Last Saturday was a doozy. My friend Helen blogged about it, and I hope she doesn't mind if I paste it in this post. (She's always good about posting things right away. I wait about a month until I forget the details and then throw out some patchy explanation of photos.)
The last 24 hours have been interesting. There was a big concert on the island last night, and our school was responsible for the food and drink booths. I volunteered for four hours, and came home exhausted. My good friend Melinda stayed much later than I did, and returned to the parking lot to find her car looking like this:
Four windows and two mirrors smashed in by vandals. Can you believe it? I felt so bad for her. These are the friends that I do date night babysitting trades with. They only have one car, and this one is not drivable anymore.
We decided to let them use Michael’s car until they could get things figured out. She really needed a vehicle today because there was a baptism at the church tonight and she also needed to do grocery shopping, so I arranged to pick her up in an hour so that we could do groceries together and then she could drop me off at my house afterwards, and she would just keep the car indefinitely. That’s not exactly what happened…
For some weird reason I parked at the far end of the parking lot, and we went in and did our grocery shopping. Then we came back and loaded everything in the trunk. We were a little crunched on time, so when I turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened, it was not a good sign. Bear in mind that this is a really old car that has had lots of problems and fixes in the past, but it has not given us an ounce of trouble in the 8 months that we’ve had it. I tried the ignition again…nothing. There was no power at all. I tried to turn the lights on. Nothing.
Our biggest problem at this stage is that we have a baptism at the church in just over an hour. Melinda, full of faith as always, suggested that we have a prayer and then offered one. It was full of gratitude for what we had, and a worthy plea and desire that we be able to make it to the baptism. I think we both assumed that when I tried the ignition again, it would work.
It didn’t.
We quickly tried to think of what to do and decided to have Michael come to the store and get us, and we would go back to my house for Melinda to get a dress on, then we’d all go to the baptism together. (Melinda is the Primary President and was giving a talk. Michael was the only member of the Bishopric attending and needed to open up the church and conduct the meeting). The programs and her scriptures were at her house, and we wouldn’t be able to get them in time, but this was the best plan we could come up with. I called Michael and told him to drive over right away.
Melinda was on the phone with her husband who was asking questions about the car. She told me to pop the hood so that she could look underneath. It seemed stuck, and as I was outside trying to figure it out we heard, “Do you need some help?” Those words never sounded so good. There were only two other cars parked near us, and at “just the right time” our new friend Gordon happened to finish his grocery shopping, and come over to his car which was close to us, and he saw us struggling.
He popped the hood and discovered massive corrosion around the battery terminals. He tried to clean up the connectors as best he could but said we needed some tools and some WD-40. I tried to call Michael but he had already left.
When Michael arrived 10 minutes later, we decided that the smartest thing to do was for Michael to stay with Gordon while they tried to fix the car, and I took Melinda and all the kids back to our house to get changed. We had 30 minutes before we had to leave for the baptism. “Luckily” for us, they had everything that we needed in the store so Michael bought them, and Gordon got to work. Michael was dubious; he thought it would be a big problem requiring new parts.
We knew that if the time came to leave, that I would have to trade places with Michael and just stay home with the kids since he needed to be there and I didn’t. Still, we went ahead and got the kids changed into their church clothes and quickly started to get them something to eat.
With minutes to spare, the phone rang and it was Michael. Gordon had fixed the car and Michael was on his way home. We would all be able to attend the baptism. Melinda was able to drive the car back to her house to get the programs and her scriptures and make it back in time for the service.
Isn’t it amazing that sometimes when we pray, we have an expectation of how that prayer should be answered? I learned an important lesson today and feel so blessed that Heavenly Father was aware of our situation, that he loved Melinda (and us too, but she was the one going through the trials) and was willing to send an innocent shopper who was “in the right place at the right time” and that we were miraculously able to be where we truly needed to be this evening.
Recognizing the Lord’s hand in my life is something that I am trying to learn and appreciate more, and I am so grateful for these moments when it’s so obvious. I know that He is aware of each one of us, and I am so grateful that the Lord sent us Gordon today.
The story continues. This was my first baptism as Primary President (that means I'm in charge of activities and Sunday School for all the children 11 and under.) And Michael's first baptism as a Counselor in the Bishopric, so I wasn't too sure who was supposed to do what when. It turns out that when we got to the chapel, the baptismal font hadn't been filled--that usually takes at least an hour--and all the doors were locked--and Michael had forgotten his keys at home. So we started the font and Michael left to get his keys.
The baptism was supposed to start at 5. At around 5:45 it still hadn't started, we were still waiting for the font to fill. I went out to "investigate". I asked one of the boys if he had plugged the font right. He said, yeah i think so. I said you think so or you know so? I was very "fia poko" or know-it-all, so I went into the font to check if it was leaking. The water was right below my knees, so I just tried to keep my skirt from getting wet. When I felt around the plug, I could feel some water passing through it. It was leaking--not too much, but I was in a hurry for it to fill. So I played with the plug. Turns out you have to pull it UP to get it to work. And I pushed it DOWN to try and fix it. And it wouldn't stay back UP again. So the water was draining out faster. And our baptism was already almost an hour late.
So there I was in my skirt and blouse in the font, arm in the water, clasping the plug, not daring to let go, and feeling so helpless and foolish! Michael, the boys, and I tried to think of what to do. Stuff paper towels down there? Prop the plug up with a rock? Michael went out to look for resources, while I . . . held the plug. He came back with a plastic cup! It was brilliant! It fit perfectly over the plug and the suction kept it in place and the leaking stopped! Beloved plastic cup. I'd bought it in CostULess that afternoon, if I had thought clearly I wouldn't have bought it because I knew they'd be bringing water bottles, but fortunately my brain is often murky, and I'd bought the cups! I was so relieved, and we decided to start the baptism with the hope that after a nice long talk which I was about to give, the water would be ready.
When I went up to give my talk, my skirt was still wet. And then I noticed I'd gotten GUM ON MY SHOE! But it was fine. I felt happy and peaceful and blessed that the Lord had helped us through all of the frustrating issues we had. If the baptism weren't such an important event, it wouldn't have been so difficult to do. I'm so grateful that I had good friends to help me. And sweet Marjorie Esikia got baptized.
