Yesterday (5 May 2019) Marjorie and I left early to go to stake conference in La Grande.  We had been asked to arrive an hour early so that the visiting area authority could interview us.  I am the new stake patriarch.  It was a good, instructive, 30-minute interview.  I expected the result to be that I would be asked to speak in the conference.  That was the case.  Marjorie was also asked to bear her testimony in the conference, which she did very compellingly.

As we left for La Grande and entered Haines, the warning light on the car’s dashboard came on.  We had a tire that had only 23 pounds of pressure.  Twenty-three pounds quickly dropped to 20, and then 17.  As I pulled into the only service station in Haines, the pressure read 14 psi.  I attached the service station’s air hose and began putting air in the tire.  I could hear it coming out nearly as fast as it went in.  Frustratingly, our car is not equipped with a spare tire, but only a tire repair kit that was going to be inadequate to help an air leak of that magnitude.

Heidi and Kevin lived less than a mile away.  I aired up the tire as much as possible, and quickly drove to the Bradfords where we borrowed a car and were back on the way to our appointment.

I’m grateful for that flat tire.  Marjorie has been worrying about our tires, and told me to go get them rotated.  I forgot, and never got around to it.  If that tire had gone flat anywhere else, we’d have been stuck.  We didn’t have a spare tire.  We don’t carry a cell phone.  We couldn’t have called anyone for help.  We’d have missed our appointment with the area authority.  I am absolutely convinced that there was divine intervention to cause that flat tire to happen right where and when it did.  I’m going to be in good spirits as I gratefully remove that tire this morning and take it to town to be repaired.  I’m not even going to feel frustration if I’m told that it’s time for a whole new set of tires, as I expect to happen.  A flat tire happening right then and there was not a coincidence.

Two other “coincidences” were told about in the conference that I’d like to record.  The first story was related by President Brinkerhoff, president of the Columbia River Temple.  He reported that just two weeks previously a couple was working their last shift before departing on their mission.  They were assigned to officiate the last endowment session of the day.

This couple had adopted a baby girl eighteen years before.  When the girl turned 18 she had the desire to know about her birth mother.  She went to the social services office and asked to have her file opened so that she could trace her mother.  She was given the information.  Just four hours later her birth mother also went to the office, and asked to see the files so that she could find out what had happened to her little girl.

The mother had been a less-active member of the Church, but had recently returned to full activity in the Church.  To everyone’s surprise the adopted girl and her birth mother lived in the same ward, and had the same priesthood minister.  In the endowment session that evening with the departing missionary couple were the girl, her birth mother, and also the priesthood minister.  Imagine the joy.

The second story about “coincidences” was told by Elder Bradford Bowen, the visiting area authority.  As a young man he served a mission in Canada.  He came from a supportive family that had very little money.  Six months into his mission he was transferred a distance of 800 miles to Ottawa.  Ottawa was then a large city of 600,000, but has since grown to over a million people.  Back then the Church did not provide the missionaries’ monthly support money.  It came from home.  Elder Bowen needed $100 per month to pay for his accommodations, his food, gas for the car, and $25 per month to rent the car from the Church.  His parents faithfully sent a $100 bill every month.  He knew that they had to scrape in order to do it.

The transfer came as the time was nearing for his monthly check to be sent.  He called his parents and gave them the address that he’d been given as the place to send the money in Ottawa, and then he left for his new assignment.  In Ottawa he waited for the envelope.  The money never arrived.  It turned out that the address that he’d been given was inaccurate, and was no address at all.  He had no idea where the letter was, and absolutely could not bring himself to call his parents and ask them to send another $100 bill, because he knew they didn’t have it.  He determined that he’d go hungry for a month rather than do that.

One day he prayed.  He told Heavenly Father that he was desperate, and asked for some way that he might be able to make it through the month.  He was told to go find the letter.  The next morning he told his companion that they needed to dispense with their morning study, and to go looking for the missing letter.  His companion agreed to accompany him, although they had not the slightest idea where to even begin looking.

They began walking.  They walked for two hours, not knowing where they were to go.  As they walked down a street, Elder Bowen noticed a florist shop across the street.  It was closed.  Three envelopes were stuck in the crack of the door.  Elder Bowen ran across the street, and was overjoyed to find that one of the envelopes was addressed to him.

What are the odds that those missionaries would find that envelope, or that the girl and her birth mother would be reunited as they were, or that my flat tire would happen right where and when it did?  These things do not happen coincidentally.  The Lord is involved in the details of our lives, and will bless us when we’re prayerfully doing what we can in His service.