Sunday, August 8, 2010

Alma - Chapter 60


I love this chapter.  When I was serving as a missionary in Dumaguete, Philippines this chapter was influential in our receiving an answer to our prayers.  Dumaguete is a university town with a highly educated population.  Elder Johnson and I were the first Elders to serve there.  We brought a case of Book of Mormons with us when we arrived.  So interested were the people in this new book of scripture that we ran out in a very short while.  We ordered more from the Mission Home in far away Manila, but they didn't come.  We ordered again and again and still no books.  Weeks turned into months and we had no scriptures to share with out contacts.  We began to take orders which we intended to fill as soon as the stock arrived.  Approaching four months in the community our order list was approaching 1200 books and still no supplies.  One evening I opened The Book of Mormon and read this chapter.  I inspired me.  It was the end of the week, time to write and mail reports.  In my report I wrote of our severe need to have our ever growing requisition of books.  To emphasize the seriousness of our predicament I addressed the report to Pahoran and signed it Captain Moroni.  We received 1400 books the following week.  It took nearly a month to get them all distributed.

While I probably wouldn't  have gone to Manila, sword in hand, to collect them; I was profoundly grateful for the scriptural reinforcement that finally persuaded the Mission Home to respond to our need.  The Elders up there eventually admitted that it took that letter to finally get them to take us seriously.  The scriptures come in pretty handy and the do have the answers we need.

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