The Lord knows the end from the beginning

 The Lord knows the end from the beginning

I recently received an email from my granddaughter who will be coming home from her mission in a few weeks. She expressed a mixture of feelings. That brought me to thinking about my mission experience.

I was scheduled to be released in January 1957. I loved being a missionary and in my interview with president Gregory a month or two before, I told him that I would like to extend and serve another six months. He told me that he felt I should go home as scheduled.

I went home and enrolled in BYU for the spring quarter. I had to find housing and contacted one of the returned elders from my mission (Robert Peterson). He was the companion that I had in Hildesheim and was living in a house with a number of students. There was another student from my mission, Lawrence Wilson. We lived together in the top of the chapel in the Bell Strasse in Berlin although he was not my companion. Elder Peterson moved out and I moved in.

I completed the quarter and returned to Lander for the summer to work.

I reserved a place in the same house for the fall quarter.

My future wife had spent her first year in the girl’s dormitory, Amanda Knight Hall. When she came back for her second year she and some friends took an off campus apartment. Thus because of our living in the same off campus district we were in the same student ward with Lester Allen as our bishop.

Thus we were positioned for that fast Sunday when she was directed to my Sunday School class and the rest is history.

Had I remained on my mission for another six months we never would have met. Had she stayed at Amanda Knight Hall for her second year we never would have met.

Seemingly unrelated decisions in our life make all the difference in our opportunities.

We feel that we knew each other in the pre-existence. There was something familiar when we first saw each other.

We were the recipients of guidance from the Lord, although we were not aware of it at the time.

If you live the gospel the Lord will guide your footsteps even through you may not be aware of the process. Learn to listen to the promptings.

Love,
Grandpa