A special miracle that happened to our family.

October 31, 1957 was a great day, Debbie was born, and she was a special child. We didn't know, it at that time. She came to our hourse very ill requiring constant attention, she couldn't swallow properly, she had to be taught, she had troubles breathing and needed to be constantly held upright or she would quit breathing. Teaching her these activities was only the begining, we spent the next 23 years teaching her just about everything she knew, except about Jesus. She, as do many retarded, understood what Jesus had done for her and all of us. This is a special gift. I have witnessed this gift many times and marveled at it. I think I can comprehend what Jesus did for us, but not with the same depth she had.

After she was born, we had a miracle happen that litterly saved Glenn, Linda, myself and Debbie's lives. I had never lived where I had to light a stove for heat. I thought you turned a stove on and it just lit itself. I found out different. We had moved into a new apartment in San Francisco, and it was cold, so I turned the stove on, without lighting it, and it spewed natural gas into the apartment. This apartment was in the Hunter Point Housing Project, and was largely black housing. We had been forced to move there because our unit behind San Francisco city College was being demolished, and everyone living there was offered housing in black housing or rent privately. Renting private housing cost three times what the housing units did. We were San Francisco's effort to integrate their black housing. That was the year the integration law was passed. Black housing was very different than the white housing we were moving from. There was no grass, it was dirt, we didn't have a refrigerator, a hole in the wall held a box that hung outside and acted as a cooler. Our unit held 4 black families and 4 white college student's.
Our apartment was three blocks and three flights of stairs from the street where we had to park our car. Glenn was a student at San Francisco City College, but was offerred a job with Triple AAA, at the end of the quarter, so he was working there, planning to finish school at night, but Debbie took both of us just to keep her alive, so Glenn was unable to finish his accounting degree.

That was also the year of the worst flu epidemic the nation had seen since the early 30's. Glenn had the flu, I had the flu, I don't remember if Linda and Debbie had the flu, but Debbie still had to be held upright to breathe. Glenn spent all night painting the apartment, it looked nice.

I was lying on the couch, on my side holding Debbie upright against my stomache, I noticed that Linda was lying on the floor going to sleep, and Glenn was in the bedroom asleep. Suddenly I heard a very loud knock on the door. I remember just being able to wake up enough to go to the door. There was a man at the door. When I opened the door, he ran through the apartment, shut off the stove, and opened all the windows. He said it smalled of gas.

We had no food, we hadn't finished moving from the old apartment, and much of our food was there boxed up. He said that he was selling food, I remember saying, on Sunday?, and he said yes. He asked us how much money we had. We had just $15 and he said that would buy all the food he had. So we bought it, and it kept us fed for at least 2 weeks. By then Glenn was well enough to go to the other apartment and bring what was left there. The next day, I told the neighbors about this man coming and asked if they had bought food too, no one had even seen an unusual looking white man walking the project. Because this project was black , and had a very bad reputation, few people came there if they didn't live there. Also because it was on a hill and walking from the street was so far, people who didn't have to be there didn't come.

I am telling this today, because in praying about miracles, this is the one that stood out today. I have long thought that the man was John the Baptist, or one of the three nephites. Just think, a strange person shows up at your door, walking 3 blocks, climbing 3 flights of stairs on the side of a hill, then having to come to an apartment on the top floor of the building, and we were the only person visited? It was a miracle, and he saved our lives. I am grateful for that, and for everything else the Lord has done for me. Since I started praying to recognize the miracles in my life, I have been amazed at how many come to mind.