Car trouble anyone?
"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein
Think of today as Saturday. Today the relief society leaders have planned a service project. We go to an elderly lady's home and help her clean it up for two hours, getting lots and lots done!! Once we finish I feel refreshed. It was a change in scenery and activity. When we're getting reading to leave, I stick my hand in my pocket to take my keys out, but they aren't there!! I check all of my pockets but they are nowhere to be found. I had left my keys in the car once before and thought that I was very capable of doing it again so my roommates and I (I had given them all rides to the house) go out into the rain to look through the windows of the car to see if we can spot the keys.
Look!! There they are!...............in the ignition. *groan*
I feel pretty ridiculous and flutter-brained. I had said a prayer when we were still in the house when I couldn't find them and I think it was a miracle that we found them in plain sight. Thank goodness I hadn't actually lost them for good.
We are now all praying for help to come (at least I think we all were), but we need to figure it out as best we can without help first. So, now we know where the keys are and we've no way to get into the car. I see that the driver's window is rolled down 1/2 cm, and I think that we can pull down the window using our ever so strong fingers and bobby pins. The car has a manual window so I didn't think anything would break if we tried that. But that window is stronger than all of us combined.
Mykell then announces, "Okay! I just prayed! Expect a miracle." Three seconds later, while we are attempting to get the window down, a nice man pulls up and asks what's wrong. I tell him I left my keys in the ignition and locked the door.....again feeling rather stupid. Welllll......he replies that he had the same car and model and he had gotten locked out of it before and do we have a metal hanger?
Imagine that!! He had the EXACT same car and had been locked out of it! That was no coincidence. That was a direct answer to our prayers. We don't have a hanger though so Mykell runs over to the house we were just helping at and asks the lady for a metal hanger then runs back to us. This man hops out of his car and starts working on the locked door. He makes a hook out of the hanger and slips it down between the weather stripping and the window. He tries to get it to flip something, but he can't get it. This attempt goes on for about 15 minutes. Then we think about attaching the hanger to the window and pulling down on the hanger so there's more force concentrated in one spot, but the window again won't come down. Then he bends a little circle into the hanger, feeds it through the centimeter crack in the window (we had gotten it to move 1/2 cm) and tries to get it attached to the window crank so he can crank down the window, but that doesn't work either. Then he tries to hit the lock button with the hanger, but there is nowhere near enough force to move it.
He goes back to fiddling with everything in the door by putting the hanger down between the weather stripping and the window. But that still doesn't work!! We go back and forth between these four different ways. Nothing is working.
After what seems like an hour (it was probably only 1/2 hour) another man drives up and hops out with a slim jim in his hand!! We were saved!!....
.....just kidding.
He didn't know how to use it. He had inherited it when his wife's father passed away so they just had it laying around. Well, many attempts are now made with the slim jim including putting it through the crack at the top of the window and trying to push it down. HA! That doesn't work either.
We are trying our best to attempt every possible solution. I finally call a towing company to see if they can send a locksmith out. A few minutes later, they call back and after a brief conversation I realize they are in Salt Lake. So I say thanks and goodbye.
WELL! As I'm hanging up with a resolution to call a Provo company, one of the girls decides to try the door again.......
.....and it opens!!!!!!!!
The guy who brought the slim jim was fiddling with the hanger between the weather stripping and the window and had unlocked it without realizing! He had come over onto the passenger side where the original guy was trying the slim jim and while he was walking over, one of the girls just....opened it! We are all now in utter shock.
When it sinks in that we are no longer locked out in the rain, the two guys are quick to get back to their cars and go on their way. But! Before the guy who came with the slim jim got back into his car, I walked over and asked if I could give him a hug. He probably saved me 50 dollars that a locksmith would have charged me. The guy who came first was gone before I could adequately say thank you to him, but wow!! It was quite an experience.
It was all a miracle though.
The way I see it, we were all praying really hard to get help, and help came. Then, we were all praying for us to somehow get it unlocked. We tried every possible solution, we tried to figure out what would work best, we were persistent in trying to succeed. We tried and tried but without success. Then someone else came to aid us. We again tried and tried without success. We hadn't exhausted our resources yet. There was one left that I didn't want to use. The locksmith. Once we had done our VERY best (we had called several people to see if they knew anything we and the two guys didn't) and there was nothing left to do except call the locksmith, that's what I did. That didn't work the first time though so I was about to try again when the lock opened. That was Heavenly Father saying, "You've done your best. You tried everything you could. You were willing to do what was needed, but I won't make you pay for the locksmith. You've done what you could, now I'll help you."
It was quite an experience.
And now I'm going to be even more grateful for when Laurel gets home because then she'll have to deal with her car. :)
Look!! There they are!...............in the ignition. *groan*
I feel pretty ridiculous and flutter-brained. I had said a prayer when we were still in the house when I couldn't find them and I think it was a miracle that we found them in plain sight. Thank goodness I hadn't actually lost them for good.
We are now all praying for help to come (at least I think we all were), but we need to figure it out as best we can without help first. So, now we know where the keys are and we've no way to get into the car. I see that the driver's window is rolled down 1/2 cm, and I think that we can pull down the window using our ever so strong fingers and bobby pins. The car has a manual window so I didn't think anything would break if we tried that. But that window is stronger than all of us combined.
Mykell then announces, "Okay! I just prayed! Expect a miracle." Three seconds later, while we are attempting to get the window down, a nice man pulls up and asks what's wrong. I tell him I left my keys in the ignition and locked the door.....again feeling rather stupid. Welllll......he replies that he had the same car and model and he had gotten locked out of it before and do we have a metal hanger?
Imagine that!! He had the EXACT same car and had been locked out of it! That was no coincidence. That was a direct answer to our prayers. We don't have a hanger though so Mykell runs over to the house we were just helping at and asks the lady for a metal hanger then runs back to us. This man hops out of his car and starts working on the locked door. He makes a hook out of the hanger and slips it down between the weather stripping and the window. He tries to get it to flip something, but he can't get it. This attempt goes on for about 15 minutes. Then we think about attaching the hanger to the window and pulling down on the hanger so there's more force concentrated in one spot, but the window again won't come down. Then he bends a little circle into the hanger, feeds it through the centimeter crack in the window (we had gotten it to move 1/2 cm) and tries to get it attached to the window crank so he can crank down the window, but that doesn't work either. Then he tries to hit the lock button with the hanger, but there is nowhere near enough force to move it.
He goes back to fiddling with everything in the door by putting the hanger down between the weather stripping and the window. But that still doesn't work!! We go back and forth between these four different ways. Nothing is working.
After what seems like an hour (it was probably only 1/2 hour) another man drives up and hops out with a slim jim in his hand!! We were saved!!....
.....just kidding.
He didn't know how to use it. He had inherited it when his wife's father passed away so they just had it laying around. Well, many attempts are now made with the slim jim including putting it through the crack at the top of the window and trying to push it down. HA! That doesn't work either.
We are trying our best to attempt every possible solution. I finally call a towing company to see if they can send a locksmith out. A few minutes later, they call back and after a brief conversation I realize they are in Salt Lake. So I say thanks and goodbye.
WELL! As I'm hanging up with a resolution to call a Provo company, one of the girls decides to try the door again.......
.....and it opens!!!!!!!!
The guy who brought the slim jim was fiddling with the hanger between the weather stripping and the window and had unlocked it without realizing! He had come over onto the passenger side where the original guy was trying the slim jim and while he was walking over, one of the girls just....opened it! We are all now in utter shock.
When it sinks in that we are no longer locked out in the rain, the two guys are quick to get back to their cars and go on their way. But! Before the guy who came with the slim jim got back into his car, I walked over and asked if I could give him a hug. He probably saved me 50 dollars that a locksmith would have charged me. The guy who came first was gone before I could adequately say thank you to him, but wow!! It was quite an experience.
It was all a miracle though.
The way I see it, we were all praying really hard to get help, and help came. Then, we were all praying for us to somehow get it unlocked. We tried every possible solution, we tried to figure out what would work best, we were persistent in trying to succeed. We tried and tried but without success. Then someone else came to aid us. We again tried and tried without success. We hadn't exhausted our resources yet. There was one left that I didn't want to use. The locksmith. Once we had done our VERY best (we had called several people to see if they knew anything we and the two guys didn't) and there was nothing left to do except call the locksmith, that's what I did. That didn't work the first time though so I was about to try again when the lock opened. That was Heavenly Father saying, "You've done your best. You tried everything you could. You were willing to do what was needed, but I won't make you pay for the locksmith. You've done what you could, now I'll help you."
It was quite an experience.
And now I'm going to be even more grateful for when Laurel gets home because then she'll have to deal with her car. :)
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