A Remarkable Blessing and Healing That Helped Bring a Family to the Gospel

In November 1997, an Isuzu trooper carrying two missionaries, a counselor in the mission presidency, and his wife traveled through the jungle of Suriname, 25 miles away from the nearest city, Paramaribo. Baby alligators crawled among the dense coconut trees that hung heavily with heat and humidity.

President Rex Hamilton navigated the 4-wheel-drive vehicle over the dirt roads, pulling in front of a shack not much larger than 20 square feet. President Hamilton; his wife, Maurine; and the elders, Jeremy Peterson and Seth Chappell, stepped from the trooper, heading toward the humble home with a shower and lean-to attached to the outside.

As the missionaries entered the house of the Ritfelds, they understood a difficult discussion lay ahead. The family of seven, who, for the past eight years regularly took an hour-long bus ride and sacrificed needed time and money to attend LDS Church services, “were some of the strongest members in the branch, in the country,” Peterson remembers. The only difficulty was, they were not baptized members.

The Ritfeld family

Despite having five daughters and living in a committed relationship together, the Ritfelds were not married—the only barrier standing between their family and baptism. With relatives serving as significant leaders among the Maroon tribes of Suriname, the Ritfelds came from a culture that forbade marriage—a culture where choosing to marry against their family and culture’s wishes would lead to their disinheritance, among other retributions.

So it was little wonder the elders prayed nervously for inspiration as they prepared to teach about the blessing of eternal families. Entering the home—lined with cracks and divided into rooms by curtains—the missionaries decided to teach the children and the parents separately, allowing them to then come together and teach each other.

As the children joined their parents after the discussion, they excitedly exclaimed, “When we are an eternal family, we can have Nicki [their youngest sister] forever,“ President Hamilton remembers. About the tangible reverence that filled the hut, Hamilton says, “There was a spirit you could cut.”

During the Hamiltons’ first visit to the Ritfeld home, Brother Ritfeld handed the couple an envelope filled with x-rays taken of their oldest daughter, Fyen.

“He showed us this x-ray, and the neck came down in this great big ‘c.’ It was severe scoliosis,” Maurine remembers. “They said she would be in a wheelchair in three years it was so severe and that she wouldn’t live very long [because] it was crowding her lungs.”

Despite the grim prognosis, Brother Ritfeld told the Hamiltons, “I have faith that this girl can be cured.”

Given the medical care available in Suriname, the family’s situation, and the severity of Fyen’s scoliosis, a cure seemed impossible. Yet, this father chose to cling to faith. “That was my first impression of him, that he had this much faith,” Maurine says.

The missionaries asked if they could give Fyen a blessing.

Beneath the flickering light of kerosene lanterns, 14-year-old Fyen sat in a chair in the center of the room, her shoulders uneven and back humped as the missionaries placed their hands on her head.

“The Spirit was unlike anything any of us had experienced; it was palpable,” Peterson says. “I remember [President Hamilton] taught in the blessing about Jesus, and he said that when [the Savior] was on the earth, He went about healing people. Then [President Hamilton] said, ‘and He still does.’ [President Hamilton] made that very clear, that Christ still touches us and heals us, and he said that [Fyen] would be healed.”

Fyen with the Hamiltons

With tears in his eyes, Rex Hamilton recalls, “I don’t remember much about the blessing except that at the close, I didn’t dare look up. . . .  I don’t ever remember feeling the Spirit like that. It was powerful, and Sister Ritfeld wrapped her arms around us and wouldn’t let go.”

And yet, nothing had changed. “I remember we took our hands off her head and Fyen stood up. Her back was still crooked and she was still stopped over, but nobody in the room had any doubt that she wouldn’t be healed, even though we couldn’t see it,” Peterson says.

“As we greeted them and left, the Spirit was strong and both mother and father were shedding tears of joy,” Elder Chappell wrote in his missionary journal of the experience. “I also felt again an overwhelming love for this little girl and her family who are so beautiful and ready for the membership. . . . On the way home, as I felt the warm lingering of the spiritual wonder and contemplated what had just taken place, there came to me a comfort that if we left the matter in the hands of the Lord and His own due time, He could perform His miracle. The very important phrase comes to mind that ‘Thy will be done, oh Lord.’”

That blessing came three months before the Hamiltons finished their mission in Suriname and left for the United States. And in that short time, the couple determined to find a way to fulfill that promise of healing.

But the missionary couple came across nothing but roadblocks. A surgery as intensive as Fyen required would mean she would need to travel outside of Suriname under the supervision of a sponsoring doctor. Having worked regularly with the embassy, Maurine understood that “it takes a year to get a passport [in Suriname], let alone a visa.” Of the ever increasing complications, Fyen remembers, “I felt like I was trapped.”

In addition to logistical issues, the Hamiltons needed to navigate cultural concerns by obtaining permission from Fyen’s school and extended family. “It was not something only my parents could decide, but our family together,” Fyen says.

The obstacles seemed insurmountable, and even the workers at the embassy didn’t provide any encouragement.

But, day by day, each hurdle was overcome. President Hamilton’s sister had a daughter with cerebral palsy, and she went to work finding a hospital and doctor willing to perform the surgery. The branch president had contacts that expedited the process of securing Fyen’s passport. A new employee at the embassy sympathized with the Hamiltons’ plight, having had a sister who underwent a similar surgery, and worked to make the demanding deadlines.

Miraculously, all the paperwork settled into place. But the night before Fyen was scheduled to leave for the United States, the Hamiltons received a call.

Driving the 25 miles outside city limits, the Hamiltons arrived at the Ritfeld home to find it brimming with 20 to 30 relatives. Fyen’s grandfather, a leader in the Maroon tribes, wanted to speak with the Hamiltons before he would give his granddaughter permission to leave.

With Brother Ritfeld translating, Fyen’s grandfather asked dozens of questions about the intentions of the Hamiltons. “I think they were afraid we would keep her,” Maurine says. Having celebrated their 45^th wedding anniversary on the day they entered the mission field, the Hamiltons had no intentions of raising another daughter.

After assuring the family Fyen would be well cared for and gone only six months, Fyen’s grandfather presented President Hamilton with an intricate wood carving, representing the agreement between the two men.

“Heavenly Father loves us, and He will make a way for us. He will help us accomplish all those things that He wants us to. I really know He made a way,” Fyen testifies.

The next day, the Hamiltons and Fyen traveled to the airport, accompanied by an entire bus filled with Fyen’s relatives wishing to see her off before her life-changing journey.

Fyen, her family, and the Hamiltons before she left for the U.S.

In February 1998, Fyen left the humid rainforests of her home country for the frozen deserts of Utah. When Fyen arrived at the Hamilton home in Providence, Utah, she didn’t know what the frozen, white powder was that dusted everything from the roads to the tips of the trees.

While Fyen enjoyed playing in the snow for the first time, not all the new experiences in Utah were inviting. “I was freezing. Everything was cold,” Fyen remembers. In fact, the night before her surgery, Fyen remembers the doctors explaining in frightening detail everything she would experience during the surgery. Then she called her family a continent away.

“It was hard for me because they were so far away,” Fyen remembers. “I was so scared. In my mind, I thought, ‘I am going to die.’”

But Fyen wasn’t alone. The man she now came to view as Grandpa Hamilton gave her a blessing while Grandma Hamilton stayed that night—and every night for the following two weeks—with Fyen in the hospital.

After additional tests and x-rays, the doctors knew the surgery would be complicated since one of Fyen’s lungs was underdeveloped and her spine was so twisted that the risk of paralysis remained a constant threat. But after eight painstaking hours of surgery, the doctors emerged to tell the Hamiltons everything had gone according to plan.

“When I woke up . . . I had a peaceful feeling in that moment,” Fyen remembers. “I thought I was in heaven.” But then the tubes jutting from her veins and the constant beeping of computers reminded her where she was.

“While we were in the hospital, never once did she complain about pain,” Maurine remembers of Fyen’s recovery. “I think it was just a miracle how she healed.”

Fyen remembers, “The doctors said, ‘This is a miracle. I have never seen someone who had this surgery and just in a quick two weeks [was] walking and everything.’”

In the months following her surgery, Fyen remained in the United States recovering and exploring National Parks and Disneyland with the Hamilton family.

But more than the attractions, Fyen remembers the way the Hamiltons embraced her as their own and the testimony that quickly grew within her heart.

After Grandpa Hamilton gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon with illustrative stickers decorating the pages, Fyen began to understand the words of this sacred record.

“During my eight months while I was there in Utah, reading the Book of Mormon, that was my strength, that was my comfort, that is where I felt peace,” Fyen remembers. “Reading the Book of Mormon, it really brought me closer to our Heavenly Father and it would bring me closer to my family.”

In addition to her time with the Hamiltons, Fyen spent hours every week with the young women in her new ward.

 “The girls in our ward adopted her. They would come and take her to mutual,” Maurine remembers. In fact, several wards would arrange for Fyen to attend activities on different nights of the week. “She had these experiences she would never have in Suriname in the youth programs because there were few young people in the branch,” Maurine says.

“They really embraced me,” Fyen says of the young women.

Though initially acutely shy, Fyen began to transform, gaining confidence and an outgoing, optimistic personality.

After returning from his mission, Elder Peterson recalls walking into the chapel and seeing Fyen for the first time. “Her back was straight, her shoulders square, and she looked me straight in the eyes,” he recalls.

In addition to the changes and growth Fyen experienced, her family was experiencing a transformation of its own.

Shortly before Fyen returned home, her parents called to announce they would be married the day before Fyen arrived home so that the family could be baptized just days after her return.

Though Fyen could not attend her parents’ civil marriage, she did attend their temple sealing, “and that is the best one,” she says.

After Fyen’s baptism, she quickly introduced the youth in Suriname to the programs she had grown to love in Utah. “I felt I really wanted to take [these experiences] to Suriname and have this be with me and make others a part of that also,” Fyen says. “One of the things I really did was work on my Personal Progress, not only with me but with the Laurel group.”

Almost immediately after Fyen’s return, the Hamiltons noticed a transformation in the membership in Suriname, with more youth serving missions and staying faithful even as the size of the Church grew exponentially—from less than 500 members to 1,545 in just 20 years. Among the youth who joined the Church and later served a mission was Dennis Linger, who later became Fyen's husband.

Fyen continued influencing the youth in Suriname later in life as she served as an institute teacher. Currently, she serves as the Relief Society president in her district.

“For me, to find the restored gospel and to feel . . . love from people that you feel like have been angels, that is the love I want to give . . . . through my callings,” Fyen says.

Fyen has continued to stay close to the Hamiltons, talking to them regularly and seeing them as an extension of her family. After Fyen and Dennis were married, the Hamilton family chipped in to buy the couple a plane ticket to Utah so they could be sealed together in the Logan Utah Temple in July 2015, answering one of Fyen’s prayers.

“The Lord worked through the Hamiltons to help me,” Fyen recalls of her surgery and her new eternal family.

But just as Heavenly Father used the Hamiltons to bring miracles to Fyen’s life, Fyen also recognizes how the Lord is working through her. “I was this little, shy girl that could barely speak, and then Heavenly Father used me to be a light to others, and that is something I really want to try and tell the young women [and members],” Fyen says. “Our Heavenly Father is really using us to bless the lives of others.”

Looking back at her life and the impossible obstacles she has overcome, Fyen has faith that the Church in Suriname will overcome similar obstacles and that one day a temple will be built in her country, fulfilling the promise of Church leaders. She continues, “I know that this gospel is true. I have experienced it from a young girl. I can really testify the Lord works through us and wants us to be happy. . . . I know that if we show love and if we stay faithful in the Church, we can become very strong.”

Images courtesy of Fyen and the Hamiltons