The Power of Prayer

On Monday night we went to Temple Square with Sarah's parents and a few of her siblings and nephews/nieces. We wanted to see all the Christmas lights and walk around the visitor's center.

At the top floor of the visitor's center, there is a large statue of Jesus and they have benches for you to sit while they play a brief audio clip about Jesus and his atonement. As we were waiting for the audio to start, the kids were wandering around the statue and Sarah took Easton around to look at some pictures in a little hallway on the same floor. When they came back into the large room with the rest of us, Easton walked over to where the other kids were and Sarah started talking with her sisters.

After only a minute or so, Sarah glanced around to check on the kids and noticed that Easton wasn't with them. She walked across the room to where I was sitting and asked if I had seen Easton. We both started to search for him assuming he had just wandered down the ramp where the other kids had been playing earlier. After about 30 seconds we started to get very worried since none of the kids or the adults in our group had seen where he went. They all began to search for him while I ran down the ramp to the main floor and checked the escalator that went to the floor below that as Easton and I had gone down there a few minutes earlier.

I called Sarah on the phone, hoping that they had already found him, only to hear her voice more frantic and worried. I assumed the worst and decided I had better check all the exits and ran around temple square to the South exit as my mother in law checked the North exit. During that time, one of my sister's in law told the staff at the visitor's center that Easton was missing and they made an announcement on their PA and described him and what he was wearing.

As I ran around the block, my deepest fear set in, that I might not see my little boy again. I began to become very emotional and I began to pray with so much desire to find Easton as strong a desire as I have ever had for anything. In that instance, I felt a glimpse of the pain of what it would be like to lose a child and not be get to see them again in this life. I don't ever want to feel that again and I feel so much more sympathy and understand for those who have lost a child.

When I came back into Temple Square, I felt sure that Easton was still in the visitor's center and I ran back inside to continue searching with everyone else.

The problem with being frantic is that your mind is not clear and you are not receptive to promptings. I went back to the same stair well on the East side of the building which I had previously searched, but this time, I started going into roped off areas and closed doors, knowing that Easton wouldn't care that an area was closed to the public. My mother in law must have had the same idea come to her as she searched the roped off hallway just to the West of where we were when Easton was lost. She walked past the area that was closed to the public and went down some stairs. About 3 floors down, she could hear whimpering and when she reached the bottom floor, she could hear Easton crying. She went through a set of swinging double doors and then through another door into a dark room where Easton was crying.

Easton had wandered down the hall, down to the basement area and into a foyer and a dark room and could not get out. He must have been pretty scared during this 10 minutes that he was missing... but I don't think it was anything compared to the fear that Sarah and I felt. We had both become very emotional and very stressed after a couple minutes as our fear set in that we may not find him. We are so glad we had family with us to help us as they remained calm and were able to help find Easton.

As I had finished searching the East stairs and came out on the basement floor, I headed to the escalators again and just then, Shauna, my mother in law was running towards the escalator with Easton in her arms. I've never been so happy to see my mother in law ; ) ...the truth is she is an amazing woman and a great example. She has so many Christ-like qualities and I am grateful that she followed promptings to help us find Easton.

We learned a lot during this "extreme" family night lesson, but for me, the one thing that came to my mind as I was running around the outside of Temple Square was a thought, as if God was teaching me something, "Imagine how I feel when I lose my children to spiritual death when they chose to disobey".

I know that as bad as it felt when I thought we had lost Easton, it is much worse after this life when we chose to follow a Worldly path instead of seeking and doing God's will.