Friday, July 19, 2013

The right place at the right time

We were having a quiet day today - actually a little too quiet, so we decided to go out and try to find at least one of the people on a list that the elders gave us of people who had begun investigating the Church and then decided not to press on.

We collected the elders at the branch building, which in itself was serendipitous because we didn't know they were going to be there. We had gone over to make a few last minute preparations for a Family History Open House we're putting on tomorrow. Anyway, there they were, so we invited them to go with us, which they were happy to do because they had nothing on their schedule either.

We went to an area of the city called Cartron Estates. From the sound of it, you'd expect large houses on vast tracts of land, but sometimes developers get a little grand in their thinking. Anyway, it was a pleasant neighborhood and it took a bit of time to find the exact address we were looking for. When we got there, we found the gentleman we were after and he explained that he didn't really want to look any further into joining the Church. BUT right next door, we bumped - almost literally - into another man. I had just stepped out of the car because it was so hot and here was this gentleman winding up his hose. I commented to him about how warm it was and he joked that no, it was cold! The next thing I knew the elders were back beside the car and Elder Walker the Younger was standing beside me. I turned around to face the car and indicated to him that he should speak to the man. Little did I know that, at the exact same time, Elder Walker the Older was on the other side of the car telling Elder Barney to talk to the man. The next thing I knew we were having this amazing discussion with this fellow, who was a Catholic, and HE brought up the subject of Melchizedek and what a great priest he was. I was floored. I thought, how many people outside the LDS Church know much about Melchizedek? So we shared with him the fact that all three of the elders had the priesthood of Melchizedek, that it had been bestowed on them based on their worthiness. Anyway, we probably talked to this man for at least a half hour and towards the end he was saying "I don't think it's an accident that you stopped here." He told us that he had been taking care of his sick parents for years and that he had lost one in 2011 and the other in 2012 and that he had been praying recently to know what was to be next in his life. And then here come the missionaries!

Elders Barney and Walker the Younger gave him a Book of Mormon and a few other pamphlets and asked if they could come back in a few weeks and talk to him and he was just more than happy to have them do that. It was awesome!

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