But you can most likely predict what happened next- Thad heard a train whistle! Jumping up he started to run and try to get on Smokey- but as mentioned earlier, Smokey was hard to catch. Desperate and Breathless That remembered what his primary teacher and mother had told him about the power of prayer and he quickly knelt down and pleaded for help. The thought came after the prayer had ended to look at the cows and observe how Smokey did not run away or move when the cattle walked past. So Thad, acting like a cow, crawled over to Smokey and was able to hop on his back without the horse so much as turning his head. 

   Smokey seemed to be exceptionally smart and knew exactly what turns to take to guide all the cattle back into the fence minutes before the train went harmlessly by.

There is a wonderful story of the power of prayer! His answer was not given in a blast of lightning that scared all the animals somehow back into the safety of the fence- even though Heavenly Father could have done it. His prayer was answered, and with hard work the task was accomplished.

I think that somethings we could learn from this story are first- don't put yourself in situations that you know might turn out bad! In reality that bad things will happen, we should, just like Thad, have the instinct to fall to our knees in prayer to plead for guidance from the one who knows all things. Also did you notice how he remembered (a 10 year old child) The advise from his mother and primary teacher? Sometimes it is hard to recognize when we are making a difference and if what we do and say really is setting an example. But I know that especially children are watching and will copy what you do.

I hope that we are all able to of learned something from that and work on being better today then we were yesterday.