FRANTIC IN WHITECOURT

Whitecourt is a small town in northern Alberta, Canada.  I happened to be there in 1969 as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  While there I had an experience that was so powerful even I couldn’t mistake its origin.  I had only been serving for a few months and my companion two months less than me.  Neither of us were very experienced.  There was a small congregation of members of the Church in Whitecourt.  On one particular day, we were knocking on doors hoping to interest someone in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ when we were interrupted by a car screeching to a halt near us as we walked along the sidewalk.  A woman, who was a member of the Church, jumped from her car and ran toward us.  It was immediately evident that something was very wrong.  She was distraught and almost inconsolable.  She and her husband had been unable to have children biologically so they had adopted a little boy a few months prior.  Just recently the baby had become ill and started regurgitating anything he was fed.  Being unable to eat without vomiting, he quickly became dehydrated.  The situation became so dire that he was admitted to the local clinic where he was kept alive via IV nutrition.  This went on for several days with no change in his circumstances.  The doctors seemed unable to discern the source of the problem.  Each day that passed without a solution elevated the concern of these new parents.  On this particular day, the doctor had approached the mother, and in his best bedside manner said, “It’s a good thing you haven’t had this baby long enough to become attached to him because we can’t do anything to save him.  He is going to die.  We can’t do anything more for him.”  This news was devastating to them, and unacceptable.  She had become attached to him the moment she saw him and first held him in her arms.  She rushed from the clinic and frantically started looking for us.  When she finally saw us walking down the street she flung open the car door almost before the car had stopped and ran to tell us what had happened.  She asked us to come give the baby a blessing.  As missionaries we both had been ordained to hold the priesthood, allowing us to give him a blessing, but neither of us had ever done it and we were woefully unprepared to do so.  After the briefest of hesitations, we assured her that we would come give her baby a blessing.  We urged her to return to the hospital and be with him and we would meet her there shortly.  The reason we didn’t follow her immediately was simply because we didn’t even know how to give a blessing of healing.  We hurried home and looked up what we needed to say and do to give a blessing that would allow the power of the priesthood to be accessed.  Once we felt confident in how to proceed we rushed to the clinic.  When we arrived nothing had changed regarding the baby’s condition.  My companion used the consecrated oil we had to anoint the baby.  I then sealed the anointing and pronounced a blessing as dictated to me by the spiritual impressions I received.  It was the first time I had ever experienced this.  I was in a very humble state, recognizing the importance of what we were being asked to do.  I also recognized how ill prepared I was to act in God’s name.  Her faith, however, was great as evidenced by her searching for us.  I had no prior idea of what to say so I just relied on the Spirit of the Holy Ghost to give me utterance.  With my mouth being voice but knowing that I was not the origin of the power necessary to heal the child, I humbly and tenderly placed my fingertips, along with my companion’s, upon the baby’s head.  In the Lord’s name I promised him that he would live, that he had a purpose upon the earth and that he would live a long life, long enough to accomplish all he had been sent to earth to do.  There was an incredible feeling of peace that washed over all of us.  After the blessing was concluded we left in silence.  When we got outside, my companion asked me if I realized what I had said.  I confirmed that I did, but I knew it hadn’t been my words even though they were channeled through me.  We went back to knocking on doors until time for dinner.  After we had eaten we decided to go see how the baby was doing.  They weren’t at the clinic.  They were home.  We learned that after we left, while still at the clinic, the mother had fed the baby some formula and for the first time in several days, he kept it down.  They waited there a few hours to observe further, but then took him home.  The gravity of that outcome profoundly impacted me.  Perhaps some may view it as coincidental.  I DO NOT.  I know it was the power and will of God, manifested through two of His ordained servants, initiated by a mother’s faith that healed that baby.  It was an experience which is etched eternally in my mind, in my soul.  Learning how to use such marvelous power has been ongoing in my life since that day.  On several occasions I have been asked to use the priesthood power bestowed upon me.  Even just a few months after my first opportunity, I was asked to give a blessing to a man, in a different location, but whose life was waning rapidly.  I was escorted into a room where a man lay silently on a gurney awaiting a last chance operation to save his life.  Buoyed by my previous success at giving a blessing but without the humility to match and too prideful to listen for the Lord’s will in this situation, I confidently pronounced that the man would recover completely.  Ten minutes later he was dead.  As much as I learned about priesthood power from my first encounter, I think I learned even more from this one.  This is not my power.  It is not my will which determines the outcome. This is not my work, it’s His. He directs it. Of that I am certain.