Hey everybody!!!
I'm glad everyone heard about the miners. Everyone was pegged to the TV the whole day! They showed intensive footage about the miners living conditions, what they had to go through, and an in depth look at their personal lives. It was quite amazing. Many called it a miracle, and a lot of people believe that it was a gift from God that they all survived. Some people said that they survived off of luck. That God, if he was a loving God, wouldn't have put them there in the first place.
To pick that argument apart, we have to look and see what it means to be called a miracle. What is a miracle? and what is the difference between a miracle and extreme luck? Is there a distinction there? A miracle, according to an atheist man I talked to, is something that cannot be explained by science, but that it happens anyway. He relied quickly by saying that everything can be explained by science anyway, so miracles therefore do not exist. I believed him. I think that if we look closely enough at anything, it can be explained by science and written off as another triumph of science over religion.
However, the miracles do not exist there. The miracle was not Christ healing the blind, or the sick, or raising the dead. The miracle was the people themselves. In Ether 12: 7-8, it reads: "For it was by faith that Christ showed himself unto our fathers, after he had risen from the dead; and he showed not himself unto them until after they had faith in him; wherefore, it must needs be that some had faith in him, for he showed himself not unto the world. But because of the faith of men he has shown himself unto the world, and glorified the name of the Father, and prepared a way that thereby others might be partakers of the heavenly gift, that they might hope for those things which they have not seen." What Christ did was extraordinary, but what the real miracle was was the faith that he had; the faith of the blind, the deaf, and the dumb. In verse 12 of the same chapter, it says: "For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until after their faith."
Therefore, a miracle has to be something else. The difference between a miracle and luck is a decision that we all have to make; a decision requiring faith. It is this faith that changes an extremely lucky situation into a miraculous one. Once we make that leap, we begin to see with new eyes. In 2 Corinthians 5:7, it says: "For we walk by faith, not by sight." We begin to see miracles occur in our every day lives. They happen all the time, every day; we just have to be looking for them.
One of these miracles on Sunday. The Salas Family was baptized. I was given the honor to be able to baptize Rosemary, a very special girl of 22 years old. But the miracle wasnt the baptism, it wasnt the circumstances that the family had to overcome to get there, it wasnt Rosemary´s one night in the hospital having cancer, and then leaving the next day after having a priesthood blessing without a trace of cancerous cells. The miracle was the family themselves. Rosemary asked to give her testimony after the service. What she said was the most spiritual experience I have ever had in my life. I have only cried a handful of times because of feeling the spirit (Im just not really one of those people), but while she was up there, telling us how grateful she was that we came into her life, I bawled. She said how she was sick. Really sick. By the time we got to her house, she had not gotten out of her bed for over four months. She didnt want to eat, she didnt want to go outside, she didnt want to live anymore. She told us that she asked for God to answer her; to prove that he loved her. When we came she began to change; subtly at first, but after a month, she had transformed into someone much more. She thanked us for being an answer to her supplications, and told us that now her joy was full. I honestly cant express the profundity of her testimony, but when she finished, everyone was crying. Everyone.
I feel so honored to have been to be part of that miracle. I know it was a miracle, because nothing but the power of God could have wrought that kind of change in a person. I love what I am doing and I know that we are all part of the miracle. Open your eyes. Don't wait for the miracles, be the miracle. Thank you for all your love and concern! Go Chile!
Con Amor,
Elder Westover
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