Hola Todos,
This week has gone by pretty well. We have some investigatores now that are progressing a lot better than many have been lately. Sterlyn's girlfriend, as it turns out, is the daughter of two members from the branch right next to us. She however, is very against the church and very partial to the pentacostal church. She told Sterlyn that if he went to church and decided to follow the church she would leave him. Well, as of yesterday, she's no longer his girlfriend. Styrling was a little sad about it after church, but he told us,"No girl is going to keep me from serving a mission." He's really determined to prepare enter the Temple to serve a mission. This past week he's wantedto leave and teach with us a lot. He follows us around to all of our appointments and testifies of the difference he feels in his life. at one point he actually just started teaching about the restoration, and he's taken us to a few of his neighbors to teach them too. It's great to see his strong desire to live the gospel and to help others learn of it as well. He told us that the other day he went home and googled the Salt Lake Temple and he really wants to go there one day.
It's also great to see that Sterlyn and two ofour other investigatores, Felipe and Leo, are actively attending the other young single adult activities that the district has had lately. That'll help them a lot to form morefriendships in the church and stay actuve and strong for the rest of their lives.
So a really strange experience happened to us yesterday that really made me realise what a horrible effect itcan have to be late to do something. On Saturday night I had been looking through our area book, looking at some old investigatores' teaching reccords. I picked out a few to search down and teach, including a man that the missionaries had taught about 2-3 years ago. On Sunday afternoon we went to the specified location to start looking for him. Before we started asking around for him a lady signalled us to come overand talk to her. She said,"Do you remember my husband?" I told her that I had never taught anybody near there, but askedif he had shared with other missionaries before. She told me that he had and, to my surprise, told me the exact nameofthe man we were about to start looking for. She continued to inform me that he had died the day before, the day that I had decided to look up the reccord. She continued to describethe events of the past week, although holding any emotion back amazingly well. We talked to her alittle bit about the plan of salvation and asked if we could come back and share more with her and their children another day. Also to my surprise, she flatout said no. She had no interest in our message and said that she wanted nothing to do with any church other than the pentacostal one that she is currently attending any spare moment that she's not working. We asked if there was any sort of servicethat we could do to help them, to which she insistedthat there was nothing to do but to give them money. I sadly told here that we couldn't give her any money, but that we will always be here to help with any serviceor questions. She flattly said that she would let me know if she ever has interest and told us we could leave.
I couldn't help but wonder what might have happened if we had comeearlier and been abletospeak with her husband. Perhaps we might have been ableto help them while suffering through his heart problems and the family might have acceptedthe gospel. For now, all wecan do is hopeand pray that they feel a desireto know more and to come to us to find more answers. In the end, I guess it's really important to get things done and put in order as soon as you can. You never know when you're going to be just one day too late.
I love you all (in a non-valentine's day way) and hope and PRAY you have a great week.
Cuidense!
Elder Adam Russell Rich,
San Pedro, Dominican Republic
