A Big Tender Mercy

Sunday October 9, 2022.   

Email #53.  

Happy Birthday Elsie and Stephanie! 

 

Aloha Everyone!

 

We had a very nice Sunday today.  Our ward now has two apartment buildings of married students instead of one, so the ward is much bigger than it used to be.  The students getting up to bear their testimony was constant.  That had never happened before.  I love hearing from the students.  They express faith with lots of excitement for the Gospel. 

 

On my way to work Tuesday, I prayed in the car that I might be able to see the Lord’s hand in my life—in a bigger way than “normal”.  My prayer was definitely answered!  But, I’m not sure I will pray for that again—it ended up being a stressful situation.  I rang up a customer at work.  The total bill was almost $200.00.  The wife put her card in the machine and then took it out when it beeped at her—just like normal.  What I didn’t realize (until about 15 minutes later) is that she didn’t sign the tablet, so the transaction wasn’t complete, and the items had not been paid for.  When I saw that transaction still on the register, my heart fell.  This same thing had happened to other employees but never to me because I had a personal rule—You don’t let the customer go until you hand them the receipt.  But I had begun talking with this customer about being from Lehi and did they the know the Van Noys? Etc. And I let the conversation distract me from finishing the job.  Ivan told me that they were going into the Islands.  I heard that they weren’t going into the Islands because they had been there yesterday, and it was raining so they didn’t know if they would go back.  I decided to go look for them anyway.  I knew it was a long shot but we had found people before.  There are six Islands and it covers maybe 20 acres of ground.  What are the chances!  About zero.  I went from Island to Island and couldn’t see them.  I kept having the feeling that they weren’t there. I eventually gave up and went back to the store.  On the way, I determined that I would go back to the store and pay the bill myself.  I had made the mistake and I was going to be accountable for it.  I walked in the store ready to pay still having a prayer in my heart that it could be resolved.  The assistant manager told me to wait for the manager to come in before paying because maybe she could “damage it out”.  I said that I wanted to try one more thing.  I knew that they were staying at the Marriot Hotel.  I wanted to drive over there and see if by chance they would help me locate a guest who was from Lehi, Utah.  What are the chance of that?  About zero.  I drove over there, still praying that I would be able to locate them.  I parked, shut off the engine, got out and looked around the parking lot and there was the couple, about 30 yards away walking towards the hotel.  I immediately began thanking Heavenly Father for His goodness in helping me.  What are the chances?  About zero unless you have God helping you.  I told the couple that I was so happy to see them and then explained the situation.  She went back and paid for the items.  I got permission to give them a discount for their trouble.  God is so good. I definitely saw His hand in my life.   If I hadn’t of gone into the Islands first, the timing would not have worked out to meet them at that very moment in the parking lot. God is in the details.  Another part of the stress was that I needed to get this solved before 3:30 when I would leave for luau duty because the PCC would be closed the next day and then we leave to go out of town.  WHEWWW!  It all worked out. And He was there to help. 

 

Wednesday evening Scott and I and the Grahams (another missionary couple) left for the airport to go over to the big Island for the weekend.  We had a wonderful time, and we feel blessed that we were able to sneak away for a couple of days.  I will not write about our time over there other than to let you know about some of the things we did by the captions of the pictures. Except, I do want to highlight one story—which was another tender mercy for the week. 

 

We didn’t know when we picked this weekend and got permission to leave the Island that it was the World Ironman competition in Kona. The lady at the car rental literally laughed at us for choosing that weekend because many of the roads that tourist normally take would be closed due to the competition. Thursday wasn’t a problem for us because we were in Hilo that day.  But Saturday was a problem!  The main road to the airport was closed so we had to take an alternate route.  What should have taken 20 minutes to get there took almost two hours.  Fifty minutes of that was driving from our hotel to the main intersection.  That should have taken 50 seconds—literally!  We didn’t dare go anywhere because we didn’t know if we would get stuck and wouldn’t be able to get back to the airport, so we just drove to the airport and decided to turn in the rental car and wait out the time until 6:00 when our flight was scheduled to leave.  We arrived at the airport at 12:30 and asked if we could get on an earlier flight and the woman who was helping us said, “Well, we can’t do 12:35 since it’s gone, but there is room on the 3:40”.  We took it and got our new boarding passes.  We went to the rest room and was looking around for a place to eat since we hadn’t eaten anything all day, when Elder Graham asked us to look at our boarding passes.  It had us booked to leave on the 12:30 flight.  It was now about 1:00.  We were all confused and immediately tried to find someone to ask what to do.  The employee told us that the 12:30 was running late and we were booked and could go home on that one.  We were so excited that we didn’t have to spend 6 hours in the airport.  It was a huge tender mercy that Elder Graham looked at the tickets because we were told we would be on the 3:40 and that is what we were planning on. We spent most of the day getting home and didn’t get to do anything fun in Kona, but we did walk down to the main road by our hotel that morning and watched as bikers from the race passed by.  We got to talk to a couple of people who were in the Thursday race which was for the youngest and oldest age categories for men and for all the women.  One man from Brazil who had previously done 14 ironman competitions told us that he was 20 seconds over the acceptable swimming time, and he was told he couldn’t finish the race.  He had become nauseous from the ocean waves during the swimming part and his time was longer than acceptable and he was kicked out.  I am so thankful that if we don’t quite measure up—the Lord doesn’t kick us out.  We have many chances to keep doing better and improving our lives.  I’m thankful we are allowed re-dos, and as many as we need!  I am thankful for His atoning sacrifice!  We all just need to keep trying and doing the very best we can. 

 

 

Much love,

Sister Bleak, Mom, Grandma

 

PS  We talked with several people from around the world (Spain, Brazil, Germany, Texas) who were there for the competition.  When we could, we would talk about why we are at the PCC and a little about our church.  We loved meeting these interesting people.  Planting more seeds I hope. 

 

 

 

How I have seen the hand of the Lord in my life this week:

*I was able to find the people who needed to finish their purchase transaction.

*We were able to get on an earlier flight home from the big Island.

*We saw the majesty of God’s creations.

*We had many opportunities to tell people about serving a mission at the PCC.

*Thoughts kept coming to me about things that needed to be brought up at our district meeting. 

 














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