Build It and They Will Come

This last Saturday, the English-speaking sisters had a baptism of a mom and daughter. The dad and son are currently just waiting for the dad to get the courage to tell his devout parents of another faith that he is going to be baptized. We invited two of our friends to come to the baptism since they're family friends and it would be a good experience for them, And thankfully our friends came! 

The mom and daughter were baptized and while we waited for them to change after the baptism, there was a testimony meeting of sorts. While we listened to the testimonies the other two sisters got up and left. A bit later they swiftly ran back in and tapped us on the shoulder and told us to follow them. We followed and they lead us to a Spanish speaker just standing in the foyer of the building. We talked to him and found out he was actually a member of the church! He has been in America for only 3 months and asked if there was a Spanish congregation here. And well, he was talking to the right people! 

We invited him to stay and listen to the talks and testimonies, which he did. I translated the easier testimonies and then my companion and I switched for translating. The talk was complicated, but she kept up and the words just flowed out of her mouth. She said it was like every word was something our new friend needed to hear. After the service, two of the members of our congregation who spoke Spanish were beckoned over by my companion and they talked and got to know each other. One of the members told a pretty funny story and we could tell our friend was just so happy to be there. We parted ways, and asked the sisters what had happened. It turned out that they both had watched a figure walk past the church through the windows and both had received a prompting to chase the person down, so they did. And as they got outside and the person turned out to only speak Spanish, they used their very limited Spanish to invite him into the church. And he followed! 

Last week we had dinner with Rosa and she invited us to have dinner with her again the next week. But having realized Rosa, Alex, and Josue were related, we felt like it would be better if we taught the whole family together. But that would require inviting Josue to his own house to have dinner with us and his Mom. And at this point we still weren't sure if Josue knew that we knew his Mom. Basically we were in for a fun call. 

Note: This is what the call sounded like. This took place after trying to explain what had happened already for at least 3 minutes 

“So, Josue, we actually know your Mom. Her name is Rosa, right?"

*Clear confusion* "My Mom's name is Rosa."

"And you have a brother named Alex?"

"What?!"

He didn't know we knew his family, which made it all the funnier. He had just assumed it was some other young women talking to his Mom and brother about Jesus Christ. He took the whole thing well and thought it was really funny. So we were just able to laugh about it. And we just casually mentioned we were going to eat dinner at his Mom's house, so it wasn't too weird. And the next day, we anxiously waited to see if Josue would come to church. Before the sacrament, my companion and I stood up to go check in the hall for him, but I spun around first and he had just been sitting there behind us. 

He ended up not coming to the dinner with his Mom, but we did have a really good intro lesson to the gospel of Jesus Christ with her. She has a lot of faith, she really just needs to act on it more. But hopefully with Josue coming to church, he can help his family come too.

Hermana d’Evegnée