Where Are the Angels?

My 15-year-old son, Kade, wrote my post for me today:

Few things quite compare to the powerful spiritual experience that came from the pioneer trek that I recently went on. Nothing teaches you about the testimony of the pioneers as being in their shoes, walking for miles on end with only a few rests. I learned something that I had already heard before, but didn't quite understand until the trek: these pioneers would not have traveled like that, for days and months on end, if they did not know that the church was true. The trek also taught me many other things that I don't think I can ever forget.

One of the hardest parts of the trek for me had nothing to do with pushing the cart. In fact, it was because I wasn't pushing the cart. You see, at one point along the trail, the men and boys were taken from their carts to be in the Mormon Battalion. Actually, we went on ahead and waited for our families to come past, when we would rejoin them to walk with them. This was called the "women's pull" and it was difficult to see the girls working hard to pull the heavy handcart over the rocky path. The cart bounced and rocked back and forth, making the girls' job even harder.

I had heard a rumor at some point before the trek that towards the end of the womens' pull, people dressed as angels would come and join the girls to help them finish the pull. That rumor was terribly false. As the pull went on, a feeling of desperation grasped me. My mind formed the thought, "Where are the angels?" That's when I saw them.

The girls who had already gotten to the end of the pull were running back to help the other carts make it to the end. Their faces were as red as tomatoes, their breathing like a steam engine, but their smiles shone like the sun. They didn't seem to have been thinking about themselves in any sense as they sprinted back to help their sisters. As they fell into step alongside my family, I realized I had found the angels.

Often, we expect, and sometimes ask for, great miracles. However, we rarely get these great miracles. We get small ones. I expected angels to come to the rescue of the girls, and I got the angels. They didn't appear in the form I had expected, but they came. They came exactly how they needed to. Most of the time, the Lord will send people to be the help we ask for, just as the other girls were the angels that I was looking for. When we ask the Lord for help, we shouldn't try to dictate how He should do it. He will send help how and when we need it, and we only have to trust that He will help us. He always will.

Written by Kade Flake