God hears our prayers!

     Hello everyone!  It's transfer week and Elder Castaneda and I will be together at least 6 more weeks.  That's great news! 

     I am so grateful to be writing you this morning. I had an experience this week that has changed my life and my mission. 

     Elder Castaneda and I had been seeing little to no success, people not keeping commitments and no one at church. I was pretty down and prayed to the Lord for a miracle this week, something to help us see His hand in this work. We went about our daily routine on Friday. We went out to go see a family who we had invited to be baptized on the 1st of December.  That was a 35 minute drive for us, but for some reason that wasn't where we were supposed to be. We were lead by the spirit to contact a referral we had received. As we knocked on the door, no one answered, but the spirit again told us this is not where we need to be. A prompting came and told us to go see a lady in the ward who lives alone in very humble circumstances. As we walked towards her trailer and knocked, a man came around the corner and said, "God is so good! The woman living here is very suicidal right now. Who sent you or called you"?  We had not received a text or a call from anyone. This woman was preparing to take her life. She had been pleading with God to send her an answer all day, but no one from the church came to visit her. We arrived at just the right moment!  She came to the door pale as a ghost and was weeping. She looked at us and said, "no one can tell me that this church isn't true!  No one can tell me that God doesn't live, or that He doesn't hear prayers".  She told us that she was praying at the moment we knocked on her door, asking Heavenly Father to give her the strength to not take her life. This woman had been scarred years earlier from an explosion and both of her parents died at a young age. She felt left alone. I knew that God had been sending us around town that day and knocking doors with no one behind them because He knew that this woman was in desperate need of two Representatives of Jesus Christ!  I felt an absolute love for this woman. I saw her as a daughter of God. 

     I know that God hears our prayers and I know that we are never alone. I am so grateful to have this knowledge. It is so important to follow every prompting we are given whether we think it's silly, or just a random thought in our head. Promptings aren't usually accommodating to our time and schedule, but they are given to us in moments where others may need our service or a helping hand. 

     God lives and Jesus is the Christ! This is His work!! Have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Tanner Aiken