Yesterday started off grand. After personal study, we left to pick up an investigator, a single mom named Mikey, and her two kids. We had met her earlier this week while contacting. We offered to help her sweep, which she said no to, but pretty soon we started chatting and, upon finding out the last name of Hermana Frias, she got super excited and said that was her last name as well. We talked about that and then invited her to church, which she got super excited about. She turned to her kids and said; "Hear that? We´re going to church this Sunday!" And so, when Sunday morning arrived, they did just that. We went to their house and picked them up and they went to all three hours. We haven´t even taught them a lesson yet! I thought that was pretty cool. We´ll see what happens with them this week :) Two other investigators of ours showed up as well. Hermano Apolinar and Hermano Anthony. They are both so great. Hermano Apolinar is this wise, older man, who knows more about the gospel than the average member I´m pretty sure. He has a great desire to be baptized, but won´t do it unless his wife does as well, who says she feels like she´s lacking something and hasn´t quite gotten her answer. Hermano Anthony is a bright kid who loves our church a bunch. The only problem is that we need to get his parents in on our lessons, which is difficult because his mom and dad are always working. Well, as I said, yesterday started off grand. Church was great and we had some good food at a member´s house then had some good appointments. After the sun went down however, it got really cloud and the sky was ugly with lightning. It wasn´t raining yet and the electricity was still working (meaning the streets were still lighted), so we decided to go to an appointment we had with a recent convert. I had a bit of an uneasy feeling, but I brushed it aside, since the last few nights we had to go home because of the storm, everything cleared up really fast and it felt like time wasted. Well, we went to the apointment and towards the end of the lesson, the rain really started pounding. Like hard. And then, just as we were closing up, all the lights went out. I pulled out my little keychain light, Hermana Frias and I looked at each other like oh no what have we done, and we closed the lesson. As we looked outside, I asked if I could borrow an umbrella since we only had one. They gave me one and I opened it, stepping outside into the dark street. I looked up and saw the mad amount of lightning (seriously the lightning here is like ntohing I´ve seen before) and thought... Oh gosh, I am holding a metal stick into the air during a lightning storm, practically asking for an opportunity to preach in the Spirit World. I ducked back in the house and explained this to my companion. Our area is far from where we live, so we couldn´t really go out without umbrellas to try and find a taxi since the taxis probably weren´t even out in this weather. And we couldn´t go home with the umbrellas either. (mind you, even with the umbrella I get pretty wet, and I was only standing outside for 10 seconds or so) So we decided it would be best to call the President of our branch to pick us up. He said he could but that he couldn´t drive through the street we´re on since there was too much water, so he set up a meeting spot. By the light of my keychain flashlight, with no umbrellas, and lightning flashing madly above us, Hermana Frias and I dashed through the street. We stomped through puddles with rain falling down on us, and, eventually, got to a huge puddle so deep it was nearly up to our knees. We slushed through and at one point, there was a dip in the road, unaware to us due to the darkness and the murky water. We both nearly fell completely into the puddle. The bottom of both of our skirts were definitely wet at this point. We emerged from the puddle and continued to run to the meeting spot, trying to dodge puddles yet sometimes being forced to go through them because there was no way around. We found our way to the meeting spot and tried our best to hide under an alcove, which didn´t do much. Eventually President came and took us home. And we lived happily ever after ;)
No but seriously. I think we learned a few things from that experience. First off, we both agreed that listening to the Spirit is so important. When you get a prompting, show you are listening by acting on it. We also agreed that including the Lord in our decisions is essential. When we saw the lightning, we probably should have prayed to know whether to continue to the appointment or go home, rather than use our own judgment. No one was hurt and everything worked out to be somewhat of a great adventure, but nonetheless, all of it could have been avoided. I am so grateful for Hermana Frias. We were wet and tired and nearly falling into puddles and yet we couldn´t help ourselves from laughing as we ran down the street. I kind of wish there was a video of us. It would be pretty great to watch. OKAY I LOVE YOU ALL. I am having an awesome time here, preaching the gospel. I know it is true. I wouldn´t be here if I didn´t know that. Love, Hermana Shaw
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Letters: Sophia Shaw Santo Domingo East MIssion SDQ 4102, 2250 NW 114th Ave. Miami, FL 33172-3652 Packages: Sophia Shaw AP-000914 8540 NW 66th St. Miami, FL 33195 - 2698 lds.org mormon.org Dominican Republic Santo Domingo East MissionArchives
February 2017
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