Hola a todos! <Hello everyone!>
I wanted to share with you all a very touching experience we had this week that totally strengthened my testimony of following promptings!
Last Sunday, a senior couple helped us out in our area a little bit and went to find some old investigators for us who live in very foresty (campo) areas. They got us a return appointment for one family. The second family had abandoned the house a looong time ago and the third family wasn’t able to be located. But they called the mom and asked her if she wanted to be taught. She said yes and so the senior couple asked us to call this woman back and set up an appointment. We’ll call her Maria.
Due to crazy days and lack of power (yes it keeps going out – it went out 3 times this week!) we weren’t able to get in contact with her for the majority of the week. Then on Saturday, everything fell through. Literally everything. Even our plans to go contacting didn’t work bc <because> of a giant rain. So we prayed to know what to do and we looked at our giant list of people we needed to contact and my companion felt reeeeally prompted to call Maria exactly at that time.
So we pulled out our handy dandy blue brick phone and guess what? We had no service. Legit none. We walked into the bathroom, no service. We walked into the bedroom, no service. We walked onto the balcony, no service. We walked to the pizza place on the corner, no service. We walked to the next neighborhood, no service. So we went back home defeated but still hopefull that at some point that day we would find service to call Maria. On the walk home, no service. But as soon as I sat down in my chair at my desk, we got service – 3Gs woo-hoo!
So we called her and the phone rang for what seemed to be a million years and we weren’t expecting anything more than to set up an appointment with a hopeful lady. But as soon as we answered the phone and said, “Buenos tardes, nosotras somos las misioneras de la iglesia de jestcristo de los santos de los ultimos dias,” <Good afternoon, we are the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of the saints of the last days> we heard her start to cry and she said she was Maria and she was looking for us.
Poor Maria. She went through a lot because of the hurricane and her pueblo <town> in the mountains she said is still without light and water and she had to evacuate the island after a very serious and sad series of unfortunate events. She explained her story to us through sobs and we couldn’t help but feel her pain. I’ve talked to a lot of people about the emotional and physical effects of Maria they’ve experienced, but it hit home when Maria talked about her situation.
I won’t go into details, I don’t think that would be appropriate, but she told us she has been in Florida for only a few weeks now and she said she looks for our church everytime she leaves her temporary home and she looks every Sunday especially and she has yet to find the church. We asked her why she feels so drawn to our church and she said she just wanted to feel the “brotherly kindness” that she knew our church has.
She wants so badly to return to Puerto Rico and to her home. She said she had to leave it abandoned, but she had to stay in Florida for now for safety reasons and such. We got her info and sent it to the missionaries in her area and wow, let me tell you, there were so many miracles in just being able to figure out who the missionaries were in her area and what their phone number was so they could help her get to the church on Sunday. I don’t have any more time to explain it all to you all, but I’m sure I’ll end up telling this story to all of you again, eventually.
God works miracles every day and I’m grateful I get to see some of them and take part in them!
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Hasta luego <Bye>,
Hermana Thelin