God Knows

Quinta do Conde

My dear family,

Oh how the time seems to be flying...halfway through April and I feel like I am just starting to get used to the mission...:)

Before I forget...Many happy wishes for a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY for Alex. I hope it is the best day yet and that he finds a good way to celebrate. I am sorry I am late on the birthday cards. I haven't had time to write one card for probably the past transfer.

But just so she knows, Lynda--I got your letter and I loved it! Thank you! I promise I will write you a really long letter when I get the chance.

Well, my adventures this week have been getting to know our new area. It is a big area that does not have that many trees or buildings--lots of houses and very long streets. It kind of reminds me of White Rock sometimes because it is very calm (aka no one on the street) and it is a pretty small town. So, I am pretty sure we are going to get to know the area very soon. We have been just looking and looking and looking for the elect. But I have a pretty cool experience that happened to me the morning of last Sunday (General Conference). I still don't know the end of the story, but we will see...

So, last Sunday, we were going to go to General Conference and the session was going to be transmitted in another chapel far from our area. It takes about an hour to get there by bus, train, and then another bus. This was the first day that Irmã Lima and I received our new area, so we would have to leave our house at 11:50 am to catch the bus to get to the chapel with the transmission by 1:00 pm. Studies end at around 11:00, so we would only have about an hour to work before we would have to leave. Obviously since we didn't know anyone in our area, we would just be looking. But, the catch was that our area from our house is an hour away by transport in the other direction. So, we would be able to get into our area just long enough to turn around and go to conference. So, we just planned to work in the other irmãs area next to our house for that hour and then go to General Conference. I wasn't that happy, but what could I do? We only had an hour and it wouldn't be worth it to go all the way to our area for about 5 minutes. So, we settled down Sunday morning at about 8:30 and started our studies.

I said a prayer to start and as I was saying a prayer I had the impression that we should leave our house and go to our area. I thought it was kind of strange because who would we be able to find at 8:30 in the morning? There would be no one on the street for sure, especially on a Sunday morning. So, I started to study. I was reading in the Bible and just so happened to be reading the part where Jesus Christ commands his disciples to "Go ye therefore into the world and preach my gospel". Yeah, that was clue number 2. The feeling came to me stronger and stronger. I kept thinking, This is crazy! Where am I supposed to go in our area? I don't know anything about it. I had only been there once! I pulled out the map and knelt down and prayed again to make sure that what I was feeling wasn't crazy and that I was actually expected to leave my house to find someone who was waiting for us. Yup, I felt it. So, I started asking where we should go. I felt nothing. So I started talking to Irmã Lima and she said that she felt we should leave as well. So, we both jumped up and grabbed our stuff to run out the door and catch the bus, the train and then another bus to our area. We got there an hour later. Like I thought, no one was on the road. So, we woke up an entire building by knocking it--only to be rejected and receive glares of confused people in pajamas. So, we decided to just start walking around until we felt something. Just then I saw a man waiting at the bus stop we had gotten off. I thought, “Well, he is smoking and he looks not very nice, but there is no one else to talk to, so I guess I will just talk to him.” Yeah, I know, really judgmental. But it is a good thing Heavenly Father is in power. I started talking to him and asked if we could pray with him. He paused and looked at us for a moment. I was sure he would say no and was just about to say thank you and walk away, but to our surprise, he said yes. So, I asked what he needed in his life that I could include in the prayer. He said peace. So I asked for peace for him. It didn't seem that special. And after the prayer he didn't seem that interested, but he gave us his information and we set up an appointment with him.

That appointment fell through, but he called us later and said he still wanted to meet with us and that he wanted to get to know the church. So, we taught him in the chapel. He seemed to really be open, which was surprising to me. At the end of the lesson, I was getting more curious as to what he was thinking, so I asked him. He said that ever since the day that we met, he couldn't stop thinking that it wasn't coincidence. He said that he has never seen us in that area at that hour since. He asked directly how we knew that we should talk to him that day. So, not knowing what more to say, I explained what happened and what I felt that morning. He was super surprised and replied, “You mean to say that you felt you should leave your house because you knew that I was waiting to talk to you?” Yeah, it seemed kind of crazy trying to explain to a non-member, but it is completely true. Never in my life would I just do something like that if I didn't feel it. Never would I want to. Believe me, I did not want to leave my comfy house to run out into the cold morning, not knowing anything that I was doing, to travel an hour to get to an area that I didn't know to talk to someone I had never met in a language I do not speak.

But I guess it is just one more proof that God really does live. He was watching out for Jorge (the man) that day. I just am still stunned by the fact that He chose me to talk to him and tell him that God didn't forget him and that peace can be found just like he wanted. Jorge went to church yesterday and really enjoyed it. He has lots of questions about the Book of Mormon, but he is on the road to progression...

So that was the cool story of the week. Other than that, we are just finding the elect. We are teaching lots of Cabo Verdianos because of Irmã Lima. She has a way of helping us get into their houses...I love serving with natives. They connect so much more with the people. But we are just having adventures as always. I love the mission. Never a dull moment. And if there is, we just have to pray for more excitement and Heavenly Father always throws in a twist for us. He knows how to keep me on my toes.

Well, I hope that everyone is happy and in good health. I love you all. Have a fantastic week!

Love, Love, Love,

Irmã Pérez