Day Eight

"Listen to the still small voice, listen listen.
When you have to make a choice,
He will guide you always."

How do I know that I am following the Lord's will? How are my prayers answered?

Often there is a small voice that speaks to me. While reading the words of President Monson yesterday morning, the small voice told me that I should call a friend. This morning a small voice said, "Have patience, Carson will be fine after he forgets about what he's sulking about."

Then there are experiences where the small voice comes to me with much force and emotion. There is no mistaking that thoughts and words come from the love of God. The following story is an example of a time when I was guided to make a very big decision.

In October 2000, we had the privilege of going to Kazakhstan, to adopt our two youngest boys. We had seen videos of our son Dallin, and arranged to meet him and work through the adoption procedures while we were staying in the country. We didn't especially plan on adopting Carson, but the option of adopting two boys was on our minds.

The first day we arrived, we met Dallin. He was a beautiful child, and we instantly fell in love with him. He ran into our arms while saying "Mama! Papa!" He kissed us and hugged us over and over again. This brought tears to our eyes, and we witnessed a true miracle and were overcome by the power of this spiritual experience.

The women at the orphanage told us to take Dallin home to our apartment, and moments later we were on our way with our driver, interpreter, and facilitator, Sergeiy, while laughing with and loving this little five year old child. The first night with Dallin was amazing. All three of us were so excited we couldn't sleep. We all jumped into one bed, and played games with a flashlight, which Dallin told us was a "torchet." Eventhough we couldn't speak the same language we communicated our love to our little guy often. He taught us Russian words, and we taught him English.

The next morning we drove to an orphanage called the "Baby House." There were lots of smaller children and babies there, but when we arrived, they said there we already were adopting the best child in Kazakhstan, so we couldn't adopt any of those children except this one. They handed over Artuka, and said he should have been born a girl, because he cries all the time. He was a sad little guy, two years old, didn't respond much, with a scratched face and infection in his eyes. We tried to get him to warm up to us, by giving him chocolate, playing with some toys, and talking quietly to him. He was afraid of Dane, and I couldn't make any connection with him. He wouldn't even let Dane hold him. We stayed with him for quite some time, and then decided that maybe we could watch him in his group of children to see how he responded with them. We blew up a large punch ball, and threw it in this small room with about twenty two-year-old children. They all loved the ball, and ran around the room excitedly trying to catch it from above their heads. They all loved it except for Artuka, for he stayed over in a corner, and didn't play at all. We decided that he probably wouldn't work in our family. We felt some sadness about these children, and especially Artuka. As we were leaving the room, I glanced over at that sad little boy, and made eye contact. I felt a powerful and instant connection for the first and only time that day. It was an extremely emotional day, and we went to bed exhausted.

The next day we were going to drive to another city, and see some children. We were a little hesitant because we would need to leave Dallin at his orphanage. We didn't want to leave him at all, and thought it was very important for bonding reasons that we shouldn't leave. We decided that we were very blessed to have Dallin as our beautiful son, and we would not leave to go see other children. We would only be adopting Dallin.

During the night, Dane and I woke up together and felt the Spirit of God around us. With no uncertainty we were told that we needed to adopt Artuka. The feelings could not be denied. We both cried. We thought that maybe he was somewhat handicapped, and would need lots of psychological help. He had been a crib baby in an orphanage where he really wasn't liked very much. He was mentally delayed. We cried not just because of the powerful spiritual experience we felt, but also because we were afraid of what we would have to face in life with raising a challenged young child.

Nine years later. Carson (we changed his name) does great in school, he loves to talk to adults, he loves basketball, and cooking. We are so blessed that we listened. I love this young man! Look at his picture!