Just Act Natural

Hola familia,

Thank you all, really for your prayers on behalf of my dear hijita Hermana C.  They are felt and she definitely needs them.  She is strong, but it is still really hard.   Today is her moms birthday.  Considering that it will be her last, the family is throwing her a crazy Oprah Winfrey-style whatever the heck you want you get type of birthday.  She seems happy, and is coming to church for the first time in years, so we are definitely seeing some tender mercies here.

Okay, I debated if I should tell you people this or not but you are always assuring me that you are not "reactionary type parents" So here we go... An awesome story about how God protects his little sister missionaries in Guatemala.

NOTE: If you are a worrier, just skip this letter until I am safely home and then you can read it.

This week we had a huge miracle. There is a less active family in our ward who recently made the decision to come back to church.  They have been coming for a few weeks but this Sunday the bishop told us that their son, who is 9 years old, has never been baptized. Additionally, they attended church with their aunt and two of their cousins who also are not members. Obviously, we were pretty excited about that so we set a cita with them for the following day (yesterday).

Well, this family lives pretty far away and in an area that isn't safe to go walking at night, so we found a member who was willing to give us a ride in her car.  Last night, as we were driving up the member told us that she just didn't feel right and asked if we could pull over and say a prayer.  After we finished the prayer we continued driving and got to the appointment. 

At first everything seemed normal.  The family was really excited to see us and invited us into their humble home.  We sang a hymn and started with a prayer.  One of the daughters ran next door to invite her aunt and cousins to join us.  They were taking a super long time and it was getting late so we just decided to start without them and not wait until they came in.

 About 5 minutes into the lesson we heard a knock at the door.  My heart sank into my stomach.  Without even opening the door I just knew something was very wrong.  One of the sons opened the door, expecting to find his aunt and cousins waiting for him.  Instead, he found his uncle, under the influence of hard core drugs, clearly upset, with a pack of cigarettes in one hand, and a pistol gripped in the other.

We were sitting in a circle teaching when the man entered.  He stood right behind my companion and I and began speaking with the wife of the family we were teaching.

Him: "why are they here?"

Me: "Hermano, we are just here to talk about Jesus.  We were about to finish, but you are welcome to join us."

Him: "Better if I wait back here."

We then proceeded to try and end the lesson.  But, there I was, trying to teach about Jesus while meanwhile this man was standing behind my companion staring her down with a death grip on his gun. I couldn't shake the cold, ugly feeling that I had when he entered the home.

My companion didn't even miss a beat.  We just tried to act natural and end the lesson.  Then quickly as we could we ended the lesson and got the heck out of there.

The member was crying as we frantically booked it out of there and I hurried and called our district leader who told me to call President Markham directly.  President gave me some council and it won't happen again but man... We are all just grateful for the protective influence of The Lord.  I know and I testify that we don't have to be afraid, because when we are obedient we are protected. 

Anyway, just one more Guatemalan adventure to add to the list.

Thanks for praying for our safety.  99.99 percent of the time I feel perfectly safe here, but every once in a while we see a glimpse of the "angels that go before our faces."

Funny story of the week:

Our house has two doors, an interior door that looks like a normal door you would see in the US and an outer door which is made out of metal and has a crazy hard core lock on it.  In order to enter the house you have to open both doors,.... The only thing is that we only have a key to the metal door.  But it's okay because it is completely secure with the metal door only.  We just know that we can't lock the first door when we leave.

Well, WE know that... But we had divisions this week and I forgot to tell the sister training leaders about the door.  Without meaning to, they locked us out of our own house.  So, we called the Zone Leaders to ask what we should do.  They were telling us that we would have to break a window or call a locksmith.  We were frustrated thinking it would take our entire afternoon and we would have to pay for the damages.  So I call our district leader to ask him if he knows a member who could help us out.  This was his response:

"It's just a door? Hermana Wise, I was not a good person before I got baptized.  I can break into your house easily."

The elders got to our house in 10 minutes... It took Elder Pineda less than a minute to break into our house...

It really pays off to have a district leader who is a former juvenile delinquent.

Well folks, that is about it for this week... We also had two different investigators fail their baptismal interviews.  Satan is attacking Palin hard.  Pray for us here.

Love you people.  Praying for you always.

Con todo mi amor,

Hermana Wise