These two stories are so good we had to pass them along. Enjoy!
"I know that the Lord honours missionaries ,whether set-apart or regular member. Once, when prowling around the foyer of the Hyde Park Chapel in London, waiting for a Pizza delivery man to bring food to a meeting, I noticed a young Chinese couple who had wandered into the building.
I welcomed them and found out a little about them. They knew nothing of the Church, but were both medical students, a brother and a sister. They just happened to be passing the building and were intrigued by its design. Their father was a professor of medicine in China and they had 30 minutes spare time. I began to speak to them about the Church, but I was very frustrated because I knew that the Area President was in the building and that he was in a meeting. I so wanted him to be available because I knew he had visited China many times as a surgeon. I had just said to myself, "OK Heavenly Father-over to you", when the Area President suddenly appeared, walking from a meeting upstairs into another meeting in the Chapel. I introduced the couple to him. Imagine their shock when after a few moments he asked, "Is your father by any chance Kim Wo? (Or some such name!)
They were amazed to discover that not only did this tall American know their father but that he had actually performed surgery with him at his University in China! Two Chinese students, in London for the first and only time, intrigued by a building and at the very moment of need the Lord honoured a rather poor member missionary with astonishing help. Their names were taken and a contact made with the Church. I do not know the betting odds on an American surgeon being in a London Church at the very time two Chinese students wander in off the street. I am not a betting man, you will be relieved to know, nor does the Lord believe in chance. :-)
You might suppose that one such miracle was enough for the day. Not so. The pizza delivery man then arrived with 14 large pizzas (well I was bit hungry). I asked him if he knew what building he was in. He had no idea and had never heard the word Mormon. He was from Poland. I felt bold enough to tell him that he might just have walked into the most important building that he had ever walked into in his life. His name was George and his English was poor. I needed help.
It came! So astonishing that if it had not happened to me personally I might have doubted its truth. Just as I was trying to engage him in a Gospel discussion (a quick one because my Pizzas were getting cold) who should appear around the corner but two great Sister Missionaries. I knew one of them, the other had a badge with some impossibly long name on it. I invited them over to speak with George. "Where are you from?", I asked the new Sister. "Warsaw" she replied!
I know that the Lord honours his missionaries, just so long as they try! Missionaries of the London South Mission, keep trying. And you can read that sentence two ways. Work it out" President Julian I Jones
Second Counsellor
Addlestone Miracle-
The plans Elder Shaw and I had set completely fell through (including back-ups), and we had an hour and a half of nothing to do. So we prayed, took our plight to the Lord, and asked him to guide us. We decided to go see a potential investigator on the other side of town. As we walked there, we came to a corner and passed an elderly lady. Thinking she was going the other way (not to mention none of the elderly people in the area were ever interested), we didn't think to stop, but as we kept going we could hear her coughing behind us and struggling with a shopping bag. We didn't get more than ten yards, when the silent promptings of the Spirit (and our conscience) urged us to go back and see if we could help. To our astonishment she accepted, and we hadn't travelled five yards that she, after learning who we were, asked us what we believed happens after this life. We explained the Spirit world and mentioned the three degrees of glory, at the mention of which she became very enthusiastic and interested. "You believe in the three heavens? That's what I've been studying in the Bible!" We learned that she actually lived no where near where we were heading but was looking for a church. At our invitation she quit her very long walk that she was over halfway finished, we sat down on a bench, went over the Plan of Salvation briefly, and set up a return appointment.
However, that is not the beginning of her story. She had been studying the Bible for years, and had attended a few churches, and when she got to our area, she felt the desire to be baptised. Through her current employer (to who’s house she was led to by a vision), she started meeting with the Jehovah Witnesses, and went to their Portuguese sessions they had. However, after 7 and 1/2 months, she could not accept all the things they did not believe that she believed (specifically in modern revelation) and on the very day we found her she had two promptings: 1) that study that day with the Witnesses was her last, and 2) that she needed to find another church-- specifically 'The Church of Jesus Christ'.
Her first Sunday the three of us came early (the brother who drove us had others to pick up), so the chairs weren't set up in the chapel. We showed her a bit of the Restoration video (where Joseph Smith says 'It is not my church, it is His. It is the church of Jesus Christ'). Afterwards she told us that a few months ago she saw, in a dream, a building, which described our building, including a chapel with no chairs, just as she saw it her first visit!
Everything we taught her she already believed (aside from Tea and Coffee, which she readily accepted) and simply needed to know about Joseph Smith. It took no time at all for her to obtain a personal testimony of him, and in every prayer she offers she thanks the Lord for "the prophets".
Needless to say she was baptised, just a few weeks later, on the 20th of August, and confirmed the next day. Her conversion is a culmination of miracles that will not fit in the Seeker, but these are the most prevalent. She is a Seeker, and the miracle of her conversion only heralds the miracles that will obviously make up the rest of her life. Truly, "...God has not ceased to be a God of miracles." (Mormon 9:15) -Elder Conover
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