There are stories of people who helped each other and then were able to find the people they saved.
One of them was responsible for getting a fatally wounded woman to the hospital in time for life-saving surgery.
Two months after 9/11, the ambulance tech who made sure she was the first the doctors examined, visited her in the hospital. He learned her name.
He learned that she would recover. He met her parents and fiancé.
He felt the overwhelming joy of knowing that he had saved a life.
There were two men--whose stories you hear separately, not knowing that they had any connection. One was a man who was being urged to climb higher, away from the smoke coming up the stairway. He didn't know what to do and froze. He told himself that he was going to die: if he were crushed by debris; if he was burned because the airplane fuel that covered everything ignited; if he was overcome by smoke inhalation. But in his confusion, he heard a cry for help coming from the wall behind him.
That sound focused him and he began to call out. He guided the voice to the left, to the right, to turn around because the voice was getting dimmer. Finally the voice was on the other side of the wall. The voice asked him what he needed to do and he told him that he would have to get over the wall between them. The first time was a failure. He called out, "You can make it. Try again." In the next moment, someone landed on top of him and they fell flat to the floor. When they got to their feet, the voice introduced himself and put out his hand to shake his saviour's hand. The man who guided the voice put out his hand and he introduced himself.
From a puncture wound in the first man's palm, they saw that they both had blood on their hands. The man declared that they were now blood brothers for life. They made their way down the staircase and outside. When they got down to the street, they
began to walk quickly away from the Twin Towers. The voice turned
around after a few minutes to find that they other wasn't there. The first man had grabbed a man in his truck and told him to drive him to Brooklyn: home to his children and a wife with whom he needed to work things out. Life was immediately turned into a miracle for him and he needed to act on that miracle.
Next we see the two of them together--much older, but still friends. They both tell the camera that the other was the one to save his life. The voice because he couldn't have made it to the staircase and the man who called out directions because it was the sound of the voice that shook him out of a shocked, paralyzing panic.
There was also a Head of Security of a company who knew that they had been attacked in 1994--and they needed to be ready in case they were attacked again.
He insisted on fire drills--everyone getting to the exit and walking down from the 70th floor to the ground. Four times a year they were required to participate in descending the staircase. When the attack happened and everyone was panicking, he started to sing, which helped everyone to focus--and then to do exactly what they had been trained to do. He and is security guards went back inside the office to make sure that everyone had gotten out. All 3 of them died.
This man didn't save just one soul, but over 2,000 people. These 2,000 owe their lives to this security officer and his dedication--over seven years--of keeping everyone safe.
New Subject
Our new Bishop Robinson--Bishop Jones was released on Christmas Day Sunday 2023--asked us to pray for 4 things every night at 9pm. This prayer is a Stake-wide event, individually offered in private, but part of an unknowable number of souls who all have testimonies of Christ and the Plan of Redemption. As a group, we have a power of faith that unites in a call to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. This faith is what heals injuries [those that happen to our bodies, our minds, our souls] and enables Christ's Priesthood to do miracles.
Miracles like saving a life, or 2,000 lives, or bringing someone back to life.
What echos in my mind is the gratitude and admiration that the rescued have for those who saved them. Through no effort on their own, they were picked from all of the thousands who were there that day to survive--to have a life that is an un-repayable gift.
Not all who survived were left without life long scars. Both the rescued and the rescuers suffer from PTSD that makes a "normal" life impossible. The images of death and destruction that they saw can never be unseen. Hundreds of the rescue workers and first responders are now slowly dying of respiratory and lung damage. Most of them have medical debt they will never be able to repay.
So it is with me. I am mentally and spiritually damaged goods. Everyone here on Earth who won the right to be here has limitations--some of which can be recovered from, but many more that cannot. One of my best friends looks forward to the time when they will be able to look back over their life and see the limitations they had to endure while on Earth. They are looking forward to a perfected body, heart, mind and soul that will allow them to do things without constraint: to talk freely, to make friends easily, to remember names instantly, to move without constant, cumbersome pain.
This year in Sunday School we study the Book of Mormon--a volume of Scripture that was prepared to come to us "in a day of wickedness, degeneracy, and apostasy." Mormon 8 That time is now.
“Life is not easy. It's supposed to be hard, and it is hard.”
Elder Elder Yoon Hwan Choi, 1st Counselor of the Area Presidency
2 September 2022 - Manila
News Release Cabuyao Philippines Stake fireside
How do we rise above all the chaos that surrounds us?
Christ promised in John 14
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
We have been given the Book of Mormon.
We beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes.
Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things.
And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. Testimony of 3 Witnesses
The Prophet Joseph Smith said, “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book” (the introduction to the Book of Mormon).
I have changed my prayer from "Please soften the hearts of those who oppress others: those who starve, kill, and take joy in war." to "Please come soon."
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