Lost Phone

1-27-09

Dear Elder & Sister Hansen and all my kids,

I spoke in the Fresno Stake YSA Ward on Sun (25th) morning (the one Brent L attends, and cousin Robbie H & Curtis A were also there – !...), and gave my annual fireside in Kerman that evening (at Bro. Don E’s home). Among other things I told them about an event that happened at the farm a couple of seasons ago. It was during “suckering time” (which technically speaking should be called “DE-Suckering”), and I was spraying for powdery mildew (which is potentially the biggest reason for crop loss in vineyards, as it makes the crop rot on the vine). At this time of year I have discing, irrigation (depending on gophers and teething coyote pups, I will spend up to 4 hours per day splicing hoses to repair the bite marks), berm sprays to kill weeds (as the drip water breaks down the pre-emergence that we put down after pruning to keep weed seeds from germinating, so I have to do “touch up” sprays later on to catch the escapees), and the foliar sprays to keep fungus from starting (which needs to be preventative sprays to keep ahead of it, or you suffer huge losses, or even complete crop failure). At these times, I sometimes will spend 2 or 3 days in a row at the farm without coming home, and get 2 to 4 hours of sleep per day (when I’m falling asleep on the tractor, I will take a cat nap and then get driving again), because I have so much to do and only a certain window of time to do it in, or we will loose crop. All of this has to be dove tailed in with volunteers coming to do suckering (as it is against the law for me to be spraying or dusting while I have workers in the field – even if they are at the other end of the field, plus some of the chemicals have up to a 3 day re-entry interval even for something as completely safe as sulfur dust (but it does make your eyes burn).

I had just finished mixing up a load of fungicide spray in the big 500 gal. spray rig, when I get a phone call from a man who had been there the day before with his Ward to do the suckering. He had lost his new Blackberry cell phone (one of those real skinny ones with internet service and very expensive). He had looked everywhere, and felt that the only place it could be was out at the farm (it must have fallen out of his pocket as he bent over to do the work at the farm). He needed it desperately for his occupation. He asked me if I could go look for it, and gave me his phone number, so I could listen for the ring tone, which was classical music. I did not have the heart to tell him all the pressure that I was under, that I was going to have to spray all night as it was. But since he lived so far away in one of the outlying Stakes, and he and his fellow Ward members have been so faithful in coming to work, I could not say no, and I agreed to go look for him.

I had to leave the tractor running to keep the agitation in the tank going or the material would settle, and clog up the system. I went and got the Honda Quad out of the shed, as I thought it might be faster to drive up and down the rows fairly quickly to see if it might just be laying on the ground in plain sight. Then after I made the 4 passes on the Honda quickly looking, I would then walk the rows and every so often call to listen for classical music. Just before I started the Honda, I knelt and said a prayer.

“Heavenly Father, thou knowest the pressure that I am working under right now with all that I need to do, and this dear brother that has been so faithful at serving in Thy vineyard, please help guide me to this phone, not only to find it,… but please help me find it as fast as possible, to help this dear Brother and so I can get back to my other work” (one of the other factors pressing was that it would be dark in another hour). As I finished my prayer, and rode the Honda to the rows they had worked on, I was just about to head down the first row when, I felt the distinct impression to CALL NOW! OK, great! It must be here real close. So I turned off the motorcycle (to hear better) and made the call, fully expecting to hear Beethoven’s 5th, … But, nothing happened! I did not hear anything but a gentle breeze and birds, and the low hum of the tractor in the distance keeping the tank mix agitated (reminding me that I was burning up diesel, and the urgency to find this phone as soon as I could). I was stunned, as I had felt the impression to stop and “CALL NOW” so strong, I totally expected to hear classical music (or “Baroque” or whatever Beethoven’s music era was called), that the phone was going to be right here! Then after a moment of bewilderment and pause, I mounted the Quad again and started down the row. I had not gone ten vines, when the impression came again, “CALL NOW”! So I stopped, excited that maybe the phone was down in a gopher hole or something, and now I was right over the top of it, and would now hear it faintly. But as I again made the call,… nothing!

I could not believe it! I knew what I had felt! Why would the Lord tell me to stop and call, only to have nothing happen!?! (At least nothing that I could see or hear!) It was perplexing to me, to have that Spirit that I had long since come to trust and rely on, now seemingly leave me wanting. I offered another prayer, and apologized for my lack of faith, and questioning, and again pleaded for His help and guidance. I got back on the Honda and started a third time down the row, and again within a few seconds the impression came again, “CALL NOW”. I thought maybe with all the time that had elapsed and the calls made, maybe the battery is getting low, and only now will I be able to hear it, as the ring tone will be so faint. As I stopped the engine and made the call,… again with full expectation of hearing Beethoven’s 5th, … silence. I looked up to the sky, with a questioning eye, and asked “Are you sure about this?” I immediately repented of my lapse, and then stated “I do not know why Thou wouldst be testing me this way, and I long ago learned to follow Thy voice, and I’m not about to stop now. I pledge to continue to follow the Holy Spirit, no matter how pointless it may seem to my mortal ways”. I then again hopped on the Honda, and started once more down the row. Again after a few seconds the impression to stop and “call”, I looked up and in humility confirmed, “I do not understand what is going on here or why, but I will obey”.

It got to the point where I felt as Adam felt when the Angel asked him “why he was offering Sacrifice”? And he replied, “I know not, save the Lord commanded me.” I did not know why I was doing this, except that the Lord was commanding it, and I obeyed. This procedure continued a total of 8 to 10 times, until as I was about make another call, my phone rang instead, and I could see by the caller ID that it was the very number that I had been trying to call. I was totally surprised and answered as if it were the guy who originally called me, but it was the driver of the car pool, of the Brothers that had been there the day before. I looked around to see where he was, and asked him if he were in the vineyard. He answered “no”, that he was at his home. “But, then how did you get his phone?” “Well, it was a funny thing, I was on my way home from work (in the same car he had driven to the farm the day before), and I heard this music…” He went on to tell me that his business is only about 5 min. away from his house, and heard the ringing come and go at least twice, so when he got home, he started looking for where the music was coming from. He could not find it right away because it had lodged itself down in a crack of the back seat (when the owner of the phone had climbed into the back seat, it must have fallen out of his pocket and gone down into that crack). It took awhile to locate the general area that the sound was coming from, because he could only look when he heard the music playing, and would have to wait periodically for the music to resume again to keep looking (for me to stop, and make another call). He said that the phone was so tight and deep in the crack that he would never have found it until they sold the car for junk parts, and somebody dismantled and took out the seat to switch it to another car. So if I had not called when I did (instead of riding the quad down all the rows first to visually look for the phone, and then later walking the rows to periodically call and listen for the ring tone), he would have already gotten home and gone in the house and not heard my first call (and after some time the battery would have gone dead and they would have never found it). Then, if I had not kept calling, even when it seemed so silly to keep calling so soon, as I felt that I had not gone far enough to make any difference in listening for the ring tone in the vineyard, he would not have been able to locate the phone deep in the crack, by shoving his hand down in there fishing for the phone trying to follow where the music was coming from.

I testify to you that, God our Heavenly Father does hear and answer the heartfelt prayer of faith, from any and all of His children. It often will not be in ways that you expected, and sometimes it may not seem as though anything is happening at all. But I promise you that He will not abandon you, that he does watch over you and hears your every prayer. 

Love always, your fellow servant, Jamie