The Cottage in the Woods - And the Miracle
California Santa Rosa Mission Home
While at the MTC, President Mark A. Bragg, the Area President and General Authority Seventy over our mission, described the California Santa Rosa mission home to me as “the cottage in the woods.” I loved that thought and now see that it is a perfect depiction. It is a quaint home with a view of a forest from the kitchen window. It has the primary bedroom on the main floor and an office for Mark and another room that serves as an office for me with two beds in it. There is one bedroom and a bathroom upstairs. There is no basement, yet we have kind of an interesting room. If you go through the laundry room and grab the keys hanging on the wall, then go out a back door through the garage and down some stairs you come to a locked door. Inside is a room with a few items in it including a treadmill and a stationary bike. We haven’t used the room yet, but it is a nice possibility. The back yard is pretty as it emerges with the trees and there is even a rope swing coming off one of the tree’s branches, thank you Puffers! I love rope swings and I know that our grandchildren will love it too. The missionaries also love it! Of course, they can’t help swinging on it, who can? Even Elder Larsen a senior missionary couldn’t resist going for a ride.
We have been busy unpacking and making this house feel more like our home. I am grateful I brought a cabinet of mine and some of my dishes. Pretty dishes just make me happy. I also brought some artwork that we have been able to hang, and the cottage is feeling warm and joyful to us.
After we had unpacked all our boxes, I mentioned to Mark I was missing some important things. One of the items was a gift from some friends, a leather guest book embossed with our mission’s name on it for missionaries and guests to sign. I was particularly careful that this was in the “going to California” section as we packed up in Illinois. It was a little crazy packing up last month. We had yellow signs on the “go to California,” sections, blue signs on “store in Illinois,” green signs on “bring to Utah” and orange signs on “give to goodwill.” As careful as I was, I now worried that some things got put on the wrong truck by accident or worse lost. In addition to this guestbook, I couldn’t find my “Joy” journal that I had written in for years and other journals and a few favorite church books and some other personal items. I felt sick and prayed that we would find the missing items.
All of our boxes had been delivered and put in the third car section of the garage. Mark, bless his heart, went through all the boxes again and shook out all of the packing paper to see if we had missed something. There was a lot of packing paper!! Nothing turned up.
As transfer week came closer, we sheepishly emailed our friends and asked if they would forgive us for misplacing their gift and asked if we could obtain the information to order a new one. They graciously and quickly sent us a new book. I was grateful. Yet, I still felt awful about losing some precious journals. I prayed and prayed for a miracle, that somehow the Lord could get me the items that I longed for, loved, and had planned on using while on my mission. We had already seen so many miracles since we had received our call. I have been on speed dial with the Lord for miracles. With the newness of the area and the newness of our calling I have needed a lot of heavenly help. Feeling like I may have “miracled” the Lord out, with needing so many lately and feeling a bit more reasonable, I prayed that the items were safe in storage and that I would find them in three years, and that they had not been sent to goodwill or put out with the garbage. Feeling a little bit better that my journals were safe. I began getting ready for the missionary farewell dinner at our home and for the missionaries coming in the next day that we would also feed and house overnight at the home.
I went through the pantry and all the closets in the home looking for cooking supplies and other items I needed. I went through the upstairs bedroom counting sheets and towels. At the last minute the thought occurred to me to look in the sorta basement room to see if there were any useful items in there. I thought, no, it is basically empty. But the idea came again so I walked out through the garage and down the stairs and with the key finally jiggled the door open.
The room was mostly empty, so I was surprised to see a box in the middle of the room. I thought the Puffers must have left something behind and we would need to ship it on to them. And then I realized that the box had our moving company’s logo on it. I quickly found a tool to open it and was astounded to see the guest book, my journals and all the items I was missing. I was shocked! How in the world did one of our boxes get into this locked and secluded room? I was so happy! I raced up the stairs, and into the house calling to Mark as I came down the hall and into his office. I held out the guest book and journals. He looked confused. What? How? Mark was delighted but also surprised that a box found its way through the locked back door of our garage, not to mention the locked door into this room. It was a miracle! I knelt and prayed right away relieved, happy, and grateful! Sincerely thanking my Heavenly Father, knowing that I would never again put a limit on the Lord’s goodness and His willingness to send miracles! I sat and held my books still amazed!
We have seen this goodness from the Lord with miracles in our mission. Our Missionaries work hard to find people who are searching for the miracle of light, truth, and the love of the Savior to come into their lives. We have had 19 people be baptized this month! Each story is amazing. With miracles happening everywhere Mark and I have decided that we are going to have a “Miracle Monday Moment” where all of our missionaries from the 500 miles of our mission zoom in together and share a favorite miracle of that week. I’ll write more about this mission wide zoom call in another post.
The other day, I said to Mark, “I think the three Nephites brought me my box of journals and things.” He laughed and said. “I will personally thank them when I see them in Heaven one day”. And then he added, “I may ask them though, why they couldn’t have just left the box in the garage where it would have been easier to find.” We both had a good laugh.
Come visit us in the Cottage in the Woods! Elaine
