Something always seems to happen when I am about to start writing and then all of a sudden I don’t feel like writing anymore… Not at all. I feel terrible. I only have two transfers left.
I think this Sunday was the most dramatic and one of the awfullest days of my mission… first of all… NO ONE we were teaching who had promised to go to church came–the good news is that members brought hermanito Cristen to church… and we weren’t even teaching him before so that was just a pure blessing. At least someone came.
I don’t know… partly I want to tell about my Sunday but partly I don’t. I still feel awful about it. Josselyn texted us and asked if we could get some brothers to come to give her cousin’s father a blessing since he was so sick and on his deathbed. I called Brother Bonilla who couldn’t go, and then I called Pte Martinez who said he would go by. The next day we got a text from Josselyn saying that because no one had come to give the brother a blessing, she had called the Adventist church, and THEY had come to support them.
Dang it. Why!??
So after church and lunch we got Brother Bonilla and Brother Cruz to go look for the brother who wanted a blessing–we still don’t even know his name.
When we got there we walked toward the house and we heard a woman wailing and weeping, “Oh Dios, oh Señor!”
We came closer and there was a ton of church people leaving the little run-down shack. And Josselyn was standing outside–we had come the minute that the brother died.
The minute he died.
What are the chances of that? It worries me. I wanted to leave right away, that seemed the best thing for me to do–but Sister Duarte said, “We can’t go, everyone’s going–we have to stay to see how we can help.” And I didn’t argue because culturally I had NO idea what is and is not acceptable in a circumstance like this–and honestly I don’t know what is or is not culturally acceptable even in the states–because I’ve never been through a situation like that before…
There was so much weeping–and we went in and I don’t think I’ve ever been so lost before–they wanted us to say a prayer but the moment to pray never seemed to arrive and in all the weeping there was the son saying, “He repented, Mama, don’t worry mama, he was praying and asking forgiveness all the day and all the night–he trully repented of his sins!”
And one of the other sons looked at me and said, “He is forgiven, isn’t he sister? He repented of his sins?”
All I said was something like, “If we truly repent of heart the Lord promises to forgive us–”
“I know he repented! I know he did!”
The Brother died of a sickness from alcohol. He was a hardcore alcoholic. And he killed himself because of it. Brother Bonilla afterwards said, “I don’t want to be like him. I felt so sad–because I don’t want to be on my deathbed trying to repent…”
What really sent me for the loop was Brother Cruz, “Do you have the faith that we can resurrect him?”
I just looked at him. That brother amazes me. Such a thing had never occurred to me…
Well, time is short, other stuff happened but I don’t got ganas for writing because I’m a dying dying dying dying missionary.
Love,
Bekah