the importance of fuel

So many miracles happened today.


Today was the first day going to our new ward: the Arlington 1st Ward.  During sacrament meeting they had what is called an "impromptu choir" where anyone in the audience may go up and sing a song the choir director provides. Jake and I decided we were going to go sing with the choir. The song chosen was Hark the Harold Angels Sing. The arrangement was the same one found in the hymn book with added piano and organ arrangement. Not to toot my own horn, but we sounded good.


We met a few ward members and made friends (miracle 1) with the Henderson's, a young couple like us, who dragged us off to our appropriate classrooms for Relief Society and Elder's Quorum. Jake and I both introduced ourselves as 'the new members of the ward who will be here for a few months and, yes, we are here for an internship'. During Relief Society, they had a 'lets fill the last 10 minutes with the baring of our testimonies' time ..the sister teaching got done early.. I felt inspired to bare my testimony..the blessing came a lot faster than I would have ever imagined.


Driving home from church, our car started acting strangely, then stopped altogether on the side of the road. Apparently, we should have filled our gas tank up last night. We knew we needed gas, but we didn't think it would run out completely driving the 2 miles to and from church. We were wrong. 


The wind was blowing frigid air and it was snowing for the first time in the Arlington area (miracle 2). Perfect. Jake and I did not grab coats, thinking the only times we would need to go outside were going to and from the car to church. We sat in the car brainstorming ideas of what to do. 


I recently contracted a urinary tract infection (again), so, miraculously, it struck while pulled off the side of the road. I was wiggling and dancing in my seat while searching for gas stations on the GPS. Luckily, there was a gas station half a mile away (miracle 3). We decided to run there. I was wearing flats (miracle 4) so the whole running thing went well until my feet froze.


About half way there, a car pulled up to us and the lady in the passenger seat yelled at us to get inside. It was a couple from our new ward. Maria had recognized me from Relief Society when I had born my testimony. They drove us to the gas station (miracle 5) where I was able to go to the bathroom (miracle 6) and Jake filled up the 1 gallon gas can Maria and her husband had in the trunk (miracle 7). They drove us back to our car. We made it home in one piece, more or less (miracle 8).


Moral of the story: Make sure you have fuel before driving to church.