A lost Christmas package: We are never lost to the Savior

Two Christmases ago we had a foreign exchange student in our family from Switzerland. Knowing that it might take a while for Christmas presents to be shipped from Switzerland, her parents sent her gifts over a month before Christmas. We had some Christmas gifts for her too, but she was missing her family and looking forward to receiving Christmas gifts from them. A week before Christmas, her parents reported that the postal service had lost track of the package, and they didn’t know where it was or if it would arrive by Christmas. By Christmas Eve, the package had still not arrived. It was lost and no one knew where it was.

We prayed as family that her package would come. But by the afternoon, it still hadn’t. I went into my room and prayed. I said, “Heavenly Father, I want our exchange student to know that prayers are answered.” And then I thought maybe I shouldn’t tell the Lord what to do. But then came into my mind and heart what to ask. I prayed, “You know where that package is. You have the ability to bring it to us.”

And He did. At 4:30 on Christmas Eve, the doorbell rang. We were watching a movie downstairs, so my husband got the door. He told me later that it had arrived. I wrapped it and put it under the Christmas tree. Our exchange student didn’t know it had arrived until she opened it Christmas morning. We were all happy for her. We all rejoiced.

If the Lord knows the location of a lost package and cares enough to bring it to the home of a foreign exchange student from Switzerland living in Idaho, then he surely knows each of us and He knows what we need. He is willing to tell us how to love and minister to each other. If we are willing to listen and act, we will grow in the gospel and in our love for those to whom we minister.