Expect a Miracle

Hello from Grays Harbor,

What a week it has been here! We almost got sunshine on Sunday. I've started to pray more steadfastly for it :) We had a week full of miracles and tender mercies. I don't know if I could have even planned it better. God is definitely a better master planner than I am. Our little Chandler was baptized yesterday. Her dad was baptized a few months ago, the day after Christmas actually. We've been working with her since we got the area. She's one of the smartest little girls I've ever met. She pretends to be all tough, but the girl is a total softy on the inside :) Don't tell her though lol. She told us this last week that it was all our fault that she was getting baptized and that if we had never come and challenged her to pray she would have never gotten an answer and had to do it lol. She keeps lamenting that she'll have to have "old man hands" put on her head. lol, she was here when her dad was confirmed in Sacrament Meeting several months ago. And yet after all that, in church on Sunday she sat next to me hardly able to keep from bouncing off her seat. She leaned over to be and began to stare at the clock, counting out loud and said, "Only six more hours til I get baptized!" Her older sister Hunter (17) who we're still working with, said that she's been driving her insane. Chandler told Hunter that she didn't sleep at all the night before her baptism. When Hunter told me that, I looked at Chandler and smiled and she folded her arms and said "Na-Uh!" I love their family. I even got Hunter to wear a skirt and sing "When I am baptized" at the baptism. Which if you knew Hunter, you'd understand what a miracle it was. She did an amazing job.

Toby was also baptized! He's been such an amazing person to teach. I don't think we ever extended a commitment that he didn't keep. Saturday we were doing a run through with him and he was telling us how he felt when we brought him on the church tour for the first time. We had told him there would be a baptism on March 20th and that he could come, but as he learned more and prayed about it, that he could participate in it. He didn't think much about it then. He said it wasnt' til the next few times that he met with us that he realized the baptism on March 20th was his lol. He will do amazing things for this ward here and for the Church. I can see the conversion in his eyes and its steadfast and permanent.

I have an amazing story to tell you. Its become an incredibly sacred story to me. I haven't told you yet because it began as a really sad one and only turned into a miracle yesterday. So Mom sent me that silver ring that Brother Lucy made for me several weeks ago. I was stoked when I realized that it actually fit. It was a little big, but not really. The very first day I wore it I went tracting in a neighborhood in west Aberdeen. We met this amazing man named Mike who came on a church tour later that week. We played with his dog for a little while and then went on to the next house. A few houses down we met a really sweet single mom by the name of Steph. Her and her daughter were unloading fire wood from the back of their truck. We asked if we could help and spent several minutes talking with her and unloading wood with her five year old daughter. She seemed really interested and gave us her number. It was at this point I realized that my silver ring was gone. At first I was devastated, but my mission has really helped me to understand that things are just things. We looked for it for a few minutes and told both Steph and Mike to look for it, but I felt certain it was gone. I forgot all about it for several weeks, until last night durring dinner we received a text from Steph, who we hadn't been in contact with since the day I lost my ring several weeks ago. She told us that she had found my ring in her wood pile! When we went by to pick it up, she invited us in and spent a half an hour talking with her. We learned of her good friend Andrea, who had passed away several years ago (don't ask me why she told us about her, but she just opened up) and for maybe the second time in my life I felt the presence of an angel. I knew Andrea was there. I knew that she had been the culprit for me losing my ring, and had been the angel that helped Steph's 7 year old son find it. Steph is coming on a church tour this week. As we left to go back to our car I felt blown away. As I turned on the car, our lights flashed on to the bumper of the car in front of us, and there in bright shimmery blue and silver letters was a bumper with sticker, saying the words "EXPECT A MIRACLE". We truly have a loving Heavenly Father who I can testify is a God of miracles, today, yesterday and forever. He can do extraordinary things for those who have faith and believe in Him. I'll be eternally gratefull for the faith He's helped me develop over the last year of my life. I love this Gospel, I love my Savior, Jesus Christ, and I love my Heavenly Father. I pray that I might continue to increase my faith to expect such miracles! I love you all!

Love Sister Bradley