Upon moving into our new area, my companion, Sister Kartchner, and I replaced the other sisters and took over their zone. We immediately saw that they had added us in several Facebook groups with which they had been working. One of the people from the groups was N. There was next to no information about him. All we knew was that he had been found through one of the vlogs that the sisters had created. We were left with a message that we could try with him and good luck. Although it didn't look too promising, we had nobody else to work with, so we reached out to him. We wrote in the Facebook group and then we waited and waited for his response.
When N. finally responded, he said he couldn't meet with us because he was too busy. We tried to set up other dates to meet when he'd be free but unfortunately, every single time something happened to where we were not able to get ahold of him by phone. It was frustrating, but we kept trying. We finally decided to invite him to church. He immediately accepted! We were thrilled and set up a time to show him where the church was. On the day we were to meet with him, we tried calling him with no luck. He wasn't responding. A few hours later, we received a message from his brother telling us that N. had been rushed to the hospital. We were devastated and worried. After a while, N. finally returned home from the hospital. We checked up on him again, but it seemed as if he had lost interest and barely responded.
We invited him to church again in our last attempt to reach out to him. He agreed once more to come and we prayed hard that everything would be alright. That was the Sunday that changed everything. After his experience at church, N. called and asked to learn more! We immediately set up a time to meet over Facebook and asked one of our members to join in on the call.
At first, it was a little hard because our member didn't know how to use technology. However, over time, we were able to figure everything out and help N. progress! Even though he lives in a little village outside of the city, works in a field with animals where he has very bad cellphone connection, were it not for technology we would never have been able to teach him. N. is super busy and was only available late in the day. It would have been practically impossible to get to his village, teach him, and then find a way back home. However, thanks to technology, we were able to keep in contact with him throughout the day. This way, we could see how he was doing and whether he was keeping up on his commitments. Thanks to technology, we could also teach him awesome lessons with the members. Keep in mind that the members are all super busy too and only available late in the day. However with technology, they were able to be on every call and be there to help support N., especially when he went through extremely hard times with his family. We were all able to stay in touch with N. and help him through everything. Even when it was hard for him to get to church one Sunday because he was 5 hours away at the hospital with his dying mother, N. was still able to participate at church via Zoom.
Overall, if it had not been for technology, we wouldn't have found N. because he rarely comes to the city. At the same time, we would not have been able to teach or stay in such great contact with him. Technology has helped us through it all! This past September, N. was finally able to be baptized and to receive the Holy Ghost. He now even has great connections with all the members!
Sister Saige Rechenberger
Hungary/România Mission