Building Relationships of Trust

13-year old English Student

Many of you have asked about the English lesson with the 13-year old girl.  The truth is, it didn't happen.  I wondered what happened, because the father was so anxious for his daughter to learn English.  Well, the next day he showed up and told me he couldn't find 9 other students, then he asked, "Will it be OK if we only have 3 or 4 students?"  I said that would be OK, so he said they would be here the next week.  

More English students

Then, last Thursday I got locked out of the house.  (Our new air conditioner was on, and when I went outside to turn on the water, the door shut.) Bob and our interpreter, Gady, were out visiting the farmers.  I usually wear my purse when I go out of the house, but I had left it in the house, as well as my phone and my computer.  I didn't even have the phone number of the landlord, so I just had to wait until Bob got home (1 1/2 hours later).  I was supposed to teach an English class at 3:00, to the advanced class, but I couldn't even get in touch with them to tell them that I was "missing."  After Bob got home we called the landlord.  A woman and her daughter came to give us another set of keys (to make copies).  As we were talking, we mentioned that I was supposed to teach an English class.  They were very interested, and both of them plan to come to my English class at 3:00 pm on Sunday.  They are both fairly influential people, so being locked out might have been a good thing.

People in Cahabon that are interested in the Book of Mormon

On Friday the Mission President brought us some Books of Mormon in Kekchi and Spanish, and some missionary pamphlets, in both languages.  He also gave us a list of 11 people living in Cahabon that had requested information about the Church.  Oh my, that was like gold.  Then, when he left he asked Gady if she would like to go back to Coban with them for the weekend.  She hesitated, but I said "yes," and then she was gone.  Bob sat there and looked at the list of interested people, and wondered how we could contact them.  Then we remembered the young man we met in Lanquin, who could speak English, Spanish, Kekchi and Hebrew.  So we called him to see if he could come to Cahabon on Saturday.  He was available, so we told him we would pay for him to come to help us with calling some people.  He agreed to come.  The Mission President told us to make it very clear that we don't pay people in the Church, but it was OK for us to pay him to interpret for us, if we wanted to pay him.  So, when he came we talked to him about it.  That turned out to be another blessing, because he knew Kekchi, and our interpreter, Gady, does not.

The list turned out to be very positive.  One very nice man even came right up to our house to meet us.  Two more are coming today, another one wants to meet us tomorrow, etc.  Two calls were "no answer," but one called us back.  Of course, we couldn't talk to him, so Gady will call him when she gets back.  All in all it was very promising.  Another missionary has already been talking with someone in Cahabon, and wanted to get a Book of Mormon to him.  She will send the contact information and we will follow up with that.

I could go on and on.  We really feel like guardian angels are helping us in this important work to build relationships of trust.  I have been teaching 17 different classes in English in a week -- to missionaries.  This has really helped me fine-tune my English teaching skills.  So we are grateful to a Father in Heaven that is watching out for us.  I now sit in a house that also has a good air-conditioning unit, so I will surely survive the heat.

(I'll try to take some pictures today.)