"The Gift of God" - Mission Conference Miracles

On December 9 and again on December 16 were the New York New York South Mission Conferences with half of the eight zones participating on each of the dates. It was different than a regular mission conference in many ways. This was a celebration of miracles.

We celebrated Christmas with shared "miracle stories" presented by several missionaries. Mission miracles had been been submitted by each missionary, at the request of Sister Bennion a few months ago, and were printed, bound into a booklet and presented to each missionary as a gift at this special mission conference.

President Bennion, addressing both the conferences, spoke to the missionaries about the importance of seeing the miracles in their work of day to day missionary labor. He also noted that "some miracles take time."

Sister Bennion had organized a lovely Christmas lunch and given special assignments to the senior couples in their specific zones to help with the food preparation and serving, table decorations and clean-up. The food was delicious. Everything was just beautiful!

"The Gift of God" Musical Presentation

Sister de Paula's assignment was to bring together a one-hour program (on both dates with different participants) including narration, soloists, readers, violinists, violist, accompanists, organists, and an SATB choir making sure it coordinated smoothly with a slide presentation - all without a rehearsal!

This necessitated endless days of planning, phoning, mailing, scheduling, stapling, inserting, printing, highlighting, labeling...and praying before each of the presentations on the two dates. Remember, each presentation used an entirely different group elders and sisters because they were assigned to attend either on the 9th or the 16th.

On the mornings of the two conferences, we arrived early with arms loaded with folders for narrator, readers, strings, and choir parts. I watched as elders and sisters entered the chapel. "Do you like to sing?" "Yes, kinda' ..." "Good, join our choir today for the Christmas program. We'll have a walk-through at 1:20 pm and present the program at 2:00."

Or, I would just wait as a group of elders entered the hall and listen to hear who had a deep, rich speaking voice, then smile, hand him a folder and say "Hi elder, with a voice like that I'm sure you'd like to be Samuel, the Lamanite prophet in our Christmas presentation today- your part is marked on the outside of this folder."

As I spoke with the participants at the brief walk-through, I reminded them who they are and whose they are. They had already been set apart as missionaries - instruments in the Lord's hands. And today they were going to be, in a real sense, simply instruments. They were not to perform, but rather to "bear testimony" in word, instrument and song, not drawing attention to themselves, but becoming "one" through the Spirit.

They did just that. They were ratified by the angels in heaven who joined them. There were tears in the eyes of everyone in the hall - including those who participated. All were edified. It was truly another mission miracle.