We talk to everyone and everything; blood donation activity










JANUARY 14, 2009 WEDNESDAY

Today we spent part of it spinning our wheels again. We wanted to visit the sister we tried to visit on January 1who was ill. We tried to call her first, but no answer. We never know if the number on the member list is accurate or not so we looked it up on the internet white pages. No name was assigned to the number we had. Usually, you can type in an address and get all the names and phone numbers of the people living in the apartment, but this time no one was listed for this address. We checked to make sure we had the right address, the right name and the right phone number typed in. All were negative. The only other option was to go out there. With trams, trains and buses it was a three hour round trip. The only problem was she wasn’t home. We were really hoping we could see her to make sure she was ok and also so she could have contact with the church again. We’ll keep trying until we get to see her. We got back just in time to put something together for the Elders who were coming to study and train with us.

Elders Pine and Middleton came over at 4:00 to help us with our language, ways to make initial contact with people and brainstorm teaching scenarios. We had to be at the church at 5:30 to help with the blood donation activity going on there tonight so we left them here with the understanding they would follow us down in a few minutes. We left them our own set of keys to lock up because we knew we could get them back when they came down. The only problem is they didn’t come to the church, they went to another appointment that took longer than they thought it would. So, rather than bringing our keys to us, they put it in our mailbox. At the church we kept wondering why they didn’t show up and when it came time to go home, we started getting worried how we were going to get back into our building. I think I already explained the system they have over here, but I’ll do it again. Each apartment building has a main door to enter through. It is always locked except for in the morning when the mailman comes. The mailboxes are inside that locked door in the foyer. Each apartment has it’s own door which people lock also. Our problem was we had no key to get into our building. I tried to call them on our cell phone, but the blinkety blank thing wouldn’t work for some reason. I tried and tried, but no soap. Finally, Elder Evans showed up and helped us get the cell phone to work. We called Elder Pine and he explained what he’d done. At least they didn’t put the key through the letter slot which is locked, but put it in the package part that isn’t locked. If we could get into the building, we’d be able to get our keys.

After finishing the blood drive we went home hoping things would work out. When we got to our apartment building entrance, we noticed there were no lights in any of the other apartment windows. We started ringing buzzers one at a time for about fifteen minutes, hoping someone would click us in, but no response. I thought I heard the door click and I pushed it open. Great, we didn’t have to spent the night sleeping out in the cold. Later as we were writing this journal, Diana told me she had said a silent prayer that the door would open. She was the one poised to push the door open if someone pushed the opener, but she heard nothing and her ears are better than mine. I had stepped back from the door to look up at the windows again while Diana kept pushing doorbells. I said I thought I heard the door click and Diana pushed on it although she didn’t hear it click. So the tender mercy of the Lord is that he hears and answers prayers, even for simple things, when we need help.

Elder Pine called later tonight to see if everything was ok with us. He was very apologetic and felt bad he’d caused us a little inconvenience. We told him it was no problem, that it was an experience to write in our journal. All’s well that ends well.