Is God frustrated by COVID?

At the high school senior devotional, our stake president had a missionary from our stake join the meeting via zoom.  He had him tell his story.

This elder was called to serve in Tanzania.  He knew Spanish and had been assuming his mission call would be somewhere Spanish speaking, but no, it was in Tanzania.  He had no idea where that was.  Also, he would be speaking Swahili, which he'd never heard of before.

His friends who were doing virtual MTC also, received a big box of books.  He received an envelope with his name tags.  Everyone else he knew was in districts of 12-14 missionaries.  His district consisted of two.  Him and his companion.

He knew that because of COVID, he would be serving in a stateside mission first.  He researched and found out where the Swahili speaking missions were in the states.

Then he got called to Spokane Washington, which hadn't been on his radar at all.

Literally nothing about his mission was working out how he thought it would.

He was assigned to two companions, one a native African, who both spoke Swahili.  Swahili speaking missionaries are pretty new--the mission in Tanzania is pretty new--so that's why he didn't get a lot of books.  

Then he started telling one experience after another where he was able to meet people in Spokane who spoke Swahili.  Then, incredibly, because they are able to go onto Facebook and connect with the world, he started teaching some people in a refugee camp in Burundi.  There are over 50 people in the refugee camp who have been able to hear the gospel and want to be baptized.  There are no missionaries there but a mission president from nearby went to interview them.

He talked about connecting with a woman who was living in Norway but who had a following of people in Uganda that saw her as their spiritual leader.  He taught her the gospel and the 100 plus people she led also wanted to be taught in Uganda.

Story after story.

It became clear to me that because of COVID, he was in Spokane, where there probably wouldn't have been Swahili speaking missionaries anytime soon.  Because of COVID, mission rules were such that he was able to be on Facebook and connect with people in places where there wasn't a mission, or in Norway where there probably aren't Swahili speaking missionaries.  Because of COVID, the youth in our stake were able to meet with one of their own who was currently serving a mission.  

After he was done speaking, our stake president asked the youth, "Do you think God is frustrated by COVID?"

No indeed.  His work is continuing.  Miracles happen all the time.  We just need to be in the right place and doing the right things to be a part of it all.