LDS Marathoners Tell Their Stories

LDS Living ^ | April 17, 2013 | Rhett Wilkinson

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Some ran an additional eight miles beyond the marathon just to reunite with loved ones. Others were spared after receiving VIP tickets that placed them across the street from the explosions. All are grateful for the miraculous blessings that kept them safe and sound.

Cell phones and VIP passes convinced Heather Ekola and her husband Josh that they had been uniquely blessed by the Lord in helping to be preserved from the savagery of the Boston Marathon bombings.

The Springboro, Ohio, couple was among many Latter-day Saints participating in Monday’s world-renowned race who found themselves safe after the worst attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001—many of whom attributed their fortunate condition to divine blessing.

The twin blasts on Monday killed three people, including an 8-year-old boy, and sent 183 others to the hospital, some of whom were marred by bombs loaded with ball bearings and nails. Thirteen had limbs amputated, according to hospital officials.

In her nine previous races, Ekola wouldn’t have felt her phone vibrating 24 miles into the 26.2-mile marathon because she had never brought it. But for this trip, for some reason she decided to take it. And just a couple miles shy of the finish line, her phone was suddenly bombarded with 204 new messages.

Two blasts, resulting from heavy devices made out of pressure cookers in dark-colored nylon bags, had just exploded--just across the street from where her husband was, and exactly where he should have been.

The only reason he wasn't there was because Ekola and her running partner, Libby Brown, had unexpectedly been given VIP passes that morning by a manager of Team Hoyt—the charity group supporting Dick Hoyt, who has pushed his 51-year-old quadriplegic son Rick in some 1,000 races across the country.

Josh is adamant that had he, along with Brown’s husband, Brian, not used those passes, he would have found himself on the wrong side of Boylston Street Monday afternoon. “I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason,” he said. “I don’t know why and how everything that day unfolded, but I’m very grateful that not more people were injured and I pray for those that were, and their families.”

Ekola, who met up with her husband after running 10 more miles (for a total of 34) after being rerouted through the city, mentioned President Hinckley’s injunction that fear and faith cannot co-exist. “What happened is shameful, it’s wicked, it’s cruel, it’s pure evil in its truest form. But I feel very blessed through all of it,” she said. “This will not dampen people’s spirits. People will mourn and people will grieve, but you can do anything you set your mind to do. . . . Whatever it is, you have a choice: you choose to sink, or you choose to swim.”

Shelley Coutu hadn't trained as well for the race as she should have, and the Cottage Grove, Minn., resident had traveled 25.5 miles before finding herself stacked behind about a dozen people near Massachusetts Ave., where the trail begins to bottleneck normally. Coutu believed someone had fallen, and posted to Facebook asking about the holdup. That was how she learned what had really happened.

“Then I heard big bangs,” she said. Texting hardly worked because of the suddenly heavy traffic load, and individuals began to cry and panic after finding legitimacy in the word “bomb” permeating the crowd.

“Once that hit me, I was a bit stunned and didn’t know what to do,” she said.

After managing to take a taxi to meet her husband at their hotel, she realized that running at her normal speed would have placed her at the finish line exactly when the bombs exploded near the finish line. Her lack of preparation for the race had possibly saved her life.

“I feel like this was in the works for a long time, like that’s how it was supposed to be,” she said. “This has certainly helped me realize that the picture is much broader than I ever knew. Things just get put in place months and years in advance, and you are just watched over.”

Coutu said she doesn’t know why she was preserved and others weren't, acknowledging a scripture from the Savior’s Sermon on the Mount that our Father in Heaven “maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). But she is grateful nonetheless for factors in life magnified by tragedy.

[Elsie]

Ain’t it just SO cute when the little darlings stand up in the T&FM times and recite what Mommy and Daddy has taught them!

[Elsie]

Hey MORMANS 2 words for ya, “Mountain Meadows”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5evKY5n0GM

[Elsie]

Thanks for posting the article. What a tragedy the bombing was and thank God for protecting the vast majority of people there.

Too bad HE didn't 'protect' the 100 or so in Massachusetts that day that would lose their lives due to the CHOICE of their 'mother'.

[Elsie]

So are you saying that the practitioners of mormnism are a mockery in this situation?

I think they are just deceived.

[Elsie]

 

MORMON

ATTITUDES OF SUPERIORITY

 

  1. I’m Superior; I have a special gift of the holy Ghost -- you don’t!
  2. I’m Superior; I have God’s true priesthood power -- you don’t!
  3. I’m Superior; I can go in God’s secret Temple -- you can’t!
  4. I’m Superior; I’ve been Endowed with special Gifts and Knowledge -- you’re just normal!
  5. I’m Superior; I’ll have my family with me in heaven -- you’ll be with strangers!
  6. I’m Superior; I’m becoming a God -- you aren’t!
  7. I’m Superior; My women know their place as servants of man and yours don’t.
  8. I’m Superior; YOUR creeds are wrong because they come from man - mine comes from God (you can find each one printed in our Scriptures).
  9. I’m Superior; I don’t HAVE a creed - I’ve got 13 Articles of Faith.
10. I'm Superior; I have 4 "Bibles"-- the standard works (5 if you count the JST) -- you've only got one: in as far as it is translated correctly.
11. I’m Superior; I can lie with impunity about such things as church membership, church growth, church doctrine, church history, church influence, etc. —                           -- You can’t.
12. I’m Superior; I am right (everybody knows) when I say 'evangelical' Christians are lunatics -- 

                           -- You’re a hideous narrow-minded bigot, who is persecuting me by practicing discrimination by saying I'm not a Christian.
13. I'm Superior; I have a testimony about a prophet -- you don't.
14. I'm Superior; I have a Scripture-producing Amos 3:7 prophet -- you don't
15. I’m Superior; I have a Living Prophet who talks to god every day -- you have a dim-witted hireling of Satan who only talks to himself.
16. I'm Superior; I have my calling & election made sure -- you don't.
17. I’m Superior; I have magic underwear to protect me from the bogey man -- you don’t.
18. I’m Superior; I have secret clasps and grips to give the angel so I get admitted to the celestial kingdom -- you don’t ;so you can’t.
19. I'm Superior; I know secret handshake codes for afterlife entrances-- you don't.
20. I’m Superior; I will see Joseph Smith setting on the right hand of GOD, when I get to Mormon heaven, and he will recognize me and judge me favorably                              -- You’re on your own; when you get to wherever you’re going!
21. I’m Superior; I’m going to hie to Kolob -- you’re going to who knows where.
22. I’m Superior; I get to have a harem and act like a celestial stud for time and all eternity -- you don’t.
23. I’m Superior; I have sun stones, moon stones, sky stones, cloud stones, Saturn stones, and the evil eye of Osirus guarding my temple

                            -- You have nothing but a stupid cross.
24. I’m Superior; My church has billions in assets stashed away -- yours has taken a stupid vow of poverty.
25. I'm Superior; Last - we have the power to keep a whole race out of our priesthood if we wanted to reinsert our 148-year legacy  (we ARE still keeping an entire GENDER at bay!)

26.  I'm superior; I have the "higher law" -- everyone else "lives under the "lesser law' because I say so...(over and over).

 

 

Revision 46.5

Semi-Official creed of the EXclusive club of Freeper Flying Inmans.

All rights liable to be abused.

[Elsie]

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Hahahaha! I’ve SEEN that glove before! A Ex-Mormon preacher up in Utah, whose name I forget. He had a show, and it seems the LDS, with the help of some “Evangelicals,” managed to get him off the air earlier this year.

[Tennessee Nana]

Yeah theyre slow out there...

Willard passed it in MASS 10 years ago...

[Tennessee Nana]

The Mormon gods seem busy in MASS

[Elsie]

Dang!

I shudda switched from being a JW to be a MORMON!

THEIR gloves have little pitchers on them!