Hola hola.
Well this week was.... ummm well I'm not really sure how to explain it... ill do so in three palabras. FAST, HAPPY, INTERESTING.
So I chose two experiences to share with you!
#1- Emilio
#2- Kathryn Lambrakis
We are going to start with Katy hahaha
#2- Kathryn Lambrakis.... good ol' Kathryn Lambrakis. I love this woman to death.... maybe I shouldn't use that expression haha Katy is 89 or 90 one of the two and we absolutely love her. One day a couple weeks ago we were waiting for a member to get home because we had an appointment with her... and she wasn't there.... story of our lives haha love it. Anyway so obviously we aren't going to sit there and wait because we are missionaries and we don't do those kinds of things, plus I would probably fall asleep if I just sat, always happens. Anyways sorry for the tangent, so we looked at the cross road and had to decide which way to go, the way we chose was the way to the house of Kathryn Lambrakis. So we go knocking, and the first house we knock on, the one on the corner of the street is cute and has a little gardenish area. I can't really explain this so I'll give up trying. Anyway, we knock on this door. This glass door because the inside (normal wood) one was open and we wait and wait and suddenly we see a little person walking around into the hall to the door. She's wobbley and so adorable and she opens the door and we tell her we are missionaries from The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and she invites us in! So we go in and sit down on her couch and she starts talking to us about how she does family history...
OH THIS IS THE CUTEST PART ABOUT HER!!!
When she talks, her dentures pop up and down like they've got something to say too!!! ahhh I love her. Our talkin's are not important. So we visit Katy once a week usually. But this week we told her that we were going to come by on Saturday to help her clean because aparently the people who do it haven't showed up, and her house needs to be cleaned because she has 30 cats. We repeated, asked her if she would be here on Saturday, and she always says... Yes of course I will. I don't ever leave unless my neighbor takes me grocery shoping. I'm always here. So beautiful Saturday roles around, and we head over to Kathryn's and we knock on her door... no answer... we knock harder.. no answer... In this situation usually you'd be like, oh shes so cute and old she probably cant hear us... no no not Katy, she tells us all the time her ears are like radars and they are! its true.
SO we think about this and suddenly we realize. We might have a life or death situation. Kathryn Lambrakis was NOT coming to the door. But really though we start panicking. She has no family, and never leaves her house, she's so cute and old and she lives by herself and she is not coming to the door!!! So slowly the knocking starts escalating. We start knocking harder... then we start knocking on her windows, then we go around her house to the back door which is always proped open and yell into it Kathryn... its the Missionaries... we're just a little bit worried about you..... And so we call Marisol who is the member we are visting and she visits Kathryn almost everyday because Marisol speaks english because she's young. And she says that Katy got her groceries yesterday! soooo thats out of the question, and she never leaves, so she has to be in there. So we start panicking and are like well we absolutely can't break into her house because that would look horrible!! and If we find her injured :( or even passed away! someone could blame us and we are like ahhhhh we just want to get in there and see if she is ok. so we keep knocking and we decided we need another opinion so we call little york to see if Elder Mondragon knows what to do, but he didn't answer, so we called Aldine and talked to Elder Alexander
(who by the way I dont think I've mentioned this, but he was in my district in the MTC he was the district leader for half the time, anyway we are buds and he is in my district here! so we've been in the same district for all three months of our mission... and he's the district leader again. He has been in the field for one transfer and on our second transfer he is already the district leader and a trainer and has to learn spanish! poor thing. but he can do it, he's awesome.)
He didnt know what to do either, so he said we should pray, and we all decided the question we needed to pray about is whether or not to call the cops. So we got in our car and asked and we both felt that we needed to call them. So we did so! and they said they were on their way. It starts raining of course and we keep knocking on the windows because we decided that if she was in there that we would want her to know that we were there and that we weren't going to leave her! So the cop shows up and asks us if we are family... we tell him no she has no one and he says, "well I sure hate to kick a door down without a family member" ay!!!!! I'm like oh no this guy means business. Then another cop shows up, super duper nice! and we tell them that the back is open and explain everything, so we all go around and we wait outside the gate because we didnt want to break in and they went in... b t dubs cops here are decked out in weapons galor all over there waist.. Don't mess... they"ve got all kinds of scarey gadgets... like a huge tazer in the front... his was yellow so if I had to get one I'd probably get the yellow one two, it only seems fitting since its my favorite color.... and if I'd tazer someone, might as well give them a spice of Lizzie with it. Anyways they go flash lights on, stepping over the tiny new kittens. At this point we start a new mode of panic called.
O MY GOSH THERE ARE COPS GOING INTO HER HOUSE AND IF SHE IS IN THERE SHES GOING TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK AND DIE.
#
Well anyway we wait and they come out and she wasn't in there... fewf! Shes ok... oh wait this is awkward... we had cops break into the house of Kathryn Lambrakis and she isn't there.... Pretty soon her neighbor guy shows up and says to us, she's not home, I saw a big white van for her church come and pick her up and take her to church, sometimes she goes to church on Saturdays (not true she hasn't gone in forever) but I guess she went this time!... So there you have the week that Kathryn Lambrakis went to church.
OH THIS IS THE CUTEST PART ABOUT HER!!!
When she talks, her dentures pop up and down like they've got something to say too!!! ahhh I love her. Our talkin's are not important. So we visit Katy once a week usually. But this week we told her that we were going to come by on Saturday to help her clean because aparently the people who do it haven't showed up, and her house needs to be cleaned because she has 30 cats. We repeated, asked her if she would be here on Saturday, and she always says... Yes of course I will. I don't ever leave unless my neighbor takes me grocery shoping. I'm always here. So beautiful Saturday roles around, and we head over to Kathryn's and we knock on her door... no answer... we knock harder.. no answer... In this situation usually you'd be like, oh shes so cute and old she probably cant hear us... no no not Katy, she tells us all the time her ears are like radars and they are! its true.
SO we think about this and suddenly we realize. We might have a life or death situation. Kathryn Lambrakis was NOT coming to the door. But really though we start panicking. She has no family, and never leaves her house, she's so cute and old and she lives by herself and she is not coming to the door!!! So slowly the knocking starts escalating. We start knocking harder... then we start knocking on her windows, then we go around her house to the back door which is always proped open and yell into it Kathryn... its the Missionaries... we're just a little bit worried about you..... And so we call Marisol who is the member we are visting and she visits Kathryn almost everyday because Marisol speaks english because she's young. And she says that Katy got her groceries yesterday! soooo thats out of the question, and she never leaves, so she has to be in there. So we start panicking and are like well we absolutely can't break into her house because that would look horrible!! and If we find her injured :( or even passed away! someone could blame us and we are like ahhhhh we just want to get in there and see if she is ok. so we keep knocking and we decided we need another opinion so we call little york to see if Elder Mondragon knows what to do, but he didn't answer, so we called Aldine and talked to Elder Alexander
(who by the way I dont think I've mentioned this, but he was in my district in the MTC he was the district leader for half the time, anyway we are buds and he is in my district here! so we've been in the same district for all three months of our mission... and he's the district leader again. He has been in the field for one transfer and on our second transfer he is already the district leader and a trainer and has to learn spanish! poor thing. but he can do it, he's awesome.)
He didnt know what to do either, so he said we should pray, and we all decided the question we needed to pray about is whether or not to call the cops. So we got in our car and asked and we both felt that we needed to call them. So we did so! and they said they were on their way. It starts raining of course and we keep knocking on the windows because we decided that if she was in there that we would want her to know that we were there and that we weren't going to leave her! So the cop shows up and asks us if we are family... we tell him no she has no one and he says, "well I sure hate to kick a door down without a family member" ay!!!!! I'm like oh no this guy means business. Then another cop shows up, super duper nice! and we tell them that the back is open and explain everything, so we all go around and we wait outside the gate because we didnt want to break in and they went in... b t dubs cops here are decked out in weapons galor all over there waist.. Don't mess... they"ve got all kinds of scarey gadgets... like a huge tazer in the front... his was yellow so if I had to get one I'd probably get the yellow one two, it only seems fitting since its my favorite color.... and if I'd tazer someone, might as well give them a spice of Lizzie with it. Anyways they go flash lights on, stepping over the tiny new kittens. At this point we start a new mode of panic called.
O MY GOSH THERE ARE COPS GOING INTO HER HOUSE AND IF SHE IS IN THERE SHES GOING TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK AND DIE.
#
Well anyway we wait and they come out and she wasn't in there... fewf! Shes ok... oh wait this is awkward... we had cops break into the house of Kathryn Lambrakis and she isn't there.... Pretty soon her neighbor guy shows up and says to us, she's not home, I saw a big white van for her church come and pick her up and take her to church, sometimes she goes to church on Saturdays (not true she hasn't gone in forever) but I guess she went this time!... So there you have the week that Kathryn Lambrakis went to church.
Now for the end of the story actually, that night we were driving not knowing what to do for the last like 15 minutes, and I say we should go see Marisol and tell her we don't have a long time, but when we got there there was definitely some sort of hoorah goin on so we decided it wasn't a good idea. We both look at Katy's house. We both felt that we needed to go see her and tell her what had happened. So we pull up to her house, feeling rather embarrassed and also super nervous that this little harmless spunky lady was going to yell at us, and we walked up. Definitely the walk of shame considering the man from earlier was just sitting on the bed of his truck staring at us. We knock on Katy's door, and see her come around the corner (gave me so much peace) and she feebly pushes the door open and tells us to come in, fewf! not mad. So we tell her that we were so sorry and what happened and she had kind of already heard and her response back broke my heart. She said to us, "its nice to know that somebody cares" she wasn't mad, she wasn't annoyed, she felt loved because she knew that we cared. She repeated some things that she repeats a lot, but they hit me a lot harder this time. She told us that she doesn't have anyone, that no one checks on her, that the only family she has is her niece and nephew which told her a long time ago that they werent going to take care of her, especially because they dont get any of her inheritance. She told us that the neighbor who came over and told us she was gone never talks to her, that none of them want anything to do with her unless they can get some money out of her. and sadest of all the church she has been going to since she was a little girl, doesn't ever come to see her, that they told her they wouldn't pick her up anymore because she smells like cats, and when she does make it to church, she sits by herself, and everyone stays away from her because they say she smells like cats. My heart is broken. she says, "I try so hard, I bath and try to keep the house clean" it just tore me up. We shared with her Romans 8: 38-39 and she says that she knows that God is always there for her and watching over her, she always says, "its not your religion that takes you to heaven its your heart"... Hermana B and I talked about in the car how we feel like our missionary work has been so different than all the missionaries in the zone, it just seems like we have been here to heal hearts, and to sit with people as Christ would and hold their hands. I love this opportunity, its difficult, its a lot of heart break, but I am so happy to be here to show someone that they are loved and that they are not alone.
#1 Emilio!!!! Emilio is amazing as usual! HE CAME TO CHURRRRCHHHHHH AND HE LOVED ITTTTT AND HE EVEN SANG LOUD AND PROUD DURING THE HYMNSSSSS he's so cool. Oh and in gospel doctrine he just, you know participated the WHOLE TIME. and it was on the word of wisdom and we haven't even taught him that! AND as he said bye to Elder Mondragon, Emilio said to him, see you next week!! (ahhhhh what?!! aparently he is coming next week!!) and THEN. Henry Salgado drove him home and aparently he also set up a ride with him for every week without us doing anything!!! HE SET UP HIS OWN RIDE. mind blown. hes the best. anyways ya!
I love you all!! Read romans 8: 38-39 and think about how much God loves you! It gives me so much comfort :) Sorry I wanted to write a little something that I learned in personal study but i dont have time :/
Te amo te amo te amo bastante!
Hermana Koch
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