Missionary Story

Burr -  Send blankets and hot water bottles!  It dipped down to 29 degrees today.   Missionary Story from Down Under, Last Monday we went to Family Home Evening with the YSA as we usually do. That night we had 2 full time missionaries there with their investigator with them. One was Elder Vhang  the 1st missionary ever from Burma and other Elder Kallaraga  from the South Pacific Island nation  of Kiribati or also known as the Gilbert Islands. He is black like the Fijians are. The investigator was Ong  who was a Burmese man in his thirties who has lived in Australia  for 14 years escaping Burma because of the same Military persecution that exists there today. The FHE lesson was on the importance of Fasting and Prayer. It started off with the New Testament story of the apostles trying to cast out an evil spirit from a boy and having failed. Jesus came along and cast out  the evil spirit. Later the apostles asked the Savior why they could not do it and Jesus said "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting." Mark 9: 17-29 One of the YSA, a returned missionary, then told of this experience he had on his mission while serving in Boston, Mass.  A new convert sister of less than a year, and only member in her family, called them one day, and said  her grandfather was gravely ill and would they administer to him. The grandfather had some kind of cancer, and was in tremendous pain and was on a morphine pump that lessens the pain but also put him in a stupor unable to understand or speak.   Her family was very antagonistic toward the church, and had refused her requests to have her grandfather receive a priesthood administration of the sick. Finally after seeing him suffer so much they agreed to have the elders administer to him. The elders agreed to administer to him, but only after a 24 hour fast, in which they did a lot of praying. When they arrived at the hospital the next day, some of the family was in the room with them. The member sister had told them that the elders would use their priesthood power and would heal her grandfather. The YSA  RTM told us that he had the  felt spirit so strongly that he truly felt that the Grandfather would be healed. His companion anointed the grandfather, and then this elder sealed the anointing and was about to say the words to heal the grandfather when the spirit stopped him and then told him through the still small voice, that he was to bless the grandfather that the severe pain would soon leave his body, but that he would die and not be healed, however he would be mentally cognizant for 1 week and then die a week from that day. A sister of the member after hearing this, and expecting her grandfather to be healed, said "What the hell was that?" The elder answered and said "That was what the spirit told me to say." A few hours later the grandfather's morphine pump was cut back, and eventually stopped because it became apparent that he was no longer suffering pain. He became alert and in the next week the family members were able to visit him and essentially say goodbye to him.  He died  exactly 1 week later just as the elder's blessing said he would. The family had the grandfather buried in a town near Boston and asked that the elders attend the funeral which was conducted by a Roman Catholic priest. The family was catholic. At the end of the burial the priest came up to the grandmother and asked if he could be of any spiritual help. The grandmother at that time was standing next to the elder who had given the blessing, and said putting her hand on the elder's shoulder "No thanks we have all the help we need."                                      Love Elder Mac