Elder Smith is the new senior missionary who arrived with his wife in Vanuatu nine days ago.  As we walked together yesterday and marveled over our experiences, he remarked in a rather dazed manner, “It’s a miracle a day!”

I liked that.  I liked that a lot.  I’ve spent the past 24 hours reflecting on my blessings, and I am in awe.

I recall Elder David A. Bednar telling of a time when a general authority came to BYU-Idaho while Elder Bednar was serving as president of the university.  The general authority stayed with the Bednar family.  When it was time for the family’s evening prayer, the general authority requested that the prayer consist of nothing but expressions of gratitude for blessings received.  It was the turn of Sister Bednar to be voice for the family prayer.  Another family that the Bednars were close to had experienced a tragedy, and Sister Bednar desperately wanted to pray for them; but the general authority had requested that the Bednar family prayer not contain any requests for blessings, but only thanks for blessings received.  It was difficult for her to confine her prayer to only expressions of gratitude.

That story has had an effect upon me.  I think of it often; and because of it, I occasionally make my prayers solely prayers of gratitude.  Such prayers are eye-opening, and should be tried by everyone.  It makes a person aware of just how blessed he is.

Back home in the United States, whenever I got in my car to go somewhere alone, I most often began my errand with a prayer.  I didn’t turn on the radio.  There was no one else to hear me, and so I would drive down the road praying.  The prayer was sometimes vocal, and sometimes all mental.  Usually the prayer was a short one; but on one memorable occasion as I was heading to the temple in Boise, the prayer lasted clear to Lime, a site beyond Durkee and beyond the current lime plant, perhaps an hour or more away.  That prayer was memorable not only for its length, but because it was solely a prayer of gratitude for blessings I had received.

As I laid in bed this morning reflecting upon my blessings, I see our time here in Vanuatu as little more than layers upon layers of blessings—miracle upon miracle upon miracle.

Dr. Wang came down to see us two evenings ago.  He is one of my miracles.  I first saw him on Christmas as I turned the corner to go to the church.  I had a pickup-load of missionaries.  A Chinese man was standing right in the middle of the intersection, and didn’t offer to move as I steered around him.  As he recognized the familiar white shirts and name tags, he pointed at our meetinghouse and shouted, “Good one church!”

I told the missionaries, “Someone go talk to that man!” but when I stopped at the meetinghouse gate, they all excitedly ran inside to begin their Christmas activities together.  Thus it was that it was left to me to befriend the Chinese man who was happily walking through the church gate a minute later.  Three months later I had the privilege of baptizing him.  Dr. Wang has been the background for many of my miracles.

Chief among those miracles, of course, is what happened to this good man who gave two-and-a-half years of his life to serve the people of Vanuatu.  He left his wife, his baby, and his comfortable, familiar surroundings to come to this remote place where he discovered the Bible and Christianity.  Then he found the Book of Mormon, and the true Church of Jesus Christ.  Within the month he will return to China and take the Church to his family.  Current laws forbid him to do any proselyting outside the confines of his family, but I expect China to shortly open its doors to the preaching of the gospel.  Dr. Wang will be in the forefront of that effort.

When I think of the miracles that I’ve experienced here, I think of the old woman up in the emergency room of the hospital to whom I administered a Priesthood blessing.  I guessed her age to be 60.  She was lying on a bed surrounded by eight worried family members.  They were rubbing her feet, and trying to open her eyes, but she was totally unresponsive.  She looked dead, and I had little doubt but what she would be in a very short time.  Nevertheless, a young, prospective missionary and I laid our hands upon her head, and gave her a blessing.  I found myself telling the woman that she would be healed.  I was surprised, as well as more than a little doubtful.

Following the blessing, I stepped back and surveyed the situation.  “Where is the doctor?” I asked.

“No doctor, just a nurse,” I was told.

I stepped outside, and called Dr. Wang.  “A friend of mine is in the emergency room in very bad shape, and there is no doctor here,” I said.

“I come now!” he replied.  Three minutes later Dr. Wang swept into the room, quickly surveyed the situation and said commandingly, “Emergency!  Malaria!  Quinine!”

I watched as the medicine was administered, and then my companion and I left.  The next day I was afraid to ask about the woman’s condition for fear that she had died, but my wife asked the woman’s friend about her.  The friend replied matter-of-factly, “Oh, five minutes after Elder Kerns left, she sat up, and went home.”

Dr. Wang wanted the woman to return to the hospital the next day for a follow-up treatment.  We went to the woman’s house to pick her up.  I was astounded when a 30-year-old, smiley, happy, nursing mother came out of the house carrying a baby, and climbed into our pickup.

Was the miracle a result of the power of the Priesthood, the efficacy of the quinine, or did it lie in the fact that I knew Dr. Wang?  Any one, and all three, of those things were miracles.

A non-member, 11-year-old boy with a broken leg is another miracle.  Both bones were severely broken just above the ankle.  The accident had happened one week before while he was playing soccer.  He was to be flown to Port Vila the next day to have the bones pinned, and to be put in traction for six months.  David Ruben was in pain, but his personality was such that there was no repressing his smile.  My heart went out to him.  I don’t recall anything about the Priesthood blessing that he received, except that I knew all would be well.

David said later that his leg felt different after the blessing.  It was decided the next day that the trip to Port Vila for an operation would not be necessary.  On the following day his leg was put in a cast.  The next day, David was given an x-ray.  The Australian doctor who read the x-ray couldn’t believe what he was seeing, and ordered a second one.  The bones were perfectly aligned, and were already knitting.  “This is a miracle,” he said, “and I can’t explain what’s happened.  I’ve never seen this in my 22 years of being a doctor.”

“It was the Priesthood blessing,” David’s mother told him.

“Do you belong to this Church?” the doctor asked.

“No, but I’m going to be baptized just as soon as I can,” she replied.

The cast was left on David’s leg for six weeks during which time he and his mother were taught the gospel, and he and I became fast friends.  Two days after the removal of the cast, he walked down into the baptismal fount where I had the privilege of baptizing him.  His mother had to wait a week for her own baptism because David insisted that he must be the first.

Many of my daily miracles are personal.  Many come through the medium of the Holy Ghost, and many of those are in the middle of the night when my mind is blank and receptive.  Three came in quick succession.

The first of those three came in answer to my prayer about Marjorie’s legs.  She had been plagued for weeks with an itchy rash that was spreading up both legs.  Nothing she did was able to stop the rash’s progress or alleviate its irritation.  It was becoming so severe that I could see that it would potentially affect our ability to continue our mission.  So I prayed about it.

In the middle of that night, I saw myself bathing Marjorie’s legs with vinegar.  The next morning I told her about my experience.  She began washing her legs with vinegar, and the result was an almost immediate healing.  She now uses it daily.  There is no earthly reason why this solution to her problem would have come to me, except that it was revealed by the Holy Ghost.  We have since learned that vinegar is the remedy that many dermatologists use for some diseases of the skin.

The second message from the Holy Ghost was a warning.  The chief of a remote village came to Luganville to be baptized.  I expressed my wish to visit his village.  I particularly wanted to make the hour-long trek through the bush to his village, and to cross the quaint, narrow, bamboo bridge that spans the gorge made by the Sarakata River.  The chief promised to meet us at the bridge so that he could help Marjorie across.  In the middle of the night, however, I was told that neither Marjorie nor I was to cross that bridge.

Several days later we stood at one end of the bridge, and the chief stood at the other.  He shouted at us to cross to his side.  Twice I said, “No.”  He was insistent as he urged us the third time.  I shouted back, “Tabu Spirit bin telem mi se no crossem bridge ia.”

That was all it took.  He accepted that without question.  We got to the village another way, and were treated like dignitaries.  It was one of the most memorable events of my life, and particularly so because of the unmistakable message given to me by the Holy Ghost.

In that same week I was told that the branch presidents and seminary teachers wanted to have an all-day, all-island seminary activity for the 80-90 seminary students in the island’s five branches.  The program that was proposed sounded dull and uninspiring.  I surfaced in the middle of the night with the whole 5-hour program all laid out before me.  The activity took place yesterday.  The seminary students had a missionary experience, three fun physical activities, lunch, an interesting hour of scripture mastery, and an hour of hand-picked, true inspirational experiences.  Every student and every eye was glued to each speaker.  It was a miracle.

Perhaps the biggest miracle of all was the one that no one was aware of but me.  The one hole in the plan was the hour that was to be devoted to scripture mastery.  The Holy Ghost didn’t lay that out for me, and left me to struggle with the content of the hour.  I prepared the best I could, stood up, and began.  Thoughts came in quick succession.  I told a story in Bislama.  I told the students that if they’d help me, the rest of the meeting would be in Bislama.  If they didn’t help me, the rest of the meeting would be in English.  I explained what I wanted to have happen, told another story in Bislama, and then students began jumping up to do what I requested.  Their remarks would trigger another thought or story in my mind.  Between those thoughts, stories, and the students’ participation the whole hour was filled with very good and practical applications for the value of scripture mastery verses.  I had everyone’s rapt attention.  It was a miracle.

I could go on and on.  Every day is filled with multiple miracles too numerous to even record.  The work is hard.  The real highlight of the seminary activity was the dance instruction that Marjorie gave the students in her workshop.  The seminary activity was immediately followed by the wedding of a couple with three children who are preparing to be baptized.  Marjorie had to make the wedding cake, a first for her.  It was gorgeous.  She also had to supply the music for the wedding.  We were exhausted at the end of the day, but what a privilege it is to be in the midst of these daily miracles.