“The Winds and the Waves Shall Obey”

Days after a hurricane, my husband was asked to attend the baptism of a family of five and to help confirm them afterward. At that time our branch in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, had no baptismal font, so the ordinances were to take place at Jobos Beach near the town of Isabela.

It was dusk as our car pulled onto the beach. As I stepped from the car with our month-old infant in my arms, a horde of mosquitoes attacked us. I glanced up at the lamppost and was amazed at the numbers of mosquitoes visible in the light. I pulled a blanket over my baby to protect him while slapping frantically at the dense swarm surrounding me, and I looked around to see how far the cloud of mosquitoes extended. We saw that a small group of priesthood brethren was waiting and that the family to be baptized had not yet arrived.

We quickly got back into the car and rolled up the windows. The baby cried because it was too hot under the blanket, but there were so many mosquitoes trapped inside the car that I didn’t dare remove it.

I begged my husband to return home, but in our hearts we didn’t want to leave until he had helped with the confirmations. He got out of the car and called to the people in the water to see if the mosquitoes were as thick there.

“Yes!” they shouted back. “There are mosquitoes everywhere!”

To make matters worse, the water was very rough. It would be difficult to baptize anyone in the surging waves. Then we spotted the missionaries as the family of five and other priesthood brethren arrived. I stayed in the car, holding my screaming baby while my husband joined them by the stormy beach. I prayed they’d hurry so we could escape the countless insects.

After a few minutes, my husband returned to the car smiling. “You can come out now,” he said.

“Are you crazy?” I responded. “I’m not going out there with all those mosquitoes!”

“It’s OK,” he assured me. “The mosquitoes are gone.”

I didn’t believe him. “Thousands of mosquitoes don’t just get up and go away on their own,” I shouted through the window, “especially with so many people around.” Then I noticed that he and the other brethren looked relaxed and comfortable. I slowly rolled down the car window. No mosquitoes! Cautiously I stepped outside. To my amazement, the mosquitoes had disappeared! I took the blanket off the baby, and he immediately stopped crying.

As we walked to the water’s edge to watch the baptism, I saw that the waves had somehow calmed down. The family was baptized as planned.

It was not until later I learned that the missionaries had asked our Father in Heaven to calm the waters and cause the mosquitoes to leave. But that was not all. When we arrived home later that evening, we found no visible signs of any mosquito bites on our skin.

I remembered the words “The winds and the waves shall obey thy will” (“Master the Tempest is Raging,” Hymns, no. 105) and marveled at what I had seen. Many times I have thought back to that night when I saw for myself nature’s obedience to our Father in Heaven.

Illustrated by Robert Anderson McKay