As the first Sunday in June approached, I struggled with a difficult decision. I was in Scotland participating in a family reunion for my wife’s side of the family, where we had an intense schedule of visiting ancestral sites in Scotland and Wales — a wonderful family history experience. Unfortunately, as the group collectively cobbled together the itinerary for the trip, neither I nor anyone else realized in time that a highlight of the trip, a day-long guided tour of the Isle of Skye, would occur on a Sunday. This meant that we would not be able to attend church that morning. When I finally paid attention to the schedule and realized the problem, it was too late to make changes. I initially expressed my plan to skip the tour, forfeiting the significant fee for the tour, but obligations my wife had to the group would not allow her to join me. On the day before the tour, I began feeling that I had a duty to support my wife and go with the group, and so on Saturday expressed my intention to go on the Sunday tour after all.
That same day my wife and I received a painful text from someone we love expressing their intention to leave the Church. As I struggled with this news and my concerns for the well-being of that person and their family, I began to realize my need for the blessings of worship at church to better seek the Lord’s guidance. As I prayed and pondered what to do with respect to church attendance, I realized I was in a difficult situation that arose from not paying attention to the itinerary as it developed. My failure to prepare now made the easy solutions unavailable. It seemed like a very difficult decision, but in the end I felt I needed to get to church that morning.
Even though I had just agreed on Saturday to stay with the group, early on Sunday morning I talked to my wife about my renewed desire to attend church and then discussed with some members of the group who were up at the time. I received sympathetic support that made it much easier to go.
The challenge was how to get to church. The nearest Latter-day Saint services would be at the Inverness Ward in Inverness, Scotland, roughly a 45-minute drive from the remote house in the highlands that we had rented. That lonely house was in a beautiful setting about seven miles up a narrow, difficult road above the little village of Cannich. My plan was simple: to reach the 10:00 AM sacrament meeting, I would just use Uber, leaving around 9:00 AM. It would surely work, I thought, because I could see on the Uber app that a ride from our remote residence to Inverness did not seem to pose any problem and would cost about £40 (roughly $54, or $60 if you use the profitable conversion rate offered by ATMs in the UK). Fortunately, two of my brothers-in-law warned me that Uber only works if a driver agrees to the trip. They insisted that no driver was going to take the long ride from Cannich up into the wild terrain around the Mullardoch House, our residence, just to pick me up. They proposed that I go with them at 7:30 AM down to Drumnadrochit, near Loch Ness, where they would meet their tour guide and go in his van to reach the ferry to the Isle of Skye. At that moment, though, I didn’t take their concerns very seriously and was confident that I could get a ride, even if I had to pay extra.
Also most fortunately, as family members were gathering at the door at 7:30 AM to drive down to meet the tour guide, I felt that I really should go down with them. It was almost too late, though, for I still had a couple of steps before I’d be ready to go. I ran upstairs, quickly completed my preparations, grabbed my bag, and rushed back downstairs expecting them to have already left. Fortunately again, they were delayed by a couple of minutes because they thought my wife was still upstairs while she was actually in a car waiting for them. Those moments of delay allowed me to catch a 7:35 AM ride to Drumnadrochit with just seconds to spare.
Upon reaching the designated parking lot to meet the tour guide in Drumnadrochit, a larger town with major roads, I opened my Uber app. Getting to Inverness was now even easier, for now I was closer to Inverness and the fee had become just £25. I placed my order and was then told to proceed to a pickup point, a little restaurant called the Italian Job. I was somewhat confused and did not recognize where I was supposed to go. Andy, the very likeable and colorful Scottish tour guide we had been with us the day before, approached me to see how things were going. He invited me to get in the van and said he would drive me to the pick up point. I initially declined because I didn’t want to delay them, but he insisted and explained it was on the way. I was surprised that the pickup point was about half a mile away. He dropped me off near the intersection of two significant roads, explaining that the Italian Job was in a shopping area next to it. I stepped out and saw that I was at a bus stop in the shade (it was sunny at the moment, not always common in Scotland), and stayed put there as I went ahead with the Uber app to begin my journey.
To my amazement, now that I was ready to be picked up, the Uber app spent what seemed like ten minutes searching for a driver. It finally indicated that none were available. “Try again later.” I tried again, and got the same disappointing result after another very long wait. Now I was getting nervous. I tried going with a higher-priced vehicle that would cost almost £50. Still nothing! Now it looked like I could not make it to church after all. In this moment of difficulty, I did what I have done before when facing trials: sought help through prayer, but not just my own prayer. I instinctively called my wife and explained the problem I was facing, knowing that she would immediately turn to the Lord on my behalf. In fact, I would learn that she invited the rest of our group to pray for help to come my way.
Shortly after that call, I felt a distinct impression that I needed to ask somebody local for help. I wandered toward the shopping area and saw that a Coop grocery store was open. I entered and walked past a couple of people and headed toward the deli section, where I saw an older woman who somehow seemed like the right person to ask. “Excuse me, is there any way to get to Inverness from here besides Uber?” She looked really surprised, shook her head for a moment, but then said, “You could try the bus.” I lit up. “There’s a bus from here to Inverness?” “Yes, many! Bus 17.” “Where might I catch bus 17?” “Right around the corner, about 100 yards down the road on the other side.” That was almost just across the street from the spot where Andy dropped me off.
I suddenly feared the possibility of missing a bus, so I rushed to get to the bus stop and looked at the schedule. There was the information for bus 17 — but my heart dropped when I saw the schedule for Sundays: “No services.” Had I caused trouble for our group and especially for my wife all for nothing? I sighed but continued looking at the bus schedule. Wait — there at the very bottom, I saw that bus 919 went to the Inverness bus station and did have Sunday service, beginning at 9:04 AM and every hour afterwards. I looked at my watch: it was 9:02 AM! Had I already missed it? Or was it about to come? Roughly 30 seconds later, as I looked anxiously down the road, a beautiful yellow bus came into view. Bus 919 to Inverness!
On the way I met a mechanical engineer and had an enjoyable and informative chat. I would then meet a variety of interesting people before and after the meeting started. I would be uplifted and strengthened by what I heard and experienced, and felt blessed that I had been able to come at all. I was also quite impressed by Bishop MacKenzie and other members of the ward.
It was fast and testimony meeting on that day, so I shared my testimony and related my story of barely catching the bus to Inverness. As a result, three members approached me later to offer me a ride back to Cannich or even up to the remote home where we were staying. I went with the first offer and had a touching conversation with a very faithful member with many inspiring stories. There was no time to explore Inverness after church, but my exploration of the Inverness chapel and the Inverness ward was much more important and rewarding than a few more photos.
Had my relatives not urged me to go “unnecessarily” early with them to have a better chance of getting an Uber ride, had they not been delayed and left at their planned time without me, had the tour guide Andy not urged me to get a lift and dropped me off at the perfect place to catch the bus and to learn about its existence on a quiet Sunday morning, and had I reached the bus stop just two minutes later, I would have missed sacrament meeting and probably would not have been able to reach chapel at all. So many little things worked together to help me solve a problem I didn’t know I would face.
I am deeply grateful for the prayers of my wife and her family for my minor need. I am grateful for the good people I met and learned from while in the Inverness chapel. It may all seem like a trivial story to some: I wanted to go to church and found a way to get there. Big deal. But it was a big deal for me, for the little details behind it showed the hand of a loving God helping me forward on a portion of a journey that was important to me, even though the problem was my fault for not properly preparing and paying attention as an itinerary unfolded. God’s love has so often been revealed to me in His great kindness after my failures and sins that took me away from where I should have been. He has often provided a merciful plan B where things still seemed to work out somehow. Indeed, the grace of Christ can be viewed as a loving plan B for all of us fallen mortals, if we’ll recognize and accept His love, a love that is often expressed in little details and tender mercies.
I know His love is great also for the person I was fasting for that morning and am praying for daily since receiving a sad announcement. I hope that the Lord will help that person see their way through the obstacles and clouds they face on their journey as well.
