Monday, February 29, 2016

Misfortunes and Miracles♥

Brace yourselves. This week was a little...really crazy!!
I’m going to start at the beginning!

This past Tuesday, I had a really cool personal finding experience. We were walking a street looking for someone to teach. We were walking pretty slow, passing houses on the way and I felt the Spirit tell me to go to the house on my right that had the door open. So that’s what we did. I introduced who we were to the woman who looked about 30, and I didn’t even have time to ask if we could share a message with her before she told us to come in!! We entered her house and sat down. She immediately told us that about a year and a half ago she was visiting with her friends in their house, when Elder Parker and Elder Savedra (the Elders in the area at the time), came and shared a gospel message with all of them. She became really interested but could never find the missionaries again after that. And there we were!!! She mentioned how she is divorced and lives with her 8 year old son, who showered us with stickers during our visit. We taught the woman, Carolina, about the restoration and because she is an ex Jehovah’s Witness, clarified doubts and questions that she had. She accepted everything!! She was so happy that we were there and she even ordered chicken burritos for us to eat with her. It was the first actual burrito that I have eaten since I got here and was soooo good...but that’s not the point…. I was so happy when we left! I was grateful that I listened to the Spirit. It’s hard for me to think about how many missed opportunities that I have had because I haven’t listened to the Spirit. It’s so important that I am sensitive to its promptings. 

Wednesday, we had divisions in Guacimo with Hermana Moon and Hermana Tabora. I worked with Hermana Tabora all day. It was an interesting experience to say the least. At night, I noticed that it’s a lot darker there and it made me feel a little uneasey. Well we were in a family home evening when all of a sudden, someone came and told us that Hermana Moon and Hermana Tejeda were assaulted just down the street from where we were. Yeah assaulted!! Hermana Tabora and I took off running to find them but they had returned home! One of the members walked us home because we were really nervous. It turned out that the guy that assaulted them had a mask on and the only things that he took were our phone and Hermana Tejeda’s planner because they screamed and he ran away. Safe to say that we couldn’t sleep Wednesday night, out of fear and because it’s like 100 degrees in their house and the Hermanas don’t like the fan....what’s up with that?! HahaJ

When we came home Thursday we luckily had another cell phone in our apartment but we were missing the SIM card. We did what everyone here does and went and bought he chip at one of the stores. We got all of that settled and headed out to do our visits. We had an appointment planned at the Bishop’s house which is really far and the Elders had given us directions. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the house. We decided to call the Bishop to ask. Well, it turns out that the phone that we were using DOESN'T WORK. He was saying "hello? hello? hello?" and he couldn’t hear us! No one that we called could hear us. Ok, that was when I knew that we needed to head back to the part of our area that was familiar. It was dark and I was nervous from the assault the night before. Well, the only way back was to WALK THE FREEWAY. Yeah we did that. It was quite the experience trying not to be hit by a truck haha. Don’t worry, I’m alive. We made it back and continued with our appointments almost 3 hours later. Wednesday and Thursday weren’t the best but they are definitely memories.

Yesterday at church we saw major miracles. While one of the Elders was sharing his talk, I felt that someone was in the doorway of the building. I looked and saw that a young woman was waving for us to come help her. It was about 5 minutes before the close of Sacrament Meeting and a couple and their nephew who were new investigators were there asking for help. Hermana Tejeda and I found them seats and then accompanied them throughout church. Apparently, the missionaries had invited them to church about 3 years ago and they came but never returned, and neither did the missionaries to their house (WHAT!!). The woman, Maria, said that she has been missing something in her life and wanted to come back to our church. The husband, Andres, is gringo!!! He is learning Spanish and was so happy that I could explain things to him in English. He had no fear to try to share his thoughts in the classes. I am so so so excited to teach them!! They have plans to keep coming to church which makes me really happy. All of our investigators struggle with coming to church. I’m also super excited to teach a little bit in English. It’s funny how much I’ve forgotten! 

Well, that was my week!! I hope yours was amazing! I love you all!
Keep going strong and stay true to the faith! 
Love Hermana Zerilli

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