Blessings on the Fly

Marci Hatfield
Jan 30
6 min read

January 16th 2025

I was in Limon on this day doing visits with Elder O'Neil and Stephens. They had been telling me all week about a great couple they had taught a couple of weeks previous. Our last stop this day was to this awesome couple that the elders had been telling me about. The elders pulled up the address and used gps to guide us to our stop. When we got out of the car and walked up to the house a police officer came around the corner, jumped out of his vehicle and trotted up to the door. Elder Stephens was on the porch, I was. Standing on the step and Elder O'Neil was standing at the base of the steps. (with no coat on and it is 5 degrees outside) As the officer came up, I asked him: "If he was here for a visit as well?", he said: "No, he had been called to the house." As he and Elder Stephens knocked on the door it was promptly opened by a rather large gentleman seeming rather distressed, As the door came all the way open, we could see a lady laying on the kitchen floor either having a stroke or seizure, not sure which. The officer immediately started helping the gal, when Elder Stephens said: "Can we give her a blessing?" I'm thinking: "No!, let's get out of their way so they can work on her", but he asked again and the man who opened the door said:, "sure". Now with the go ahead from the gentleman, Elder Stephens asked for her full name and he proceeded to anoint her head with oil and then I knelt down and sealed the anointing and gave her a blessing. I don’t remember exactly what was said in the blessing, other than she would be able to respond to the treatments that would be given. I noticed as soon as I finished the blessing she began to relax. I also noticed the officer bowed his head as I gave her a blessing as if he understood the sacredness of the occasion. By the time I had finished the blessing we had two more officers in the room, so we were pretty crowded in this little kitchen, a dining room table, and 6 grown men. We told the gentleman of the house that we would check back another time and dismissed ourselves because the ambulance would be arriving shortly. As we go outside, I hear Elder Stephens say: "We are at the wrong house!!" I say: "What do you mean we are at the wrong house?!!" Elder Stephens exclaims: "I have no idea who those people are, but I think the Lord made me forget which house was the right house so we could give this lady a blessing." I exclaimed: "Are you kidding me? I thought those were the people we were supposed to be teaching." He said: "No!" and we walked to the correct house. We then knocked at the correct house and began to have a conversation with them about possibly teaching them again. Given the circumstances we arranged to teach another time since they were wanting to make sure the neighbor was ok and being taken care of. We have continued to stop by the house of the lady we gave the blessing to but so far we have not found anyone home. We hope she is well and want to find out all the details. I am convinced they are the people we should be teaching since the others haven’t seemed to be working out.

This experience has caused me to realize we have to be ready at a moments’ notice for giving blessings. We need to be in-tune and ready to listen to the Spirit, easier said than done. God-willing we can be the type of Priesthood holders he needs at any given moment.

Elder Hatfield

We had received a message on FB from our Colorado Springs Mission Page. A soldier currently in Germany. He said that he has a soldier friend serving in Colorado Springs and she is expecting her 2nd child. They both speak, Spanish, however she speaks both English and Spanish. I messaged him back and he wanted to call us. He called us from Germany. He told us that he had messaged two other people, and we were the only ones who responded. So Social-Media does work!! He told us that she was looking for a church and had gone with him in Germany and wanted to attend again. We have been waiting for her information so that we could send someone to visit her. Yesterday our Spanish Elders "happened" upon her and visited with her. She responded to her friend in Germany. Clearly the Lord had his hand in this. He finally got her address and phone number and we sent our awesome Senior Couple, (Elder and Sister Snyder) the information to go over and be their friend. They are Military Relations Missionaries and Elder Snyder knows some Spanish as he served in Ecuador as a young missionary. Stay tuned…..

We took our newest member to the temple for the first time. The weather was so gorgeous that day. The day after, we had a snow day.

On another occasion we drove to Arriba (Air uh buh) to help an elderly lady who has a tracheal tube in her throat. She is very tall and slender and of course can only whisper. We needed to get her to Hugo to take care of her registration. She had texted us that the courthouse closes at 5 p.m. From our house to Arriba is an hour and a half drive, then another 30 minute drive to Hugo. We arrived in Hugo and the man, says: They close at 4:30 p.m. I looked at my watch. It's 4:28 p.m. "The website said they close at 5 p.m!". Well the door to the office was closed tight. I told the lady. Just keep knocking until they come to the door. Finally someone answers the door. "We are closed!" she says. I said: "you need to help us please". we have drove all the way from Colorado Springs to Arriba and now to Hugo and we are not leaving until this lady has her Registration". The Lady said, ok, but you have to pay us in exact cash. Of course, the Lady didn't have that, so Brett and I are scrambling to gather enough cash to pay for it.

This past transfer one of our Young Missionary sisters got really sick. She has celiac, and she is super tiny. Well she thought she had food poisoning, but she kept getting sicker. She literally could hardly drink or eat. She was told it was the flu. I talked to the other sisters and none of them were sick. We finally saw President and Sister Kotter in Pueblo, and told them that we thought she needed another opinion. Well they ended up taking her to the emergency room on her birthday December 21. She spent Christmas in the hospital. Her dad flew in on Christmas Eve and stayed several days with her. She was out for over two weeks. We found out that she had a perforated appendix and it caused several abscesses in her stomach. She also was allergic to an antibiotic they first gave her. Poor girl was so sick. She was determined she didn't want to go home. The Church has a policy at Christmas time that no missionary travel can be done six days before or after a holiday. She likely would have gone home. She is doing great and we hope and pray she will continue her mission until she goes home.

We had our Last Supper District Lunch right before transfers. We had such a great time just sitting around the table and visiting and sharing. We learned that one Elder hates his family so much that when he calls home weekly he feels like it's a hollow conversation. Another Elder, told of how he has never had a real conversation with his father. His father is a gamer and spends all his time on his computer and it tore his family apart. There are so many missionaries out here who have come to make their lives better for their future. It's heartbreaking, and yet so filled with faith that if they serve their Heavenly Father he will bless them and their families.

We hope you all have had a wonderful Holiday Season and we