Out Late....Too Late

In the mission we are promised that if we are obedient to the mission rules we will have success and protection from God. I believed this and knew for a fact that it was true. One night I had an experience that showed it was true, I just learned the hard way with my companion. I was working in one of the more smaller cities in my mission, a city called Brumado. It was a very nice place and more on the upper class side of the state I was serving in. At this time I was training a new missionary from Alabama. Throughout his whole life he was home-schooled deep in the swamp lands and pretty sheltered and never exposed to much of the real world. He was having a rough time adjusting to the loud, aggressive, free spirits and personalities of Brazil. I was doing my best to try and help him slide into the transition of the Brazilian culture and lifestyle. Well, as the story goes we were having a hard time finding people to teach. Our mission president talked to us constantly about finding men to teach because they can be good example to their family and we can find more people through them. One day we were walking and a man stopped us and asked us very excitedly if  we would stop by his house because he was interested in our message and church. Of course we said yes and planned to stop by. The time came for us to go to his house and he wasn't home, we tried the next day and the same thing. Day after day we would go and nobody was there. We were pretty disappointed to say the least. One night we were walking home after a long day and we were about half hour away from our home. It's a rule that the missionaries be in their home no later than 9:30 and we were cutting it close. All of a sudden my cell phone rang and it was the man who had stopped us in the street, he wanted us to come visit. I explained we had to go home but we could the next day. He said he was leaving on a work trip and wouldn't be back for quite some time, it was now or never. I told him we would be there. His house was very far and on the outskirts of town, but I wanted to teach him so badly. We finally arrived to his house and went in ready to teach. As I started to teach with my companion in his broken  Portuguese the mans interest in the church had changed completely, it was obvious he only wanted to "Bible Bash" or in other words, argue about religion and try to tell us why we were wrong. Normally when this started to happen I would put an end to it, wish the person a good day and go on my way looking for someone who had a true interest to learn more. This time though I was so mad and frustrated that he had tricked us into thinking he wanted to learn more that we would stayed out longer than we were supposed to just to argue. I was very upset and let my emotions get the best of me as I sat there and tried teaching and arguing with him. The point finally came when i realized it was nearly 10 at night and we were still very far from our home. I put an end to the lesson and me and my Alabamian companion left the house quickly. I was very upset as we started our long journey home. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, they did. We were walking down a street and up ahead I could see a group of about 7 teenage boys hanging around. I knew that once we walked by them they would start yelling at us and making fun of us as they always did in any city. I turned to my companion and told him to just ignore them. Sure enough as we approached them they started yelling out disrespectful and pretty rude things to us. By this time I was so use to it I could have cared less. We walked right by them and I thought that it was over. Next thing I know the yelling had stopped and a rock the size of my fist came flying over my head and pegged my companion from Alabama right in the head! My companion was the quietest  and least confrontational person I know so he just kept walking with his head down. As a person I am very laid back and easy going and don't get upset very easy. This night though I had had it and I snapped. I instantly turned around and did something a little brave and very very stupid. I marched right towards the group of teenagers. Half of them ran away as about 4 of them lingered and starred at me in surprise that I had come back. The first one I approached was a heavy set kid who looked only to the ground as I approached him and got nose to nose with him right in his face. I asked him, well, yelled to him asking if he had thrown a rock at us as well as saying some other words in English they didn't understand that a representative of Jesus Christ shouldn't say. Nobody answered, they all just awkwardly starred at the ground. I had enough so I turned around and walked towards my wide eyed companion to continue our journey home. As I approached my companion ANOTHER rock came hurling towards us and nailed my companion right between the shoulder blades as he turned around. I instantly turned around and saw all the teenage boys no running up the hill as far from us as they could and there was no chance or reason in confronting them anymore, we just needed to get home. We walked and walked and my adrenaline was pumping. I was so angry at everything that had taken place in just the last hour or so of the night, it was a lot of action packed into such a little amount of time. We got home and my companion had no started to develop some pretty big bruises on his back and head. My anger turned into guilt as I though about how I had us stay out longer than usual and I was the only one confronting and yelling at the teenage kids stoning us in the streets while my companion who did nothing wrong was the only one getting hurt. As I laid down in bed that night I though about how true it was that while in a dangerous country the Lord will never ever let anything bad happen to you as long as you are obedient and doing what is right...but as soon as you choose not to, such as staying out on the streets later than you are supposed to you are on your own. It was a real eye opener. From then on out I made a goal and and promise with God I would do better to be more obedient for his safety.