In 1981, my younger brother, Larry Lowe (now Professor of Horn at BYU and bishop of the BYU 183rd Ward) had finally landed his first job. He had secured a position with an orchestra in Vera Cruz, Mexico. While he traveled to Mexico to find a place to live, his wife Jennilynn, and his two daughters, Lauralynn and Wendy, stayed with my family in Texas. The Larry left Dallas on a Friday night, and began his drive to Vera Cruz. On Saturday night, tragedy struck at our house. Wendy, who was 16 months old at the time, was trying to "help" Jenny cook dinner. Jenny was frying tacos in a deep fat fryer. Wendy grabbed the cord to the fryer and pulled it off the counter, spilling 400+ degree grease all over her legs and feet.

We immediately called 911, while my wife placed Wendy in the sink, running cool water over her legs. The ambulance came, and took Wendy to the hospital. I called our Elder's Quorum president, Bruce Black (Dallas 6th ward), who met us at the hospital. We gave Wendy a blessing that she would be healed completely, and show no long term effects from the accident. Wendy is now a senior in high school in Springville, Utah, and will start BYU this fall studying music (opera). She, naturally, has no visible scars from the accident.

Meanwhile, Larry was somewhere in Mexico. The next day, Sunday, I spent six hours on the telephone trying to find an orchestra in Vera Cruz, or a theater, or some way to find someone who might know where to find my brother. I knew that the first thing he would do when he got to Vera Cruz would be to find the Church. In my less-than-adequate Spanish I called directory assistance, asking for a number for the church. Of course, the only "Church" in Mexico is the Catholic Church, so that got me nowhere. I even tried to call the American Embassy in Mexico City, to no avail. Finally, after much prayer, I decided to call church headquarters in Salt Lake and ask for a phone number to the church in Vera Cruz. I am not sure that normally there would be anyone at church headquarters on a Sunday. But at least on this day, there was. I was given the phone number for the Stake President in Vera Cruz. I called him at home, and he told me that, no, he knew nothing of a new LDS musician in Vera Cruz, but he would see what he could do. A half hour later, my telephone rang, and it was my brother Larry.

The stake president had decided that his best course of action was to tell the missionaries to keep a look out for Larry. He figured it was a long shot, but worth trying. Their reply to the Stake President was that they had met Larry about 20 minutes earlier, on a street corner. They had told him where their ward met, and he had told them where he was staying.

There are many miracles in this story. The greatest miracle, of course, is the healing power of the priesthood. Then there is the faithfulness to the gospel that Larry and I learned from our parents, so that I knew without hesitation that if I could find the church, I would find Larry. Then there are the wonderful coincidences (Eld. Neal A. Maxwell says that there are no coincidences, just lots of minor miracles) that Larry had run into the missionaries on the street, that I was able to find the Stake President's phone number, and that the Stake President was inspired to talk to these same missionaries.