For the last few day's my companion and I have been praying for God to give us a specific place to go to find someone that He knows, needs to hear our message. The other week that prayer was answered. The previous night in planning we had a whole hour left in the day that we had no idea what activity to fill the time with. I asked Sister Wilde if it would be alright if we said a prayer and asked God where he wanted us to be at that time. She agreed and we said a quick prayer and pondered a minute after it was over. Shortly after Sister Wilde named a street that we had only driven on once since we had been in the area. I agreed and we wrote down on our 8:00 slot "Nooe" St. The next morning passes and we rush to finish up our dinner appointment with some members because we know just how important that time was to God. We didn't want to miss a miracle if that is truly where He wanted us to be at that time. So we started walking from our house to "Nooe". When we neared the corner we saw Nooe St. about 10 ft in front of us. To the right of us was a big yellow house. We didn't know why but we both turned to each other and agreed that we needed to knock on the yellow house. We got to the porch and knocked on the door. To our surprise, a man in short's with a bare chest opened the door to us. He was very welcoming. We didn't even say two words before he said, "Ladies have a seat on the deck." He proceeded to tell us that he was very open minded and would listen to whoever would come and knock on his door. But that he was also brutally honest with his opinion. Soon, we found out that his name was Pete. He has a had a really rough life story and could really benefit from the atonement. He "knows" people if you get my meaning. We talked to him a little bit about the Restoration of the gospel and Joseph Smith's first vision. I had the opportunity to bare my testimony to him of what Joseph Smith saw, of how I know it to be true. And that I knew that the gospel had blessed my family and me so much that we wanted to share it with him because we cared. He appreciated the offer and willingly took a Book of Mormon telling us that we could come by in a week.
A few day's go by and we discovered that Pete read 103 pg. of the Book of Mormon in between our visit. Still he had nothing good to say about the world. Pete is very focused on all the terrible things going on in the world that he can not and does not believe in a loving God. "How could a loving God abandon us?" to quote him. Our second lesson did not go as well as we had hoped for. We spent most of the time trying to convice him of what we knew in the Book of Mormon to be true.
When we got home we both decided that the next time we went over to visit we would do less convincing and more testifying. The next time we went over, Pete thanked us for trying to "crack him" as he would put it. He told us about how a lot of people have tried but no one has ever come as close as we have before. He also made a brief comment about how we did a better job than "those two scraggly boys with the Elder tags on their chest." It made me laugh. It was a make it or brake it moment and I told Pete "Pete I just want you to know how much we do love you and do care about you, and we just really want you to have the same blessings that we know to be true." Pete appreciated it very much and told Sister Wilde and I that he really does genuinely love us too. My heart brakes for Pete because I truly do want him to receive the joy that comes with the gospel that I know to be true. But he has told us he just doesn't want it. I know that Pete care's about us, he walks us to our car and makes sure that no one is in the back seat every time we finish a discussion. He is constantly telling us that if anyone messes with us, to give him a call. I know that it was not a coincidence that we knocked on the yellow house that day. I know God wanted us to meet Pete. And although he is not jumping into the baptismal font right now, I know that we made an impact on him. I know that I helped him come closer to Jesus Christ in some small way and helped him feel the spirit. That was my part in the plan that God has in store for Pete. I love him so much and I can not wait for the day that I can go and shoot guns and use my compound bow with him. If you want to change the world, change someone's life. If you want to do that, then you need to be their friend. I thank God for that opportunity to meet Pete and pray that one day we will meet again.
