SUCH a good week....
So.. Carol and Alfonzo from Mexico. They got invited to church by the family Caldera; they came, we visited them, they legit disappeared. We stopped by, left a note on their door, stopped by a week later, the note was still there. We come to find out, they had went back to Mexico. We pretty much gave up, because of their financial circumstance, we thought they were back in Mexico for good. WELL, we get a text from the Elders that says "GUESS WHO WE ARE TALKING TO RIGHT NOW" ... it was Alfonzo. He had called them to get information about something, and told them that they were back in Canada!! YAY! So that day, we were over in the West Zone area and were driving to a potential's house. As we were driving, I flash backed to four months ago when Hermana Ratliff and I were in this area and I had noticed a house that could be potential Spanish. I told myself, "oh we'll stop by after we knock the first door" but then a voice clear as day came to my head and told me "Timing matters." Which kinda freaked me out, like what does that mean?? But I followed the prompting and told Hermana Morgan I felt that we should knock this door that I saw four months ago first. We knocked it... some kid who was like 12 that was white haha. I was kinda bummed and still didn't know why we needed to knock his door first. We drive over to the other street, park, pray, get out and are walking toward the potential house... when we see Hermano Caldera crossing the street. We say hi to him, but don't chat for long because we had just recently visited him and his family. We continue walking and I swear to you, another voice came to mind and said "tell him that Carol and Alfonzo are in town" so okay I immediatly turn around and run back over to him and tell him to let his wife know that Carol and Alfonzo are back in town. As soon as I told him that, I felt so much peace. Fast forward a couple hours to 8:45 at night... we are wrapping up our classes of english when we get five texts in a row from Carol -- she was having a rough night... A LOT of personal things that were beginning to take it's toll on her. She said that Hermana Caldera had called her and she said as they were talking, she explained everything that was going on and Caldera just told her over and over that she needed to call the sisters. So Carol texted us, which she told us she wanted to wait until Sunday because she felt so much verguenza and didn't want to bother us. But we dropped everything, called the elders, and drove up 20 to Airdrie and they were able to give her a blessing of comfort. and WOWza... such a beautiful blessing. She just cried and cried and the spirit was so strong. It definitely was a tender mercy from the Lord and an experience I'll never forget. But I KNOW... if I hadn't of followed that first prompting to knock that door first, we wouldn't have seen Hermano Caldera. And I KNOW if I hadn't had listened to the spirit tell me to let him know Carol and Alfonzo were in town, Hermana would not have called Carol and told her to recieve a blessing from the missionaries. Hopefully that long chain of events makes sense haha... but it was so cool! The Lord is up there in the heavens putting every piece of our lives together. Every single moment counts, and we've been promised that if we are worthy, we will have the Holy Ghost guiding us in every moment. Oh and Carol and Alfonoz and their kids came to church on Sunday - wahoo! :)
Our other Investigators... Raul and Maria, also from Mexico. We found got them referred to us from the Madrin Elders who found them tracting. We were able to teach Maria on Wednesday and had a really really cool lesson with her. The best part hands down, was at the end when she prayed FOR THE FIRST TIME. She always would have us pray, because she told us she didn't know how. Well, by the end of the lesson, we taught her how to pray using the pamphlets, and her prayer was beautiful. She just cried. When she finished, I looked up and she just had tears streaming down her cheeks.. so of course, I just started crying! Super cool. Okay... so we set up a return appointment from Sunday. We could not get ahold of the member we wanted to take.. it was very stressful, because having the perfect member makes all the difference. So finally, we decided to switch who we were going to bring, and we brought Hermana Eva Gonzalez, Bishop's wife. We all got there, knocked the door... and Raul answers. He looks at Eva and Eva looks at him and immedaitly Eva starts crying and he just starts saying "Ay Senora Eva!" and she just says over and over "Raul!" THEY KNEW EACH OTHER. Whaaaat the!! They had been friends from work and hadn't seen each other in forever, and Eva used to always invite them to church activties.. Literally mine and Hermana Morgan's jaws just dropped. We were shocked! It was crazy and we had a killer lesson. At the end of the lesson... once again, the Spirit told me to give him a Plan of Salvation pamphlet... at first I tried to ignore the prompting (I dont' konw why I keep trying to ignore the promptings, you would think I had learned by now.....) but the prompting was too strong. So while it was all quiet, I reach into my Mary - Poppin's bag to find a pamphlet, pull it out, and hand it to him. And Raul starts freaking out! And says "esperen!" and runs to get this backpack. He pulls out the same foto that's on the POS pamphlet, except his foto is all torn and it's smaller and it's super super old. He told us the story of how he was in Montreal and found this pass alongcard (from the Mormon church, woot!) put it in his backpack, and has kept it ever since! He was so amazed... ah the spirit! I'm tellin you.. you gotta follow Him!!
Long email, BUT those were two really amazing experiences I had this week. The Lord is here every step of this work.. I have such a strong testimony of that! \ I know I'm exactly where I need to be.
Abrazos
Hermana Dean
