By Peter Hightower, Area Media Specialist
The sister missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints serving in Del Rio, Sister Ruiz and Sister Sherman, recently received an invitation to appear on a local radio morning show. Morning host, DJ Jay Gonzalez became familiar with the sister missionaries through the content and videos they have been posting on their Facebook page over the last year. He became curious after seeing their videos on his feed over many months and he finally decided to reach out to find out more about them and their mission.
Sister Ruiz explained “When he messaged us on our Facebook page asking to meet with us at the local diner, we thought he wanted to learn more about the Church so we thought we were just going to teach an introductory lesson about Jesus Christ and the Restoration.” When they sat down to meet, they quickly realized he had something else in mind. Sister Ruiz continued “He was just asking us all kinds of questions about who we were and what our purpose was. After a few minutes, he asked if we would be interested in coming on his morning show to talk about it.”
They accepted enthusiastically and after getting permission from Texas, San Antonio Mission President, Jason Teveten, they agreed to appear on the show on Tuesday, March 23rd.
The station is KDLK 94.1 which plays mostly country music. In the small studio, Jay is the voice of Del Rio and produces the show every weekday. His co-hosts, Lupita De la Paz and “Sam” provide balance and comic relief. The three are all Del Rio natives and are passionate about their community and making it a better place to live and work. They’ve been broadcasting together for several years and view themselves as a small family.
During the 30 minute on-air segment, the sisters spoke about their purpose in bringing people to Christ and also highlighted much of the volunteer work they are doing in the community. They mentioned working with Val Verde Loaves and Fishes, the local food bank and volunteering Saturdays at the COVID vaccination clinics. They were also able to plug their mission-wide virtual language classes which help people to learn both Spanish and English. They invited anybody who was interested in learning more to visit their Facebook page at /ComeUntoChristInDelRio or in Spanish at /VenidACristoEnDelRio.
One subject that came up was how their work has changed in the era of COVID. Ironically, their appearance on the show was a direct result of the new on-line strategy that missionaries world-wide were forced to adopt in the past year. To close the segment, the sisters were able to share a message of Hope and invite anybody who was feeling despair or discouragement to call them to request a personal meeting to pray with them or to share an uplifting message centered on Christ.