When I drove my son down to the Chicago Temple recently, he read to me a chapter, “Open Your Eyes!”, from John Groberg’s book, Anytime, Anywhere (Salt Lake: Deseret Book, 2006). It conveys a story that I’d like to share.

Elder Groberg was on assignment to hold two stake conferences in Lima, Peru, and was accompanied by his wife. They faced some unusual delays after they landed at the Lima airport. It took quite a while for the crew to complete paperwork before they could even open the doors of the plane. Then they faced very long lines getting through Immigration. Then they had to wait abnormally long to get their bags, which were the last ones off the conveyor belt. Eventually they got through Immigration and into the waiting area of the airport around midnight, where hundreds of people were milling around, including numerous vendors and cab drivers. As they were leaving with a member of the Area Presidency that had been waiting for them, he heard a woman call out his Tongan name from his days as a missionary in Tonga. “Kolipoki! Kolipoki” a woman called. It was a frantic woman rushing toward him, a member of the Church from Tonga.

He calmed her down as he spoke back to her in Tongan and learned her story. The woman’s daughter had been serving a mission in Peru, and the mother had come to meet her daughter of the conclusion of the mission. The daughter had made arrangements to fly from her area in Cuzco to Lima so that the missionary’s plane and the mother’s plane would arrive at about the same time. But something had gone wrong, and the woman had been unable to find her daughter in the crowds, and could not get anybody to help her. She spoke no Spanish and almost no English. She was distraught, but sought the Lord’s help. She found a little corner where she could sit and pray, and turned her heart to the Lord for help. During her prayer, she felt a strong impression like a voice saying “Open your eyes now!” She did so, and that’s when she saw Kolipoki, a trusted Tongan speaker who could help her. Elder Groberg was able to call the mission president and see that mother and daughter were safely reunited and sent on their way together to a missionary apartment.

Elder Groberg realized that his many delays allowed him to be in the right place at the right time to help a troubled but faithful Tongan woman find her daughter. Someone suggested to him that instead of coming to Peru to hold stake conferences, the real reason he had been sent was to answer the prayer of faithful Tongan woman.

I know of many such stories, and have experienced quite a few myself, in which the hand of the Lord can be seen in unusual and sometimes painful events that work together in miraculous ways to bless a life. Prayer, coupled with listening and heeding the promptings of the Spirit, can work wonders. At the same time, I also have personally experienced events much like this one with the exception of not opening my eyes when I should have – allowing much needed help to slip away from me. It’s especially painful to recognize later that the Lord had provided a solution and brought many things together, and that the only problem was me being too slow, too dense, too selfish, too reluctant, or too lazy, so that I never saw the Kolipoki that had been sent my way.

Have faith, turn to the Lord in prayer, and when He says “Open your eyes!”, do not hesitate, but open them and run toward the solution He has sent.