1987
Our Prayer Was Answered in the Want Ads
October 1987


“Our Prayer Was Answered in the Want Ads,” Ensign, Oct. 1987, 40

Our Prayer Was Answered in the Want Ads

It wasn’t long after our marriage in the Seattle Temple that my wife and I began to shop for the piano that we had decided was a must for our household. It would bring our family closer together as we sang hymns and other songs, especially during family home evenings.

We knew our income could not support a new piano, or even a good used one, so we considered renting. Even that seemed more than we wanted to spend. As we sat down to discuss our finances, I volunteered to sell an item or two out of my workshop. For several years, I had been building cabinets in my spare time, but I had found that lately I had little time for woodworking. I thought if we could sell my radial arm saw, we could use that money, plus a little extra, to buy an old upright piano.

As time passed, I was unable to sell my saw; and we had no luck locating a piano for sale. We found nothing in the local paper or in the weekly advertising circulars.

One evening I picked up an ad circular and read through its twenty pages of personal ads for every imaginable item. My wife went through it again after I had looked at it, then we both checked our local newspaper.

“Nothing again this week,” I said. “I sure wish we could find one.”

That night as we knelt together in prayer, I asked that we might find a piano soon so we could have music in our home.

While at work the next day I received a call from my wife, who was very excited. She explained that she had felt drawn to the ad circular that morning while doing the housework. Finally, unable to think of anything else, she had thumbed through it one more time.

Almost immediately she had seen the ad we both had somehow overlooked the night before:

FOR SALE: Upright piano. Excellent condition. Will trade for radial-arm saw or ?. Call …

We decided she should go see the piano that afternoon, and when I got home from work that night she said, “The piano is just fine, and the people who have it will look at your saw this evening.”

Never before has a trade worked out so perfectly for us. We now have a beautiful old piano, worth much more than we could have paid for it. With that grand old instrument, a beautiful spirit came into our home.

That first night, tears of joy and gratitude came to my eyes as the sounds of beautiful music filled our home.

  • Richard W. Rust, a shelter home/nursing home owner, is first counselor in the Tucumcari (New Mexico) Branch presidency.