A few apologies to start off. The man who I described last week is named Álvaro. I will continue his story below. Also, I didn´t have time to throw in photos, will have to wait until next time. Here at the library we just cant upload.
So we met up with Álvaro again this week. In the last visit we had he mentioned that when he was baptized (10 years ago to refresh you guys) he made a little drawing that represented his understanding of the Plan of Salvation and the Restoration. He described it a little, I asked him if he still had hid, he replied "no, but I´ll draw up another one for ya". We showed up this week for our visit, he wasnt at home, so we called him and he showed in 10 minutes, with his daughter and chocolate for us. We entered, sat down, talked just a minute when suddenly Álvaro said "Alright can I get us started with a prayer?" "Of course!" he did so, and immediately got up to fetch his glasses and a little notebook. He opened it up and showed us the drawing he had made for us. Without us saying a single word, he went about explaining his diagram which outlined the Plan of Salvation and the Restoration all together, very well done. He explained all the details and then only expressed a couple small questions of things he had forgotten. We answered his questions, and it was just a great conversation. After 10 years of being baptized and never going to church he remembered everything perfectly. Next week I will try my best to show you guys a photo of that drawing, he gave it to us. We actually showed it to Pres. Rui and he said "yup, I want to have a copy of this, this is useful" hahaha.
Álvaro is an amazing man, and although we´ve only had 2 visits, its been so great working with him. He is just like a child, excited to learn and review with us, he has missed the church. He unfortunately didn´t make it to church on sunday..... his boss pulled a last minute "oh hey, youre working tomorrow" thing. Pretty annoying, but we will fight for next week.
He told us a couple other stories, and for lack of time, I cannot tell them entirely. However, we wanted to know if he had any evangelical influences, because he´s been attending there with his wife because he never found the LDS church here. He said just this "Whenever I walk into a church, I walk up to the bishop, priest, father, pastor, sobeit, and I say ´Im a christian, like you, but we´ve got some differences in beliefs. I will be here to here the word, but just so you know I will not agree with everything you say. I am here to support my family because my wife likes this church. However, I will not speak any bad of you, nor will I sway any of your followers.´" He then said that he has already shared his testimony of the restoration of the gospel through Joseph Smith many many times with many people. We were impressed.
We will be visiting him more this week.
We also had a visit with Alice. She is doing well, and bad at the same time. She absolutely loves our visits and all the doctrine that we are teaching her. She soaks it all up with no problem. However, she is an older woman, and a bit frail. Everything was in order for her to come this week to church, but she actually fell and hurt her arm a bit, and ended up with other small health problems such as blood pressure fluctuation (or something like that). Unfortunately the majority of the health problems she has are caused by her stress that she passes through. But things are still well, we will be working with her, just needs some time. She will surely make it to church soon and surely progress much much more.
Ive got a ton of more cool things to share, but no time!
Okay, one more!
This week we explored a bit in our area, and found a little residential pocket behind a very touristy area, and we thought "hey maybe we could come back around these parts". So, we planned, and did so.
We got there about 7pm, already dark, and started knocking on doors. To enter into an apartment building here, there is a thing with a lot of doorbells at the entrance, and you have to ring these telephone doorbell thingies and talk to people (if theyre home) in order to get in and knock more doors. Many times we buzz and entire building with a dozen or so apartments and nobody opens. So we´re buzzing doors, and we actually split up to buzz two buildings at the same time (dont worry, we could still see and hear each other).
There was this lady walking her dogs with a young girl. I thought nothing of it, I was busy ringing doorbells. I then thought "hey, I oughtta talk to her," but I ignored it. A man picked up the phone on the other end of the doorbell thing and said, as they always do, "who is it?" I replied, simple, "Hello! we´re missionaries etc etc." He said, "nah, not interested." — Normal.
Then this lady walked up to me and the door, also normal. I said "oh sorry, did you want to enter? Excuse me."
"No no, no worries, I wanted to actually see who you were."
Not normal.
"Oh, um, Im Elder Ward, Im a missionary from the church etc etc... What´s youre na—naw, are you Mónica?"
Mónica was a referal that we recieved from a member about a month ago. This member, Odília, works in a call center and had an hour long conversation about the church with Mónica, and passed the info to us, the both of them very excited. We called and messaged many times and she was very interested, but we never got a scheduled appointment. unfortunately, so we ended up trying less, until we had stopped trying to reach her.
"Yes, I am. I recognized your voice, you are the missionary I spoke with!"
What?
We ended up talking with her for about a half hour. We got a lot of things cleared up, we got her address, and gave her a book of mormon then and there. She´s awfully nice and it was just really cool. She said "I dont believe in coincedences." —amen.
We scheduled for tonight, but she hasnt picked up the phone, so we´ll try passing by there anyways. Im excited to work with her in the near future.
Anyways, the time is gone! Sorry! I want to include more details... but I just dont have time.
Gotta run,
Ciao!
Elder Ward
gaaaaaaahhhh!!!!!
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