This week Hna. Cuello and I did a lot of walking in really chilly and windy weather.
We had a good start to the week, finally getting into a door before the Jehovah Witnesses started making their nightly rounds. We knocked a door and were instantly welcomed in by an older man and his buddy who were drinking "mate" with one of their daughter-in-laws sharing with them. As we sat down and started chatting with them, a knock came on the door. They looked at us and jokingly said, “here comes your opposition…” Hahaha….sure enough, the Jehovah Witness “sister missionaries” were at the door waiting to talk to the daughter-in-law! She stood in the doorway and chatted with them for a few minutes while we sat inside and joked with the old men drinking their mate. Karma, right!??!? They got into one door before us a few weeks ago and now we got in another one first…!
We had a very interesting experience with a member who got baptized a little over a year ago and who has unfortunately become less active. As we approached his house, with the directions we took out of our ward list, Hna. Cuello and I just looked at each other in confusion. The address to his house was a home we have knocked multiple times in the past 2 transfers, not to mention how many times Hna. Cuello knocked that door with her other companion here before me. The response was always the same from the woman who came to the door…a big no and a quick slam of the door. Doubting that it was really the house of this less active member, we started to walk away. I hesitated, thinking that we should just double check and ask to speak to this man by his name. We’d never knocked at the door and asked to speak to someone in specific. So…we reluctantly rang the door bell, fully expecting to be shooed away again. To our surprise, Ramon came to the window and started talking to us. He was the member we were looking for! He told us to come back in the afternoon when he could talk longer. So, we went back in the afternoon and he explained his whole life story to us about his addiction to drugs and the money he made by drug dealing, the missionaries that came and taught him and saved his life, and his ultimate conversion. With tears in his eyes, he talked about the elders that were angels to him that came to his home and literally helped him change his life. As we were listening to him, he told us how he’d been thinking about killing himself the past couple of days, and then we showed up at his door in the morning. He was thrilled to see someone from the church because he felt abandoned when the elders were transferred and the members really didn’t keep visiting him. He’s had a rough life to say the least and now currently cares for all the stray dogs that cross his path. (while we were teaching him one morning, there were 6 or 7 dogs all heaped together next to his little wood-burning stove/chimney!....hmm…fleas…(.I don’t want to even think about it!)
Needless to say, he is anxious to come back to church after some pending knee surgery and once he is a bit more recovered after being accidentally electrocuted.
The real miracle of the week came Saturday night. We had been walking and knocking doors all day and hadn’t gotten into one door. We were working in an area that we had never worked in and for which there were few references in the area book….now we understand why! The neighborhood was a little bit tougher than some of the others in our area, but we knew we’d find someone. We kept up our spirits by taking funny pictures along the way.
We had set our goal for new investigators as 3 for the day, and as of 7pm, we had 0. We stopped and said a prayer that we might be able to find those 3 people and kept on walking. We walked a couple more blocks and then turned down a street. The corner house was a “no” and the second house was set back with a metal door at the gate, etc…so we walked past. Then I walked back a few steps and saw through the crack that the door to their house was open, so I went back to the metal door and clapped…Teresa, a 45 year-old mom came to the door and after asking her if we could come in and say a prayer with her and her family, she let us right in. There inside was her 14 year old daughter (with braids nearly to her knees) and her husband fixing a hole in their door…3 people. So, we started talking a bit and both Hna. Cuello and I felt instantly comfortable and we just started joking around a little bit. While we had come in just to say a prayer, we ended up teaching them the entire first lesson and committing them to be baptized when they know it’s the true church. It was a great lesson and they told us to come back whenever we want to. I have never felt such a connection with a family upon first meeting them as I did with Teresa, Raul and Gina. It was truly amazing and nothing short of a tender mercy and miracle of the Lord. I felt so sure and testified to them that they were the three people we were meant to find that day and that we’d walked around all day, just to find them. The Lord truly does know all of His children and where all of them are; no one is lost in the Lord’s sight.
Love to you all!
Until next week,
Hna. Pelton
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