Yesterday in church my friend shared the story of a trip she took to Oregon with her husband recently. She said that they rented a car and drove up the coast. They filled up the rental car with gas. Much sooner than they expected, the car fuel gauge said it was out of gas. She started panicking. They knew they were in area of no cell phone service. She didn’t know what they did if they ran out of gas. Then she had the thought to look at her gas receipt because it would tell her how many gallons she got. So she looked at the receipt for the gas purchase and that assured her that she really did fill up the tank. The fuel gauge made it seem like they had just filled it up halfway. It was that receipt that helped her not freak out anymore. They just kept driving when the gauge said the tank was empty. Eventually, what do you know, the gauge changed and it showed they weren’t out of gas! Whew! My friend testified that sometimes crazy things happen in life, but God is there and often sends assurances that things will work out.

That made me think of my recent trip to New York City and the East Coast last month, August 2024. I got to spend two days in the Big Apple. Some slightly crazy things happened yet I definitely felt some assurances from God. All of it was in the form of coincidental/Providential meetings and the kindness of other people. I know New Yorkers are known for their rough abrupt ways, but I felt so much kindness when I was there. Here are my experiences:

1. My 15-year-old son, Mr. M, and I took a red-eye flight from SLC to NYC from about midnight to 5 AM on an early Tuesday morning. The plan was, after arriving at JFK Airport, to take the airport train to the subway, then the subway to the hotel to meet up with my husband, daughter, and her little family (husband and two boys). Two nights before we arrived, I felt a little nervous about the whole thing. I called my husband up and asked him, using Google maps on both ends, to walk through the steps I would be taking to meet up with him. I wrote all the steps down and took a photo with my phone. It all worked out great. We got off our flight, then found the train to get to the subway station. At that point, most of my nervousness was gone. I was excited for the trip ahead of us, to see my husband, daughter and her family, and then in a few days, to see my sister and her family who live in Maine. We were getting into the elevator at the subway station to go down below to get into the right subway. Then this man walked into the elevator. I was pretty sure he was my husband! I was slightly flabbergasted that he hadn’t noticed us. He just walked in and turned around to the front of the elevator, staring straight ahead, with his back to us. It was the strangest thing to have him not see us and/or recognize us. Yet he was standing just a foot away from me and we hadn’t seen each other in almost a week. It was like I was in a movie and his body had his brain switched out with someone else’s. I got a good look at him to make sure it was him and then tapped him on the shoulder and we hugged. The little bit of nervousness I had left immediately evaporated! I breathed a sigh of relief. I could now trust him to get us the rest of the way to the hotel. He had decided to come find us but hadn’t noticed us in the elevator. He was going down to find us. He told me later that he just didn’t notice us. It was a little tender mercy from the Lord. I know I could have made it the rest of the way without his help. I had not slept on the plane more than maybe 20 minutes, so I was tired. It was just sooo nice to be able to relax from that point on for the rest of the day and not be on “alert” any more for navigating.

2. The previous incident happened on a Tuesday morning. Then Wednesday the plan was for Mr. M and I to babysit my grandsons (ages 3 and 5) all day while my daughter and son-in-law had a glorious kid-free day free of all responsibilities. The previous evening, my husband had left to go back to Utah. I hadn’t decided yet what sites we would take in with the kiddos. The forecast was rain so I ruled out the zoo and Central Park.

I eventually relented to my grandson’s plea to take them back to the Lego Store and the Nintendo Store. Big mistake as you will soon see. I told them we would do that after we visited the Vanderbilt Building, if they didn’t get three strikes of misbehavior. That way we could see the Empire State Building from its windows. My husband, daughter, et al had visited it the previous week and said it was cool. So we packed up with all the loot needed to feel adequately equipped for a trip with two little boys, loaded each boy in a stroller and took off. The first snafu was getting one of the strollers stuck in a turnstile at a subway station. My husband had warned me about not taking a stroller through a turnstile that you go through to pay. We followed that injunction. This one however was a different turnstile. It appeared to have more room, enough to fit a stroller. It was the kind that looks like a revolving door, but with bars. We had to go through it to go upstairs because we couldn’t find an elevator. Fortunately, a child wasn’t inside when we got it stuck! I was silently praying someone would come along and help. In the meantime I dug into my measly remnant of lip balm to grease the sides of the stroller to see if that would lessen the grip the iron bars had on it so it could slide through, LOL. After about 15 minutes of my vain efforts, a kind older couple came along. They appeared to be a middle-aged married couple with the mother of one of them. The husband used his manly muscles and wrestled the stroller out by pushing on the bars to expand them just enough to squeeze the stroller out. Whew! I profusely thanked them for taking the time to help us, exclaiming that he was my hero. I almost hugged him but wasn’t sure how a stranger would take that so gave him my heartfelt thanks and left it at that.

3. At the Nintendo Store, one of the grandboys had a major meltdown. I had to tear him away from a game controller where he had been playing a game for at least 30 minutes, with plenty of warnings that we would be leaving in 15 minutes, then 10 minutes, etc. Kicking. Screaming. Pushing me away as I attempted to buckle him into the stroller. Louder screaming. Harder kicking and pushing. (Note to self: never take two little boys into a Nintendo Store no matter how much they beg. They had already been once, with their parents, a few days before, and once is enough! Can you see my strong dislike of video games coming through here?) Just my luck, we were on the second floor when the major meltdown happened and I had to get down to the ground floor with the stroller to get out. The elevator, the one and only elevator in the whole store, was out of order. A kind employee helped me carry the stroller down with screaming child inside. Mr. M in the meantime took the other stroller down the stairs with the 5-year-old in tow. Maybe the employee helped me out not so much from kindness but from the overwhelming desire to get relief from the screaming, LOL.

3. After the three planned visits, plus dinner at a restaurant, we were looking for the right subway station to go back to our home away from home. I followed the GPS on my phone. The problem was Google maps showed an entrance to a subway station that wasn’t there because of construction! A sign said to go to the corner of two other streets, but when we went to that place, the entrance still wasn’t there. Eventually I asked a passing crowd of what appeared to be an Indian family (not Native American but Indian Indian). They helped me find the right entrance. When we had to find the next subway station we had trouble again finding it and I turned to a lady walking by me. She helped me as well. Granted, they may have all been tourists, LOL.

4. So then we got onto the subway. As we zoomed along underground, I kept looking at my phone and the map on the wall of the subway. The data didn’t match up. We were on the wrong one! Then we got on another one. That one was wrong as well. Then we got on another one. This is the most anxiety I’ve felt in over 10 years! The data still didn’t match up (map on the side of the subway wall vs. the map on my phone). At 10% battery charge, my phone was dying, as I had left my portable phone charger in the hotel room. It was 9 PM, dark, and I had two little boys who could freak out at any moment. (Each had had one tantrum that day, but I never know if another one is coming.) The only connection I had with getting to the hotel room was the GPS on my phone. If my phone died, I had no earthly way of calling my husband, my daughter, or finding my way back. This is when the Holy Ghost came in. The people sitting across from us on the subway started talking about where they were going with a guy sitting next to them. As I listened in, I could tell they had the same problem I had. They were on the right letter of subway, but going in the wrong direction, downtown, instead of uptown. Ah! I know that the Holy Ghost prompted me to tune in and listen to that discussion so I could know what to do. We got off on the next stop. Then I finally found some subway employees (pretty hard to find late at night) and showed them my map on my phone. They confirmed what I had figured out and showed us how to get to the right platform. (It was up more stairs– I did not know that so many platforms and subways existed in these subway stations. The last and only time I visited before was when I was 10 and was not paying any attention to such details.)

I am just sooooo grateful for the kindness of these random strangers! I’m grateful that God sent me these little evidences of His goodness on a drizzly summer day in NYC. It reminds me of the line from Hymn 293 from the book of Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Each Life that Touches Ours for Good.”

Here is the first stanza:

“Each life that touches ours for good

Reflects thine own great mercy, Lord;

Thou sendest blessings from above

Thru words and deeds of those who love.”

Those who love. I’m grateful “those who love” can be found in the bustling gritty city of New York.