We Cannot Fail

Well, somehow all of us have survived our first full week of performing all day, every day, in Nauvoo.  It has been an incredible experience.

There have been some incredible miracles that have happened here.  Miracles so incredible, in fact, that I don't know if I should share them, because I know that many people who might read wouldn't believe what I wrote.  But I can testify, Heavenly Father is an intervening God.  The thing is...His power on earth works by faith...and he cannot intervene in big, against-the-laws-of-nature, type of ways until we have received enough faith from Him, and then exercise it properly.  I am grateful for the tender whisperings of the Spirit that can tell us when God is ready and willing to grant an impossible blessing, on the conditions that we ask Him for it.

I have a lot of time to ponder and stare at my manly hairy arm while I am waiting for groups to come my way on the Trail of Hope.  I stare at the hair on my arm, because in the firelight, it is the only thing I can see.  ;)  Just recently, I was there pondering the mysteries of the world, and I saw the next group approaching in the distance.  I had the distinct feeling that there were some people in that group that desperately needed to be touched by their experience on Parley Street.  As I began relating the experience of Edwin Alfred Pettit sitting on the bench, the wood snapped and I fell to the ground.  As the piece of the fence that had broken fell, it hit the tiki torch lighting my station, and I caught it just before it landed on a small child!  Peaceful feelings gone, I did my best to beg any inkling of the Holy Ghost to be there as I finished Edwin's story.  Most people were staring at the tilting torch nervously instead of at me... I was dismayed that perhaps I had lost my chance to touch their hearts.  However, at the end of the night, Sister Porter related an experience she had with what I recognized as that very same group.  They felt the Spirit very strongly, and knew that many of the people in that group needed to feel the Savior's love for them, and they did.

I know that when God has a great work for His children, there will always be opposition.  There will always be excuses to give up and go home, or distractions to keep us from looking where we need to look.  But, if our hearts are in the right place, our Father in Heaven has power enough to eliminate the effects of that opposition, and allow the end result to be as if those mistakes never happened.  I know that as we continue to give everything with have to and for our Savior, He will use us as instruments for miracles...and we should never worry that our work is in vain.  With God, it is never in vain.

I am beginning to understand more and more that Nauvoo is not the spiritual Zionistic bubble that it is because of its location or history.  The veil of forgetfulness is thin here in Nauvoo because it is packed with completely faithful and dedicated Saints of Christ.  It is their faith and their virtue that allow Nauvoo's history to become a shining force for the Spirit to bear witness.  I hope to be one of those Saints for the rest of my life, who can be a conduit for the atmosphere of heaven to pour through, wherever I may be.