God Has a Plan

Here are two cool stories Hannah sent home in hand written letters written on 23 September 2013.  To understand the first one the editor of the blog (Hannah's Mom) shared that the Relief Society and Priesthood lesson two weeks ago was from Teachings of President Snow lesson 17 and can be found on the following link:  https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-of-presidents-of-the-church-lorenzo-snow/chapter-17-priesthood-for-the-salvation-of-the-human-family?lang=eng

The people that President Snow is talking about is where Dale's Grandma, Bessie Call's family, the Stayley's are from.  Here is Hannah's letter:

"Neat story about the Waldenese people of Piedmont, Italy.  Marissa Brown (one of the YSA here who leaves in October to serve in the Mississippi Jackson Mission, from Bountiful, UT area) taught that Relief Society lesson about the Saints in Piedmont, Italy and her family was the Malans who were some of the first to receive the gospel and leave Italy to come to Zion.  Her mom sent her family history when I told her my family came from these same people.  Also, I went onto familysearch.org and under the Stayley's story it mentions Marissa Browns ancestors!  So that was a fun connection where we know that our ancestors knew each other."


Sister Call, Sister Whipple and Marissa Brown

The other story Hannah sent was to Justin and shows how much Heavenly Father knows and loves each of his children.

"So neat story about my district leader, Elder Tekanene.  So Elder Tekanene is from the Kiribati Islands and shortly after he had his mission call to Iowa, there was an Elder from Utah who was serving in Elder Tekanene's village.  Well, this Elder from Utah found out Elder Tekanene had his call to Iowa, so he (the missionary from Utah) said to Elder Tekanene, 'I have a grandmother in Iowa, you should find her and baptize her.'  Elder Tekanene being a happy islander laughed and said that he would , but then realistically said, 'Do you know how big Iowa is?'  To which the missionary from Utah said, 'Yes I do.'  Fast forward about 18 months and Elder Tekanene was my district leader when I was serving in Carthage as well.  During the time he was district leader in Macomb, IL he went on exchanges up in Burlington, Iowa and was with Elder Austin when they knocked on this woman's home.  This lady (Doris) asked where Elder Tekanene was from.  He mentioned the Kiribati Islands and Doris mentions that she had a grandson who served a mission there.  It didn't take them long to put the pieces of the puzzle together and discover that Doris' grandson had been the missionary who told Elder Tekanene to find her and baptize her.  Well Elder Tekanene was on exchanges so he was only in Burlington for 24 hours and yet out of all of Iowa Elder Tekanene had found this missionary's grandma.  Well just yesterday (September 22nd), Doris was baptized and Elder Tekanene received permission to be at the baptism.  I couldn't believe it when he was telling us this story.  It just goes to prove that God has a plan for each of us and people will be placed in our path for a reason!"