About twelve years ago now (around 2001), Brother Foster heard the missionary discussions from a set of Elder's (the term for male missionaries) and was baptized. Sister Helen Foster, his wife, was not interested and would not stay in the same room as the Elder's, always finding an excuse to be in another part of the house. With little to no support from his wife, Brother Foster struggled with going to church and would only go every so often over the years, usually when the current missionaries would start visiting him. Fast forward ten years. Helen Foster's lungs collapse from a lifetime of strain working in factories. She is taken to the hospital, and was in the hospital for some time. The current Elders found out about this, and decided to visit Helen every day in the hospital. Her heart was softened, and after she got out of the hospital she would stay in the room and even participate when the Elders would visit. This is when I come into the story. One of my first stops as a missionary was the Foster's home.
I was scared. This was the first time I had moved out of my home and was the furthest I had ever been from my family. I just sat there as the missionary I was with, Elder Raddison Veater, taught the Fosters. At the conclusion of the lesson, the Fosters asked me to say a prayer before we left. I believe it was the first time I spoke while at there house. The prayer was short, and when I opened up my eyes, Helen was just staring at me. Then she said, "Boy! You have to speak up because I can not hear a word you're saying!" Over the next few visits I got the same remark about how I needed to speak up until I started speaking loud enough so that she could hear me.
The next two months of meeting with the Fosters was a joy for me. I learned to love them as grandparents. We invited Helen to be baptized and in March of 2011 she was baptized by Bo Tucker, the Branch Mission Leader, with Brother Foster there to assist. It was beautiful.
I spent another couple of months in West Memphis, Arkansas where the Fosters lived until I was asked to move by our Mission President (the leader of the mission). Throughout the next year of my time as a missionary, I kept in contact with the Fosters. I found out that they were planning on going to the LDS Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. At the time I found this out, I was about 60 miles South of Memphis in Mississippi. I knew that I would not be able to go because I was too far away. Two weeks before the Fosters were going to go to the Temple, my Mission President once again moved me, this time to a small town just 15 miles from the Temple. Right after I moved I called up the Mission President and told him that whether he liked it or not, I was going to the Temple the day that the Fosters when. He laughed and said that I could go.
For those that do not know about LDS Temples, they are the most sacred buildings to the LDS faith. In them families can be married for not just this life, but for all eternity. The Fosters, even though they had already been married for over 40 years, wanted to stay together forever. On the day that the Fosters went to the Temple, I got there a little early, and because of that the Fosters didn't see I was there at first. Their is a room in all LDS Temples around the world called the Celestial Room. Each Celestial Room that I have been in has been amazing and beautiful, with the goal of the room to make those that enter feel as though they have entered back into God's presence.
The Fosters entered into the Celestial Room before I did, and when I walked in, Helen looked at me, the first time seeing me in over a year, and said "There's My Boy!" and held her arms open for a hug.
This was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life, and as I said before Sister Helen Foster taught me so much. What may be the two most profound are:
1) She taught me that most of the time you don't get to see the results of your actions. Only two of the missionaries that had tried to work with her got to see her baptized, and I was the only missionary that saw as she went to the Temple (Elder Raddison Veater had gone back home to Utah by that point).
2) She taught me how I want to be welcomed when I see God once again. When I see Him, and it has been a very long time since I last saw Him, I hope that He will hold open His arms and say, "There's My Boy!"
