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
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