A Mongolian miracle
This wonderful story was shared by Teri Adams, who lives in Montana
“Our stake conference was held this past weekend. During the Sunday session, President Kris J. Mecham spoke to us. He is serving as the president of the Billings Montana Mission. At one point, toward the end of his remarks, he paused for a moment, then said, ‘I feel prompted to share with you a story’. This is the story he shared
Prior to being called to serve as a mission president, President Mecham and his wife served a mission to Mongolia, and he shared the story of another couple currently serving in Mongolia. They are personal friends of President Mecham and he shared their story with us. It is incredible.
The couple wanted to go on a mission to someplace warm, so they submitted their papers and mentioned their desire to serve somewhere warm. The call came back — Mongolia. After some discussion, they decided to decline the call, and did so. A few months later, they felt like they really needed to serve a mission, so they put in new papers and wrote that they desired to serve in a warm climate due to health issues. The second call arrived — Mongolia. This time, as they talked about it, then decided that the Lord must really want them in Mongolia to call them there twice, and they decided that they could tolerate the coldness for a few months. If it proved to be too difficult, they would come home. So they went to Mongolia and were assigned to serve in the Mongolian Federal Prison. The brother taught the inmates and the sister cleaned the kitchen for 8 hours every day, doing the dishes, scrubbing pots, mopping the floor, etc. She didn’t understand even one word of the Mongolian language, and didn’t know what anyone was saying to her. All she knew was that she didn’t come clear across the ocean to wash dishes in Mongolia for her mission.
One day, in sheer frustration and close to tears after cleaning for hours and not understanding a single word, she went out into the courtyard and screamed at the top of her lungs, ‘Does anybody here speak English?’ No one replied. A second time, and this time more loudly, she yelled it again, desperate for some English response. ‘Does anybody here speak any English at all?’ From the upper corner of the prison, a voice called back, ‘I do. I speak English.’
That night she told her husband about the lone prisoner who had answered back and they wondered about him. For days they tried to get him out of their minds and couldn’t. Eventually, they went to the warden and mentioned the prisoner who spoke English. The warden asked where he had called from. When she told him, he said, ‘Oh we can’t go there. That is the maximum security portion of the prison. It is too dangerous. I have not even been there myself.’ They asked to see the man’s records and were told the prisoners kept in maximum security have no records. Only the most vile criminals were there and they were sent there to die. There was no parole for them, no chance of a second life; therefore, the prison needed no information on them.
Still, the prisoner’s response haunted them and they persisted in their desire to meet this man and promised the warden they would be safe. Finally, after several more days, the warden relented and agreed to let them enter that portion of the prison. He took them there. They heard a voice they had not heard in eighteen years, saying, ‘Mom, I knew you would come for me.’ It was their own son. They had not seen him in 18 years, when he got caught up in a life of crime and left home. Twelve years ago, they had been told that he had been killed while committing a crime. He had actually fled the country and, over the course of several years, made his way to Mongolia, where another act of crime had caused him to be sentenced for life in prison. He had been in prison for years, unable to contact anyone. No one knew he was there. Yet, God did. Through his recent and lonely prayers, this prisoner knew he would be reunited with his mother some day, that some day she would find him buried in a prison cell in Mongolia, and would come to help him.
After telling the story, President Mecham said, ‘The amazing story does not end there. The couple is still serving in Mongolia, but when they return home from their mission in 5 more months, because of the work of the Church there, the Mongolian government has agreed to release their son. They will be able to bring him home with them!’ What would have happened, he asked, if they had continued to refuse the call?
He then testified that we don’t know why the Lord asks some things of us, why we have to endure some things in this life that seem to make no sense, but we can always trust that it is for our good, for that is His whole purpose, to bless us and bring us eternal happiness and salvation. He sees things down the road that we do not see. He know things we could never know. And His is guiding us to those blessings with everything He does, whether we understand it or not.
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