General Conference-God Answers Our Prayers

The letter from Ben on April 6, 2015

Hola Familia,

I hope everything is going well back home. General conference was amazing, right?

This week was amazing and ended even better when we had General Conference. We got the daughter of Clara (our recent convert), Paola, to go to General Conference. We had left after the first session to go look for people to invite to General Conference. We had passed by 3 other less actives and 1 other investigator to try to get them to go to General Conference. Those all fell through. My companion and I both felt like we needed to go to Clara´s house to go invite her daughter Paola, who earlier had denied to go. (Clara was already at the church watching the re-transmission of the General Women's Session). 

We weren´t anywhere near her house, in fact we were rather far from her. But we went already having had every other person fall through. We got there and told her at the door that we had felt that she needed to go the church with us and that we would pass by in 20 min to pick her up. She was shocked, and didn't respond anything. We were sure that that her silence meant NO. We weren´t even exactly sure why we were there we just felt like we need to go.

When we had told her that I am sure that she could hear the sincerity in our voice and hear the spirit testifying to her that she needed to go. So, after a few seconds of silence told us to give her those 20 min and she would get ready to go. We came back and she was waiting to go to church. I know that you don´t know her, but keep in mind that simply looking at her, she looks like a rebellious punk and has never been interested in going to a church. I had noticed that something had changed in her since the last time we had seen her.

Anyways, I'm going to omit the details and just say she went to the session. The young women of the ward took control and took her to a bench where they all sat next to each other. She really enjoyed her time and said that the talks answered some of the questions she had.

Now, when I was talking with Clara after the conference she told me: "The Lord listens to our prayers" she said crying. "Last night my daughter and I had a big fight. She was going to go out to the street and leave again." (she has had a history of leaving and leaving for weeks at a time staying in the street or with other kids in the street doing who knows what). "The fight escalated and she decided to leave. I immediately knelt down and prayed for her to return, for her safety. I then would read a few verses of the book of Mormon, then return to praying. You don´t know the fear I have when I know she is out in the street and I can´t go out and look for her."  

You must remember that Clara is confined to a wheel chair. She continued, "I had been on my knees praying like I never had before. When after about 25 min Paola walked in and knelt down with me and prayed with me. I know that God hears our prayers. If it weren't for what I've learned in these weeks I probably wouldn't have thought to pray. I probably would have called one of my sons to go look for her, which would have given the same results it always had of more rebellion and her running off for weeks at a time."

I am convinced that this is the change that she has had. It wasn't me or my companions words, nor the telephone calls we had made to invite her. It was God answering the prayers of this faithful mother. It made me think if I am really relying on the power of prayer like I should.

Love you all lots, take care!

Élder Benjamin Taylor