On my mission thus far I've never really had a door "slammed" in my face per sé, but there's been one or two times that have felt like it... without someone even opening the door.
One this week was when we rang a peculiar looking doorbell with a camera on it, a moment later a blue light came on above it and a voice came from the doorbell saying, "Who is it?" We were both kind of taken by surprise, then addressing the speaker/doorbell/camera answered that we were Sister Missionaries looking to serve others. The tinny voice buzzed back, "Not interested."
There's another one that happened a few weeks ago Sister Stevenson and I are still laughing about; we went looking for a less active member that no one had met before and the man at his address said that he no longer lived there. The man told us that the guy we were looking for moved down the same street, but he couldn't remember which house. So off we went and began knocking all the doors.
We came to a house that had a lanai (screened porch, very common in Florida) and a lovely little doorstep with a small koi pond and a small fountain, wind chimes, just a delightful zen feel to it. I knocked, and shortly after a man glanced through the curtained window next to the door for just a split second. We waited for a moment, we were expecting him to come back to answer the door after maybe putting away a dog, getting his wife, etc. but after an uncomfortable amount of time, I knocked again. This time the curtain flew back and the man shouted, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING COMING AND KNOCKING SO LOUDLY ON MY DOOR, TWICE?!"
Sister Stevenson and I must have jumped back ten feet. Bewildered, I stammered and explained that we were looking for someone, he responded "HE DON'T LIVE ON THIS BLOCK NO MORE!" so we hurriedly thanked him and left. It was hilarious.
Some people try to reject us but just can't. This weekend we came across a man in his driveway and we introduced ourselves and asked if there was any service we could help him with. He chuckled and said, "sure, you could rake my lawn for me." and we eagerly accepted. Thinking we weren't serious, he told us we could come back sometime the next day to do it. So we did. The look on his face alone when he answered the door was totally worth it. He was so surprised, he didn't even know where his rake was. He had to borrow his neighbors! He was super grateful, and we're going back this Saturday to weed his lawn. Hopefully we'll get a chance to share a message with him 😊
We had an awesome meeting with Susan on Thursday and our rockstar elders quorum president, came with us. We were super glad to finally have someone out to meet and talk with Susan, however it ran a little long; Susan is quite a story teller. President Simpson was awesome and taught her more about priesthood blessings, which we had talked to her about asking for. She was a little apprehensive due to her extreme religious history, but President Simpson was so nice about it and invited her to think and pray about it and he's planning on coming back with us this week or next to give her one. Susan is great, we love her.
We had a lot of appointments fall through so we did a lot of finding this week. We rode our bicycles for 12 miles on Wednesday, which I was really excited about. That's exactly how many miles I told President Monson I could do when I filled out my mission papers! (It asks if you are able to walk 6 miles and/or bike 12 a day)
Lastly, I received word that Lillian (from my last area) is finally on date for baptism! She agreed to be baptized shortly after the temple tour we went on back in January, but due to delay that she had to sort out she was not able to do it for a while. Until now! Lillian is overjoyed, she has waited so long and worked so hard to get here and I'm headed up to Belleview once again to see her make this long awaited covenant with her loving Father in Heaven. I am so so happy, I'm reminded of how Alma felt in Alma 29:9-10. The joy and humility that I feel that Heavenly Father allowed me to be apart of her conversion; because it could have been any missionary that taught her and her, but because Heavenly Father knew me and my pure desire to serve Him and to be an instrument in His hands I was given by Him the gift of being that missionary.
Stay brave & strong & true,
-Sister Olivia Petty🚪
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| Adventures in bicycling 3.15.17 |
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