Woohoo! Pre-letter Bonus letter!

Hello all!

So, according to the clocks in Utah it should be about 3 in the morning right now, but it´s 7:07 here and I just finished an all-nighter number crunching party! ¡Que Divertido!

I figured that I´d tell the story really quickly before I crash for a few hours. Then on to P-Day proper, and the regular letter like normal.

At any rate, I´ve been staying late in the office preparing a whole bunch of numbers and reports, including an end-of-year report that I originally thought was due in 3 weeks. Well, last night I got a call at 11 at night from the President. He, very embarrassed, informed me that he had forgotten about a meeting that he is having on Sunday with four of the Seventies and all of the Stake Presidents and general priesthood leadership of the mission to discuss the year´s numbers. We were already on a late night run to save another Elder who was having some medical issues (he had a seizure and hurt his shoulder and back pretty badly), and so we came back to the office and I sat and crunched numbers to my heart´s content.

Now hold on, I can´t let you get away without some sort of spiritual thought- and what do you know, I learned something from this experience!

Primarily, let´s establish the obvious. No one of us is perfect- we do our best, and many of us are most definitely admirable, but no one is perfect. God knew that before hand, and He decided to create a system for us to receive direct help from someone who knows. Many people know it by names such as "inner knowing" or "gut feeling", but we know it to be the Holy Ghost.

A few days ago, I began to sit down and do a project that was dealing with a lot of the numbers in terms of proselyting. I noticed that the numbers that I was using had correlations to many other of the processes that I was using, but merely could not be used interchangeably because of some small formatting errors. Something within me said to pull up all of the other databases of information, and suddenly inspiration struck- and I saw a way to unify all of that information into a central database with an easier interface (have you noticed the similar trends in this thought process? Start thinking!). I happened upon a function that I had never seen inside of Excel before that allowed me to create database interfaces, and coincidentally enough I discovered that the main internet database with which we report to Salt Lake has an Excel output. Luckily there was already a partial process for working with the raw information, and by good fortune I had already stumbled upon it a few weeks earlier during a happenstance sweep of the networks, which I had felt impressed to clean (have you seen it yet? I´m almost to the climax, here!). I connected the information with the powerpoint that I had felt I should start a week ago, and magically it all came together. What a miracle, to have so many things go right in a row!

Ok, here is the pattern- and absolutely everything that I said above is true. Did you notice the following words?
"I noticed that", "Something within me said", "Suddenly inspiration struck", "I happened upon", "Coincidentally enough", "Luckily", "By good fortune", "I had felt impressed", "I had felt that I should", "Magically", "It all came together", "What a miracle", "So many things [went] right".

All of these things are phrases and little parts of our day that we often use without thinking- but they all are SO much more interconnected than we realize. There are too many wonderful things that happen in life for it to be simple coincidence, and yet we constantly run into unexpected blessings and inspirations that lead us to happier places. How often do we push it off on circumstance or good judgement, and forget the Lord who sent those blessings to begin with?

I submit as my testimony to you this fine Santaguinian morning that God does know us and guide the little things in our lives that make us happy! I know that if we will look for the little miracles that pass, our lives will be SO much more enjoyable. What an awesome blessing to be known and loved by One who has created all things. I promise that if you will look for Him, you will find Him.

Talk to you all in a few hours!

-Elder Wheelhouse