Tiny Acts of Service Often Lead to Bigger Things: A Good Reason to Give the Missionaries a Lift

While driving back to my office in Neenah, Wisconsin from a meeting in nearby Menasha, I took a different route than normal and saw a couple of missionaries from the local Hmong speaking branch walking along a Neenah road. It looked like it was about to rain and I felt that I should offer them a ride. I turned around, pulled up next to them and offered a ride. They only had about 30 yards to go for their appointment, but I told them that since the appointment had a good chance of falling through (a particular problem in Hmong culture, and a common problem for missionary work in general), I would gladly give them a ride to their next location if the person wasn’t home – they didn’t have umbrellas and really would need a ride if the rain started.

As I expected, the man they were visiting, actually a member, wasn’t home. The rain had just begun, so they were happy to get a ride. Turns out they wanted to take a bus back to Appleton, so I just took them to Appleton (12 minutes away) instead of taking them to a bus station. After I dropped them off, I realized I was close to home and wondered if I should just drive by to see if all was well. No, that would be a waste of time – best to just get straight back to work. But since it seemed odd that I would end up close to home, I silently asked if there might be some reason to drop by and check on things. Contrary to my plans, I felt like I should, and so drove by my house – just a slight detour.

When I saw my house, everything looked OK and I was planning to just drive by and head back to work, but since nobody had answered the phone when I called a few minutes earlier, I was surprised to see my wife’s car in the driveway. Curious, I pulled into the driveway and went into the garage and was about to enter the door to the kitchen when I noticed a pile of mail on the step to the door. As I was looking at the mail, my wife came running over to me from across the street. She had just gone over to a neighbor to stay for a while since she was locked out of the house. An unusual series of events had resulted in our daughter-in-law locking the house up and going elsewhere while my wife was away without a housekey. My wife had returned five minutes before I showed up to find herself locked out, and was wondering what to do. Sweet timing! So the missionaries indirectly helped me be a hero. I was quite grateful to have been able to end up in the right place at the right time – with a housekey.

Just one of the many ways the Lord blesses us when we do little acts of service.

Share:

Author: Jeff Lindsay

4 thoughts on “Tiny Acts of Service Often Lead to Bigger Things: A Good Reason to Give the Missionaries a Lift

  1. You did good following the HG.

    However for about 30$ you can get an entrance lock that is both keyed and push button ( ususally with a pick 4 of {1,2,3,4,5} code ).

    This is great if you have to call a neighbor to tend something in your home, just change the code later.

  2. Awesome tip – and I would probably never have learned about this if I hadn’t picked up the missionaries! Ka-ching – another blessing roles in. 😉

  3. I really enjoy reading your blog. Not only is it educational (my best friend from HS is Mormon), but it is also filled with good faith stories like this one that brighten my day and strengthen my love of the Lord. Thank you for sharing!

  4. hey brother, prayer works. One evening on my way home from a ward function my car ran out of gas. I phoned my VT who lived near by and she quickly came over with a jerrycan of gas and thus allowed me to continue on my way.
    At church on Sunday she mentioned to me that at family prayer that night their 5 year old son asked if anyone needs our help tonight we will be able to provide service.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.