I had a very sweet experience during the night.  At about 3:00 a.m. Silas Toa came into my mind.  Silas is a soon-to-be 16-year-old boy who is one of my very favorites here in Vanuatu.  His smile and personality and humility are exceptional.  More than anything he wants to be good.  He wants to be faithful.  He never misses church or any church activity.  He’s always there whether it be a seminary class or a sports activity.  Everyone likes Silas, and Silas likes everyone.

Though Silas is not yet a Young Single Adult, he attends institute class as often as he can, just because he wants to learn.  Two evenings ago he came up to me following institute, and asked for help to find a scripture—any scripture—that would help him get started preparing a talk that he was assigned to give in the coming sacrament meeting.  He had been assigned the topic, “Fellowship together.”

My mind was a blank.  “Wow,” I thought, “I’m glad I wasn’t assigned to speak on that topic, because I don’t have a single thought.”  I wrote his topic down on my lesson plan, told Silas I’d come up with something, and then never thought of it again.  I think his request just seemed too hard to me.  It was going to require too much thought.

In the middle of the night, Silas came into my mind.  There is no earthly reason why that thought came.  The reason was not earthly.  It was heavenly.  The thought came from the Holy Ghost.  One of the purposes and duties of the Holy Ghost is to bring all things to our remembrance.  It surely happened here.

I instantly came awake.  Silas Toa, I thought.  Silas asked me to do something.  What was it?...Oh, he was asked to speak in sacrament meeting.  I told him I’d find a story from general conference on his topic.  What was his topic?  I can’t remember.

I got out of bed.  For the life of me I couldn’t remember Silas’ topic.  I opened up my index of general conferences, but I had no idea what to look for.  So I prayed.  “What was the topic Silas was assigned?” I asked.

The answer came.  “You wrote it down.  Remember?”  Then I had to think.  I was standing by the whiteboard in the high council room when Silas made his request.  I wrote his topic on the only paper available, and that would have been my lesson plan.

I found my old lesson plan, and there was the topic written in big block letters.  Having had those little nudges from the Holy Ghost, I then had the most wonderful time gathering some helpful information for my friend.  I love that boy.  He doesn’t know it, but he is destined to be an important tool in the hands of the Lord in this nation.  The Lord knows who he is, and intends to use him.  One of the purposes of my being called to serve a mission in Vanuatu was for me to meet and help Silas Toa.  This little experience is evidence to him and to me that the Lord knows him and is very interested in his spiritual development.