Grandmother, Mother and Daughter Get Mercy
I was outside the Govinda's at New Dwarka (Los Angeles), thinking about how I was unable to go out to distribute books. That's when I saw a girl sitting not far away from me. I started to chat with her. Quickly our conversation moved to the topic of chanting, and I showed her how to chant on beads. We decided to meet a little later during the day. We tried kirtan, and she started to express how over the years she'd met sankirtan devotees and collected lots of Prabhupada's books but hadn't read them yet. I talked to her about the Krishna book, and she decided to get it along with a another small book. Just like me, she was in LA for just another week, and we made a plan to meet, to read and chant every day for the rest of the week. To my surprise she kept her end of the bargain and started to read, chanted a round daily, and attended almost every class (including the morning program) for a week. She ventured deeper in her questions and experiences.
On the last day, as I was leaving she came with her mother, who was very supportive of her nineteen-year-old daughter. After a while I and a few devotees got her mother a garland, which brought her to tears. She said to us that in the early eighties in El Salvador, when she was young, some people visited her grandmother, who was a Christian priest, and gave her some BBT books. She remembered seeing the artwork in her grandmother's books. When her daughter showed her some paintings, she recognized them from her grandmother's books. The visiting devotees also taught her grandmother the Hare Krishna mantra, and she would chant the maha-mantra with her door closed.
The other devotees and I were amazed at how Krishna had had sankirtana devotees meet this family for three generations. When I returned to Canada, I got an encouraging text from the girl saying she hopes to read thrity-two pages of Bhagavad gita every day and complete it in next three weeks, before school starts, and also gradually increase her chanting to sixteen rounds.
I asked her to attend Sunday feast lecture with her mother.
I pray that you all bless this girl, so she can fully embrace bhakti.
Your humble servant,
Mangal-arti Dasi
