It was such a beautiful day spending it with these amazing young women. Our young women have had the privilege to receive permission to attend all of the LDS temples in Utah. When I found this out, I decided that I really wanted to make this happen. I listed the temples out and calculated the distance. There are a couple that four hours away…those were going to be the ones that we would really have to plan out our schedules to make it happen. We chose the Monticello LDS Temple to be the first one that we attend and today was the day.
Bright and early this morning, we left for the Monticello temple to perform baptisms for the dead. Finally after traveling for which seemed liked forever, we arrived.
We were treated like were so important…the real red carpet kind of importance. Actually, it was even more amazing than that!! We had the privilege and opportunity to listen to a member of the temple presidency as he bore a beautiful testimony of the Savior. I cannot even describe how I felt as I listened to this sweet man as he testified of service that our youth were performing today.
After the baptisms, we headed back to Moab for a delicious picnic lunch. I love spending time with they girls. They truly make me smile and they bring so much happiness into my heart. I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve with them and to be a part of their lives. I truly am blessed.
As we were about to leave Moab, a thought—no, it was definitely a prompting—came to mind that we needed to pray for safety as we traveled home, All of the youth were already in the vehicles but there was such a strong prompting to pray. Chris, our young men;’s president, called everyone back out f the cars and called on one of our twelve-year young men to offer the prayer. He asked our Heavenly Father for protection as we made the long trip home.
Everything was going as planned except, I missed the turn off and we were about 30 minutes off of our path. It was just so much fun listening to these young women and sharing stories with them. Anyway, we were about an hour away from home, when I felt this amazing sense of peace. As I felt it, I was pondering the reasoning for this incredible feeling that I was experiencing. I wasn’t sure why I was having this moment until everything took place. We had just come around one of the mountain bends, when I noticed two trucks pulling camping trailers. I was traveling in the fast lane and they were traveling in the slow lane so that meant that there was an empty lane between us. I went to pull over into the middle lane when I felt like I needed to stay where I was. At that moment, I glanced over and noticed that the tire on the rear driver’s side was coming off. (Note: we are traveling at about 70 miles an hour at this point.) I begin to slow down a tad bit but the tire flipped off the truck and bounced away from us. It was like we were in a bubble—it should have hit us. The driver was trying so hard to keep the truck and trailer from flipping over when the rim came off towards us. I felt like everything was in slow motion as the rim came towards us. I swerved and we missed getting hit by the rim. If we would have been hit, the rim would have went through my passengers side window and hit the young woman in the passenger seat and traveled back and hit the young woman in the back passenger seat. The rate that we were driving and the rate that the rim was coming towards us, we would have some pretty serious injuries. But, the thing was…I did swerve but I wasn’t the one that was in control of my car. I felt like someone was driving for me. After we missed getting hit by the flying rim, we were hit by the cover on the bearings. The truck and trailer finally came to a stop and I pulled over in front of them and stopped. I felt this amazing peace as I was sitting in the car (trying not to let my tears flow). Finally, I got out and checked my car and there wasn’t any damage. We had been completely protected.
For the next several minutes, we talked about the feelings that we felt. I had this amazing sense of peace as I testified to these sweet young women that we had been on the Lord’s errand and He had protected us. I am so grateful for the sweet words of a twelve year-0ld when he pleaded with the Lord for our protection a couple of hours prior to this incident. We witnessed it first hand. We truly had been protected. I am so grateful for all that took place today. I know that we were extremely blessed and I am so happy to know that we are all ok.
~Michelle
