First...
"We didn't have a planned lesson after Charles and this is where the real miracle happened. We decided we wanted to do a pass-by (I'm not sure if it was out of laziness or the Spirit) and went to the house of an inactive member of the church named Abrahan. When we arrived at the house, we didn't see his name on any of the entry phones. So, we rang an entry phone without a name on it (hoping that it was Abrahan's) and got buzzed into a big courtyard. The person that buzzed us in thought we were someone else and quickly shooed us away. We decided we would knock on the remaining doors that surrounded the courtyard hoping to run into Abrahan. No luck.
As we were leaving the courtyard to go back to our car, there was a woman pushing a baby through the entry gate. Her eyes lit up when she saw us! It turns out, she was the wife of Abrahan and had been outside going for a little walk. She isn't a member of the church, but seemed more than happy to let us into her house to meet Abrahan. Plot twist: we had no idea that their door was even a door at all and hadn't knocked it before.
Abrahan happily sat down with us to chat when he saw us. We ended up sharing a little message about Jesus and during the thought, Sister Rosano called him (the sisters have never even mentioned him before to us). Sister Rosano asked him if he was going to come to church and Abrahan politely made up some excuse about not having a ride. After the phone call, Abrahan confessed to us that the real reason he wasn't going to come to church is because he didn't want to. We were then able to help him realize the benefits of church and which lead to his firm commitment that he would come to come to church."
And...
"I wish words could adequately describe what happened to me at the Diaz household today. Anziano Simmons and I were excited because they invited us over for lunch. And on a fast Sunday, a meal appointment is a little tender mercy. However, when we were at the table eating, I was apparently drinking a little too much water... When I went to refill my glass, Lilly screams "STOP" (in English) and then grabed the bottle of water out of my hand. She told me that I couldn't drink anymore until I finished my food. HAHAHA, WHAT?!!
Besides from that awkward moment, the miracle train pulled into our station tonight. We passed by Cristian's house to take the sacrament to his sickly mom and then headed to a nearby city to pass by a random less-active member that we were thinking about. When we got to the less-active member's house, she said that she was too busy and shooed us away. So, with no more lessons planned for the night, we started knocking on doors and talking to people around the city. We were planning on going to the office at 6:30 to catch up on some office work, but our plans quickly changed when we met Mario at 6:27.
Mario was smoking a cigarette in front of a bar and didn't seem super interested when we first started talking to him. However, after a few minutes of shmoozling, he offered us a café from the bar. We declined the café and let him buy us a cookie instead. After a few more minutes of talking, he asked us if we wanted a special tour of the city's Santa Francesca Saverio Cabrini museum (a revered woman in the Catholic Church who served a mission all over the world). We politely agreed and within minutes, one of Mario's friends was leading us down the street to the museum. At this point, the museum's visiting hours were closed, so the tour really was pretty special! And at the end of the night, Mario's friend gave us a free Francesca book from the museum gift shop and Mario gave us his phone number and said we could meet some other time to talk about our message of Jesus Christ!"
And finally...
"So, tonight, Anziano Simmons and I started teaching a family of five. Yes, FIVE! Mirko's neighbor turned out to be a cute little family from Romania. They have lived here for over 10 years and speak the language well. We were able to teach the restoration to them and it was a PERFECT lesson (the type of lesson that you start jumping up and down for joy when you exit the investigator's house). They seemed to understand everything really well and were excited to read the Book of Mormon. After kneeling in prayer with the entire family at the end of the lesson, I wanted to scream out, "This is what missionary work is all about!" Teaching a family is something I haven't done thus far in my mission, but it's definitely something I hope to continue.
The good feelings didn't stop there. After our exciting family lesson, we headed over to Lucky's house. Lucky is an African refugee who we met on the streets a couple weeks ago. We didn't know what to expect going into the lesson, but were pleasantly surprised when we showed up at his house. He lives in a government owned refugee camp and when we arrived tonight, we were pleasantly greeted by a dozen enthusiastic Nigerian men. We taught the restoration lesson to them too. As the lesson wore on, more and more of the Nigerian men lost interest and started doing their own thing. By the end of the lesson, only two attentive listeners remained: Lucky and Silvester.
Lucky's faith is probably a little more simple than Silvester's, but they are both really great. Silvester is extremely intelligent and cited at least 15 scriptures from the Bible during our time together. There was one point during the lesson when he used the word bona fide and I was wondering to myself who in the world we were teaching (that definitely is not a word in my vocabulary). There were a few specific moments tonight where I could recognizably feel the Spirit. I love this church!!"
There are a lot more miracles that I experienced than the ones listed above... we are truly being blessed! Thank you for the consistent love and prayers you send me way.
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