Power of Prayer

Alright, you've been asking for a cool story. I guess the Lord wanted to bless me with one. I've changed the names in it but everything else is completely true.

About a month ago, our branch president took us out and introduced us to a family. I will call them the Juanes family. It is the mother, whom we'll call Juana, her two kids, Juanita and Juanito, and her boyfriend, Juan. They are all from Honduras and have been in the States a couple of years. We taught them regularly for several weeks and they were about to be committed to a date for baptism and confirmation. They have all been out to church several times and enjoy learning about the Gospel. About a week and a half ago, Juana got in a fight with her boyfriend Juan and one of their neighbors called the police. When the police got there, they ran Juana's name and discovered that she is on the dreaded deport list. They promptly threw her in jail, to be deported the following week. Juana is pregnant. She was to be deported without her kids or boyfriend back to Honduras where she has nothing and nobody. Her kids were to be shipped off to California by themselves to live with a distant relative under the influence of a less-than-perfect environment in Hispanic California. Juan, the boyfriend, planned to stay in the area where he already has a decent job in order to earn money for the rest of the family. Needless to say, the situation stinked. The family was devastated and our branch president was crying all through church that Sunday worrying about what was going to happen to this pregnant mother and her two kids ages 15 and 9. Also needless to say, there was A LOT of prayer going in within the branch, ourselves, and the family for the Juanes. My companion and I went to the courthouse and subsequently the jail to get some information--at the time nobody had any idea what was going on. We only knew that Juana was in jail and was to be deported. We found out the visiting hours and they told us that Juana would still be in custody during that time, so we were not worried about her being deported before we could visit her with the branch president. The day of the visit finally arrived. We went with the branch president to the prison to visit her and see if there was anything we could do for her or her family. When we got there, they told us that she had left the jail the previous day and that they did not have any more information. We did not know whether she had been released to go home or released to immigration. Honestly, we weren't very hopeful. We decided that we would swing by her trailor on the way home and see if by some miracle of God she was there. She was. She told us that the very hour she was to be deported, she went to court where the judge dropped all charges and released her to return to her family. This was truly a direct answer to our prayers and a miracle from God. Her family is reunited and are again studying the Gospel of Jesus Christ and are being prepared for baptism and confirmation.

The power of prayer is real.

God is truly a God of miracles.

Love,

Elder Raymond