Dear Bishop,

I wanted to share with you the experience I had these last couple of days, during the Fast of Daniel.

My father has been a member of the Church for about 10 years.

My whole family came to the Universal Church with their lives completely destroyed. Over time, he conquered many things, but I must confess that his Salvation worried me.

Even though he was going to Church, I did purposes in his favor so he could be saved, because he didn’t seem to understand what it meant to truly surrender his life to Jesus.

He used to chain smoke before coming to Church, but as time passed, he was able to quit. However, every once in a while, he would smoke again, even if it was just one.

He loved watching TV, soccer, which is why, even though he was in Church, he had never participated in any of the previous Fasts of Daniel.

But, on March 24^th, everything changed. He decided, once and for all, to take part of the true sacrifice, which was not only financial, but to surrender himself completely.

He told us that he was going to participate in the Fast.

You can’t imagine our joy! For years, my mother persevered for this.

Bishop, it’s not easy!

The day that his soccer team was playing, my sister asked him: “What is more important?” And he said, “Jesus!”

Then he decided to travel to see his sister, who lives in a rural area. He said that it would be better for his communion with God, since he was Fasting, and asked my mother to lend him the book “NOTHING TO LOSE”, because he had not read it yet.

My mother said she had to look for it, but he insisted and said that he would not travel without it.

He prepared a small suitcase, packed his belongings and left without knowing that this would be the last day of his life in this world.

Upon reaching the city, he became ill and needed to be urgently hospitalized because his condition was very serious! They had to urgently transfer him to a hospital in the capitol.

Although we made every effort to bring him back, when my mom came to pick him up in the ambulance, he had already died.

For many, this may sound like a sad story, but not for me.

Despite suffering a great and painful loss, I’m happy because my Lord has given me much more than I could ask for, which was for him to be healed. He gave him Eternal Salvation!

My father was lucid for about 10 hours while in ICU, and I’m sure that God took care of every detail.

The last words he said to his sister, who was concerned, were: “Don’t worry, Jesus is taking care of me!”

Oh, what a day!

Every sacrifice is worth it, when our goal is to please God.

Magdalena Ruggero – Argentina