Week 5: Knock and Ye Shall Receive

Week 5: Knock and Ye Shall Receive

Hola mi familia

      I have no time (as always) so here is a quick story. One of our investigators with a baptismal date (the one I sent a pic with) is having a hard time with lots of things in her life and wants a strong sign that baptism is the right choice. So Saturday we were fasting with her. It went really well she says she knows she needs to get baptized June 12 so we were thrilled obviously. When we went to break our fast at a member's house they had this awesome vegetable stir-fry Asian style, delicious but did not exactly fill us up. A few hours later we were starving. We were walking around in the rain knocking on door after door and "no one was home" the doors wouldn’t even open. 

 All of our appointments that were supposed to meet us at the church didn't come. As time went on we debated going to a member’s house to beg for food and discussed how close we were to fainting. We did meet up with one member to go teach a new investigator but the investigator "wasn't home" so we went back to knocking doors by ourselves. By 8:30 it was almost time to go home but we decided to knock one more door before we went back to our apartment.

  This door was a reference we had knocked on several times before in the week and had never opened. We knocked 3 or 4 times and no one answered then I looked at the door and practically commanded "knock and it shall be opened unto you, ask and ye shall receive" then knocked again. Nothing happened but I felt something. I felt like they were going to open the door. I knew something was going to happen. So we waited... and waited, nothing. My companion said it was time to move on. 5 more seconds I said. She counted to 5 slowly in Italian. Nothing. I still felt like the door was supposed to open but we began to walk away. When we were 20-30 feet away the door opened and we ran back. Probably scaring that poor lady. The guy we were looking for wasn’t there but his mom told us when we could come back and find him. I truly felt that it was a miracle predicated on my faith.
 So having had this one small victory in our day we headed back to our house planning to stop in with one menos activa [less active] family who lives right near our house. As we were knocking on their door the neighbor came out to say they had moved 2-3 days ago. As we turned to go home my heart sunk to a bit of desperation. I had been in pain from hunger for about 3 hours at that point and had been hungry for 6 but I had believed the lord would provide food for us. He always had before. 

 The first week I was here I did not have a peso to my name and my companion was broke from picking up her dry-cleaning. Hence no food. But when ever we had absolutely nothing at home random people, members and nonmembers alike would invite us in to dinner or give us bananas, mangos, apples, etc... But now we had knocked on our last door I could see our apartment and there was no food. At my apartment I had half a handful of chocolate chips and some oil and salt. I was so hungry.

  As I opened the door to our house who should greet us but our landlady and the first words out of her mouth "hola, gustan?" "Hello, would you like (some food)?" I was so grateful and hungry I didn't even protest I simply said "Si!” She sat us down and whipped out a hearty meaty soup with beans and tortillas and lemon tea to finish it off. She truly is a life saver. I love that lady. 

 We shared a hymn with her before we went up stairs to our room, which counted as our first and last lesson of the day. I am so grateful for all the good people, all the Dona Eps of the world. Yesterday was hard but the week was good I just wanted to share with you all how I see the Lord's hand in my life. I am so grateful to my loving heavenly father who knows my needs :) I love your letters. I'm so sorry I don't really write you guys back individually.

Con mucho amor,

 Hermana Lambert