fishin IN the LILLY pads.

 

 Throughout my life, and all throughout my mission I have saught for opportunities to strengthen my faith in my Heavenly Father and my savior Jesus Christ.  It took one summer day, a faith filled companion and a lake full of lilly pads to teach me what it truely ment to have faith. 

  It was a Monday afternoon in the middle of September. My companion, Sister Smith, and I had been wanting to go fishing for quite some time when the opportunity arouse on a preparation day. There were some members in our last area who had a private lake on their property and they had aggreed to let us use their lake, and their rickety old dock for our fishing needs. 

  My companion and I are both from Utah. Both of us had done plenty of fishing in Utah, but we had never experienced what it was like to fish in lilly pads. A member from the Church in Allegan lent us a few poles and a fully loaded tackle box to take fishing. He had also given  us some pointers on how to try and avoid getting caught in the lilly pads. "Cast directly out in front of the dock, there you should be able to avoid the masses of lilly pads." he said. So my companion and I haveing full confidence in our fishing abilities, and the advice that we received, bated up our hooks, threw a few weights on the end and casted out.

  The first few casts were an utter failure, our line's kept getting stuck in the lilly pads. Time and time again we just didn't have the strength to get our lines our far enough to avoid the lilly pads. Probably on about our 5th or 6th cast both of our hooks had gotten so stuck that no matter what we did they wouldn't come loose. We sat tugging and tugging, pulling and pulling but to no avail. Our hooks were stuck. The only option I could think of was to just cut the line, but because we were using borrowed tackle we were afraid to do so.

  We both sat weighing our options when my faith filled companion starts praying outloud. I kinda sat back doubting, thinking in my mind 'there is no way that her praying is going to work.' after all we had just been trying with all of our might for the past 15-20 mins to get these lines loose. As soon as my companion said Amen, I told her "there is no way that is going to work." Instead of letting me discourage her she gave her line one final tug, and the line came loose, hook and all. I just sat there with probably a look of utter amazement on my face. I was speechless. She turned to me and said "you need to repent." So I silently in my head said a quite prayer repenting, and then asking my Father in Heaven to do the same for me. I ended my prayer and gave my line a few more tugs. Then eventually my line was free.

  I think this experience has been one of the most humbling experiences of my life, who would have thought that a lilly pad, and a stuck fishing line would do that for me. I'm grateful for a companion who had enough faith to pray, and ask for help when she needed it. As small as the request was she exercised her faith, and our Heavenly Father because he loves her answered her prayer, I know he will do the same for all of us we just need to exercise the faith we have in him, that through him anything is possible!