October 13, 2014 ~ Tender mercies

Ok this week was so busy and went by so fast, but there was just 1 main thing that I really loved.  

So, we went back to petro this week, and last time I was there, I didn't get to see some of the people that I had worked really closely with.  So this time I really really wanted to.  We went over to their house and I talked with the mom for a little while.  I was there to see Andrew cause I know that he has been having a terribly hard time.  While there we started teaching his girlfriend who then became his wife and then she got baptised and he started being really active again and was stopping drinking.  But apparently a few months later after I left, things started to go downhill and now neither is active and they are getting divorced and he has been drinking a lot.  So sad because there were some of my favorite people I have ever met.  Anyways, we are at andrew's mom's house waiting for him to come home.  She called and he said that he'd be there in like half an hour.  So we went outside and just mved some wood and stuff for her til he got there.  After about 20 min I hear someone say something that sounded like "hey!".  I look over at the gate and Andrew is standing there looking rather confused.  I smile and wave and he does the whole squint thing and looks closer and then he realized who it was and his face totally changed, he opened the gate and just kinda ran up to me and hugged me like a zillion times and said how glad he was to see me and started crying a little bit.  He told me how everything had been going and basically how awful his life has been recently.  I wrote them 2 letters, 1 when I left in which I said that I wasn't sure that I would be able to make it back to petro (cause if you're not serving there, there's not much of a chance that you'll ever end up there) and then another a few months later when I found out that they were becoming less and less active.  He told me that he thought he would never see me again and that he has kept my letters and rereads them a lot.  It was just really sweet, he just told me how much I had done for him and his family and how much they really appreciate me.  He cried a few times and we just talked.  For me that was such a sacred experience.  I just felt so much how God loves him eventhough he just feels like crap and is thinking about signing up and going to ukraine to fight in hopes that he won't survive.  This man is such a special man and he taught me so much as we were teaching him and his wife and it was so awful to see how everything has just fallen apart for him and he just feels miserable.  It was really not fun to tell him I had to leave to go catch a train, but I promised him I'd come back 1 more time before I leave (now I've gotta talk to president and make that happen) and I wrote him another letter.  Just pray for him! 

Андрей and I

I have thought a lot about 'holy places" on my mission and that time with him this week was another one for me.  I am so grateful that I had that experience, that God let me come back and visit with him again.  Obviously there are some parts of missionary work where "results" are obvious.  We see that when we have to report numbers.  And here, we don't have terribly high numbers, in fact, they are really quite low.  Missionaries can often feel really unsuccessful and feel really disappointed in what they have done, or regret that they have held some things back and not given all that they could at many points.  I admit that I have, on occasion had similar thoughts.  But I am so grateful that God loves me enough to bring me back to Petro after 9ish months, and let me meet with the father of a now ruined family that I taught and loved so much, just so that this guy could tell me how much I mean to him and his family.  It's just one of those things that you can't describe how you feel.  And there are no words to thank God for giving you the opportunity to see that all the love and time you put into people really did make a difference for them, even though you could possibly feel like you probably don't deserve it.  Now it would just be even better if they could get things worked out and remember what it was like when they came to church and had all that joy in their lives.  Maybe someday!   

Although it is a really actually sad story I guess, it was a really special experience for me.  I don't know if I really portrayed it correctly, but it was definintely a tender mercy for me this week.

Elder Robison