“Here for a Reason,” Liahona, April 2021
Latter-day Saint Voices
Here for a Reason
Heavenly Father loves us and wants to bless us, sometimes in ways we don’t expect.
Photograph from Getty Images
I had been on my mission in the Netherlands and Belgium for over a year when my mission president called to inform me that I was being transferred to a new area.
He told me where I was going and who my companion would be and thanked me for my willingness to serve. I had hoped to go to a different area, but I moved across the country to my new area and did my best to forget myself and go to work.
From the moment I arrived, I wondered why I had been assigned there. One day my companion said we had an appointment with a less-active woman from Puerto Rico. She spoke only Spanish. Fortunately my companion spoke Spanish, because I sure didn’t!
At the appointment, while my companion spoke with the sister, I just smiled and nodded. Before giving our message, my companion asked the sister if she had a Book of Mormon in Dutch that I could use to follow along. We had given away our last copy earlier that day. She grabbed a book from her top shelf.
My companion opened the book and read the cover page. He looked at me and asked, “Do you know this person?”
He showed me the cover page, which had a testimony written by another Elder Morrell. I recognized the address that accompanied the message.
Years earlier, my cousin had served in this sister’s ward as a missionary in Puerto Rico. When he and his companion learned she was moving to the Netherlands, they gave her a Dutch Book of Mormon with their written testimonies.
After reading my cousin’s testimony, I received a strong prompting. “You are here for a reason,” the Spirit seemed to say. “There are people in this area who are waiting to be brought to the gospel through you.”
When we explained that the elder who wrote his testimony and I were cousins, this sister said she felt that God was reaching out to her to show her how much He loved her and wanted her to come back to church.
Heavenly Father loves us and wants to bless us, sometimes in ways we don’t expect. I felt humbled to be an instrument in the Lord’s hands to bless this sister’s life.