Rain Fills a Dry Baptismal Font in Las Mañanitas, Panama — 81-Year-Old Pedro Chavez Is Baptized

In 1996, Elder Jim Roberts was serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Las Mañanitas, Panama, a town where water was so scarce it sometimes came through the pipes only once a week — and even the church's well barely worked.

Jim and his companion had been teaching 81-year-old Pedro Chavez, who had gained a testimony of the restored gospel and wanted to be baptized. But on the day of the baptism, as they filled the baptismal font, the water suddenly stopped — the font had only reached the first step. The church's well pump wouldn't work. So they prayed.

A nearby neighbor who always seemed to have water reluctantly agreed to help. For what seemed like hours, the missionaries carried heavy five-gallon buckets nearly 150 yards from the neighbor's house to the church — and the water still only reached the second step. Then the neighbor said, “I'm sorry. No more.” It still wasn't enough.

Exhausted, the missionaries went to a member's home for lunch and prayed once more before eating. As they finished their meal, they heard thunder. They ran back to the church just as the rain began to pour. Using every bucket they could find, they caught the rainwater running off the church roof and carried it to the font. When the rain stopped, the water had reached the third step — just enough. That day, Pedro Chavez was baptized.

Years earlier, as an eight-year-old boy, Jim had prayed to serve a mission in a foreign country, learn Spanish, and — because he struggled with math — not have to learn a new money system. His call to Panama fulfilled all three, a prayer he had entirely forgotten but Heavenly Father had not. Of the day of the rain, Jim has said he learned that even the prayers that seem small matter to God: He invites us to do our part, and then in His own way and His own time He makes possible things that wouldn't be possible otherwise.