As we act in faith, we often find that the blessings from
the Lord are different than we expected, but much better than
we imagined.
We need individual families engaged in getting on their
knees and praying to be part of the work of salvation and
inviting their friends and family to
come into the Church.
As the Patrick family, like every other family in the
Stake we hope, got on our knees and we prayed about what
we would do.
And we had an action plan.
And our daughter Emily was turning eight in February.
So we said, well, we'll put invitations to Emily's baptism
in her birthday party invitations.
And a number of people came, none of whom then expressed
any interest in the Church.
In the stake meeting I explained here
was the Patrick plan.
Here's what we did.
And it was good.
We had a lot of people at the baptism, but so
far nothing's happened.
Sister Palmer was in that meeting.
Last year, I heard President Patrick give a talk.
And he just mentioned in passing that his wife had put
an invitation in each of her daughter's birthday
invitations also inviting them to the baptism.
When it came time for [? Rett's ?]
eighth birthday party I thought, maybe I should go put
the baptism invitation in too.
So in with the superhero birthday party invitation, I
also a little handwritten note explaining that the baptism
was something that he was even more excited about, even more
than this party.
And invited them all to the baptism.
But unfortunately--
Nobody came.
Sent out all these invitations and nobody came.
We had no idea, at the time, but one of our neighbors was
being prepared.
14 houses down we had someone we didn't even know and so
they may not have come to the baptism, but they did come to
the birthday party.
We were all sitting around the house and all of a sudden the
doorbell rang.
Came to get my son.
Walked in the house.
And everybody was busy.
But I knew for some reason something was telling me
inside that I needed to talk to this person.
That's what I did.
I walked up to Melissa and I started the conversation by
saying, your son's getting baptized.
I was also baptized when I was eight.
I asked her.
I said, well, have you thought about coming back to Church?
And we invited them to come to Church.
And they showed up the next week.
Derek was in his suit.
Suit and tie.
Yeah, I mean, he looked--
They all perfectly dressed.
They looked like this perfect little LDS family.
They just were at church every week that they were in town.
And we had the missionary discussions at our house or at
the Adams' house.
Kept going back and forth.
And really they became part of our family.
We have a very tight network.
And we're all very close.
Most of us don't have family here in the area.
And so the Church members become your family.
And we just learned to love them.
We love the Adams family.
And I know that they feel the same way about us.
It goes beyond just being members
of the Church together.
They're just--
They're part of our family.
And the Adams family just circled about in love and
testimony and support and Church seemed to be just what
they were looking for.
And so the missionaries taught the lessons.
And the Palmers and others befriended them, loved them,
and they joined the Church.
What did you think about all this, Brother Adams?
How did you come into this picture?
I was never really raised in church.
But I always prayed and she--
You had a belief deep inside?
Oh yeah, deep inside.
I always have.
Everything just came natural because
everything just made sense.
As the missionaries came over and taught us stuff, it just
clicked with me.
Everything just made sense.
Well, what do you have in your future?
What's your plans?
Just keep going.
We're going to hopefully go to the Temple one day.
Can you see how the Lord accomplishes His work?
Our Heavenly Father knows his children.
He is listening to their prayers.
He knows who is seeking Him.
And He will lead us to them.
As Ammon says in the Book of Mormon, they are in the hands
of the Lord of the harvest and they are His.