Think of the worst traveling story you've ever heard of and throw it
out the window. I'm about to top them all.
Yesterday we began our long trip to Halifax. 7 Elders and 5 Sisters.
So excited to teach the word of the Lord. Our flight out of SLC was
slightly delayed, but we still got to Minnesota on time. We arrived at
the Minneapolis airport Tuesday around 12:45pm. Our flight to Toronto
was at 1:30pm, but was delayed to 1:39pm due to weather. Then to
4:30pm. Then to 5:34pm. Then they said that they were going to swtich
out pilots and they switched it to 7:30pm. Well 7:30 came and went
without a flight to Toronto. We were on and off the phone with the
missionary travel services the whole time trying to figure out what to
do. Around 7:45pm, they got on the over com and said our flight was
cancelled! We had missed all of our possible connections to Halifax
and all the flights to Toronto were booked until tomorrow. Whaaaat. 12
missionaries found themselves in the airport with out any idea of what
to do. So what did we do? We prayed. We prayed for help and guidance
and peace.
I was talking to one of the elders and he said "I'm not worried. If
God wanted us
in Canada right now, we would be there. We are stuck in Minnesota tonight
for a reason." Fast forward to 3 hours later and I believe him with
all my heart.
Our travel leader, Sister Anderson, was standing in line to figure out
flight information and the rest of us were sitting over in the waiting
area. There was this guy (his name is Daniel) there talking to us,
and at first he seemed really weird and we thought he was trying to
scam us, but it turns out he is part of a popular Christian Rock Band
that some of the Elder had heard of before! Since he was a musician
who sings about God we could already tell he was pretty religious. As
we talked to him, he was very open with us about religion and admitted
to us that he didn't think his protestant church had all the answers.
He began asking us more about the mormons and then asked what we were
doing out here. So we told him that we were out here to help people
come unto Christ! He said, "people like who? people like me??" and we
said "yes!" and then he said, "Well teach me some stuff!" (side note,
that morning I as packing my carry on bag and I was leaving all my MTC
pamphlets but I felt like I should keep them in my purse) So I pulled
out my restoration pamphlet and we began to teach him. He asked about
coffee and tea and we taught him the word of wisdom. He asked a lot
about Joseph Smith and we told him everything we know! In the end, we
left him wtih the restoartion pamphlet, the workd of wisdom pamphlet,
a pass along card, a mormon.org card and a Book of Mormon! He took the
book and said "I get to keep this and read it?? Sweet!" It was
awesome. The Elder that handed him the Book of Mormon had written his
testimony in it and gave him his email so they can stay in contact
with him.
By the time he left us, it was 9:00pm, and we were hoping that maybe
now we might be able to end our wait in the airport and get somewhere.
But the line of people trying to swtich their flight from the
cancelled flight was so long that our travel leader was still waiting.
There was a girl that was our age that was sitting by us the whole
time so we talked to her too.She wasn't super interested, but she
listened and was really nice! Finally, at 11:00pm, our travel leader
came over with the news! 8 of us had flights to Canada for Wednesday
at 2:30pm.(Winnipeg to Calgary to Halifax-14 more hours of travel) The
other 4 were scheduled to leave on Thursday at 1:39pm, to fly to
Toronto and then to Halifax. Delta gave us 3 hotel rooms to stay in
until we could come back the next morning. YAY. WE COULD FINALLY GO TO
THE HOTEL AND SLEEP. "haha funny joke." -God
We went down to baggage claim to get out bags, only to find out that
one of the sister's bags was missing. There was a huge mess of angry
people and bags and we didn't really know what to do, so again we all
prayed and decided to give it until midight to find her bag, and if
not we would come back and find it in the morning. Well sure enough,
as midnight rolled around, the baggage check people brought out a few
more bags and hers was among them!
We went out to the curb where the hotel shuttles were, only to find
that the hotel we were staying at had stopped their shuttle services
at 11:00pm. By this time I wasn't even surprised.
We ended up getting a taxi van (2 actually because we had 12
missionaires) and they drove us to the hotel. By this time it was 1:00
am, we had been up for 23 hours with only an hour and a half of sleep
in the past 36 hours. We had been sitting in an airport for 12 hours
and had walked so much! (Minneaplois airport is HUGE) I expected that
we would all throw ourselves into bed, but I was wrong. So wrong. My
companions all called their parents to tell them the intense story, (I
chose not to call home because I was so tired and it was a good thing
I didn't because the other girls were charged $65 for calling) and
then one of the cute sisters insisted we have a Book of Mormon read. :') I
did my best not to strangle her.
I'm not sure what time I ended up falling asleep, but we awoke to the
sound of an alarm at 8:30am, set out to the airport at 10:30am to see
the other 8 (7 Elders and 1 Sister) off for their flight at 1:30pm,
and then we recieved another hotel voucher and food vouchers from
Delta.
I am now sitting in a hotel lobby somewhere in the middle of
Minnesota, not really sure what to think of the last few days. Maybe
God wanted us to learn something from this situation. Maybe the
weather just sucked. Who knows what is going to happen to Daniel? But
what I do know, is that when we follow the little promptings of the
spirit, God knows he can trust us and he is able to use us to help
others find what they are seeking. I can't say that I think the flight
was cancelled so that we could talk to Daniel, but I do believe we
were all there at the same time for a reason.
Tomorrow morning we will wake up and try again and (hopefully) make it
to Halifax. And I decided when I come home from my mission in 18
months, I will be walking. It will definitley be faster than trying to
fly.
Anyways. I love all you people. Have safe New Years. Party hard. Laugh
a lot. And pray for a speedy travel to Halifax.
No comments:
Post a Comment