The Herpel's Temple Day

Did you ever have an experience where you wondered why you were sent to an area?

I had that experience a couple of times on my mission, but one time stands out to me the most.

I had just gotten to my 4th area, Downtown St. George. This was probably an even harder area than Manti was. My companion had already been there for 3 months and when I arrived, we seemed to have hit a dry spot. (I think in everyone of my areas, except for my last, that happened to me).

However, there was one family that we were working with that I will never forget. Brother and Sister Herpel. They were are returning family that needed to get sealed in the temple. We helped them with temple classes and visited them to make sure that both of them were ready for that day. Brother Herpel had already been to the temple but hadn't gone back for a very long time. This was going to be Sister Herpel's first time going to the temple. I was excited.

We took this on that happy day.

That was a great day.

So, maybe we don't know all of the reasons that we get sent to an area on our missions. But I can promise you that your mission president, (wherever you served), was and is called of God. We touch people's lives in so many different ways. We may never know in this life who we've helped or touched but it happens a lot as a missionary.

The Bradley's in Manti, Utah

2 weeks ago, I talked about some hard times that I had in my mission. Today I want to share one of those times that I had.

My third area that I served in was a place in Central Utah called Manti. A town of about 3,500 people with 10 wards and a temple. One of my favorite towns to be in.

Here's a picture of the Manti Temple.

Such a beautiful building.

Manti was also one of the hardest areas in my mission. Most of the people there are already members of the Church or not really that interested.

It was a difficult time in my mission. My companion and I didn't really get along super well. Plus we lost our car about a week into the new transfer being together, (that's a story for a different day).

Everything began to look up when we met the Bradley family.

They were a really awesome family. Sister Bradley was from Loa, (which is where I ended my mission), and her husband was from Manti. They had gone less-active for a little bit and the Ward Mission Leader told us not to visit them. The Ward was working with them to get them reactivated. When he gave us the go-ahead to visit them, we stopped by one night and Sister Bradley answered the door. We had a good chat for a few minutes and she told us that her daughter, Lilly, was not baptized and wanted to be baptized.

I was excited. Maybe this was the reason I was sent to Manti.

Lilly poked her head out and told us she didn't want to meet us. She was a pretty stubborn kid.

After that first visit, things progressed more smoothly. Right before she was baptized, Sister Bradley told us that the sister missionaries who were serving in Manti before elders got sent there had visited them previously. They promised that they would be back to get Lilly baptized. And they never visited again until we knocked on her door. It confused her for the longest time. I knew that this family had been prepared by Heavenly Father to receive us when the time was right. Lilly got baptized the Saturday before that area was closed to young full-time missionaries for about a year.

I knew that I was sent to Manti, probably for a bunch of different reasons, some of them, I may never know why, but one of them was definitely to teach the Bradleys. I am so grateful that I was able to have hard times in my mission, because they prepared me and made me appreciated the good times that I had.