Dear Friends & Family,
This has been an amazing week for me here. To start off I am in Greenock. It is nothing like Sligo and much closer to the populated city of Glasgow (half hour train ride away). It has been an interesting adjustment from Ireland to Scotland. The people are MUCH more receptive and MUCH more willing to discuss the potential and "try the virtue of the word of God" or as Alma said "exercise a particle of faith even to experiment upon my words"
I wish to share with you today just one way in which the Lord has poured out his tender mercies upon me this week.
When I first arrived in Scotland I had come over with quite a sum of funds from Ireland which I had been frugal with so I had about 150 Euro. The new month arrived which should have added approximately 100£ to my account. So, due to the complete lack of food in the house, on my first shopping trip I bought many things in bulk to save money over the long run and spent about 60£. Over the next couple of days I had to spend 30£ on items which were reimbursable but which I would not get back for about 4-5 days. Upon going to use my card for another purchase it was declined and I became under the impression that for some strange reason I was out of funds entirely and perhaps my 150 Euros had not transferred. I emailed home to see how much money was in my personal funds and to my inexpressible horror found out that I only had $20 USD! At about 7£ that is hardly a staple to survive off of but I was not too worried because I had a week long bus pass, and a fridge full of food.
The next day our fridge broke. Ker plunk! And in the following few days most of our food went bad or was given away before it could go bad! Near 45£ down the drain! With diminishing food and funds I began to literally wonder what was going to become of me during the month of July! I don't think I ever quite understood the terror of being out, completely out of everything (except for rice) until now. In Europe a person down to nothing (no moral temporal possessions) is called a skint. I nearly felt skint.
This is probably going to be humorous to you all seeing as you are all older than me and have had much more experience with money than myself, and have probably been where I was at on this occasion.
Nevertheless I began to realize that not only would my wants not be fulfilled but some of what I considered necessities would be gone as well! I think the real terror hit me when I realized that the 30£ which would go back into my account I would not be allowed to use because I would have to continue to reimburse that for my bus/train pass! So because of that I literally would not have any funds for the rest of the month!
I remember once someone, somewhere, committed me and the rest of the congregation to pray and instead of listing off all the concerns we had, merely thank the lord for all the blessings we did receive and tell Him that He knew our concerns and we would like it if he could take care of those or comfort us in them.
This I did. My prayers became prayers of gratitude and I was humbled to see miracles happen. I call them Mini Miracles because they came one after the other.
As I prayed, the week slowly and steadily began to fill up with dinner appointments, sometimes even lunch appointments! We ate the no-longer refrigerated eggs for breakfast and just hoped they wouldn't make us sick.
To be honest I don't believe I had to provide a single meal for myself except breakfast that entire week. The ONE day which we didn't have a dinner appointment on, we had planned to go see a new investigator whom we had never taught before. Upon arriving, to our complete shock and amazement, she served us a 3-course meal and was absolutely interested in our message (and temporal welfare). Not only did she do it then but she does it now and continues to do it (she has even begun taking requests!).
It may seem like a small thing but if you take a step back and look at it like this:
We met Janice on the street as she was sweeping up her friend's porch. I said hello in passing and she ended up stopping us to speak with us. We were in a hurry so we spoke for maybe 1 minute about her and what we did and then we asked if we could come visit and she said yes.
This may still seem normal to some, but view it from this way:
2 strangers in suits stop and speak to you. Ask if they can come over some time and talk about God with you. Hmm, you decide to make them a 3-course meal! GOOD GRIEF! HOW IS THIS NOT A MIRACLE?!?!?!
Anyway, enough ranting here…the miracles have not stopped flowing and we have continued to be fed on countless occasions. What amazes me is at the end of this week that I had been so worried about I called Elder Paine (the senior missionary in charge of finances) who said that my card had been declined by accident and that I had well over my original estimated amount remaining on my card!
In this experience I see the faint shadow of a pessimist who would say that the idiot who rejected the card gave me a scare for nothing.
But through the eyes of Heaven it was an amazing experience for me to rely on the Lord temporally, as well as spiritually. Abraham didn't actually end up sacrificing his Son but that was not the point. Whether or not I was skint was not the point. It was what I was going to do about it.
I don't say this to glory in myself but in the Lord for holding me up through my trials (or in this case it seemed quite literally a test).
I can testify that not only does the Lord provide for our necessities day by day, but he also observes very closely the desires of our heart and He always helps us fulfill the righteous wants we may have, on His time.
This is a true point which I feel has struck me this week.
"How gentle God's commands, how kind His precepts are, come cast your burden on the Lord and trust His constant care."
Someone once spoke to me of a story where there was a house in which they had a room for everything. A room for work, a room for the kids, a room for their spouse, a room for hobbies, a room for sports, and a room for God. They talked about the importance of letting God out of that little room you had put him in and letting him run rampant in all the places of your house. Sometimes it will hurt because certain things in certain rooms will have to go, but as the Rooms of your heart and home are filled with His marvelous light you will come to know your Savior that much better and trust Him that much more.
I love you all so much!
-Elder Stephen C Beacham