1 Corinthians 3:6

"I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase." I love this scripture! It's not very often that you get to hear a follow up story on a seed you planted or helped to water after nearly ten years. When picking someone up for Institute tonight I learned about just one of these seeds.

Ten years ago my companion and I went to visit her parents at her home in Taegu, South Korea, just a few months after she was baptized as a high school student. Her parents weren't very excited about her baptism and after just a couple of months she was already inactive. She didn't really understand that she was expected to keep coming back to church.

She had already started dodging the missionaries, so she was shocked when my American companion and I were sitting in her living room talking and laughing with her parents and eating peaches when she came home from school one day several months after she was baptized. She remembered my name, the peaches and that I was studying geography. :) She had written about us in her journal. She didn't come back to church at that time.

It wasn't until about four years later when she was having a hard time and wondering whether God existed that she picked up her Book of Mormon and read it all in a day or so. She promised herself that the next time the missionaries contacted her she would go back to church. They called a few weeks later and this sweet sister came back to church and is currently studying at BYU and happens to be in DC for the summer for an internship.

It was such a sweet tender mercy of the Lord for each of us to have the chance to see each other again and learn of the influence we had on each other! :) God lives and loves us. We must continue to plant and water and wait for the Lord to give the increase. It was wonderful to sit at Institute with her and study the scriptures and the path to the Celestial Kingdom together. She is a sweet and faithful and dedicated example and was a strength to me tonight as she reminded me of this small half hour visit we had ten years ago. :) I love the Lord! I love His gospel! I'm grateful for His tender mercies and guidance in my life.