While serving in the city of Fuenlabrada, Spain, Elder Knowles and his companion began their daily ritual of knocking doors in hopes of finding someone who would let them in to hear their message.

They came to the apartment building that they had decided they would work that day, and began their usual strategy of climbing to the top floor of the building and working their way down.  This particular apartment building had 11 floors, so the eleventh floor is where they began.

They reached the first door and knocked on it hopefully.  They waited the standard time it usually took for someone to answer, but to no avail.  They knocked again—still nothing.

They went on, deciding to knock the remaining doors on that floor, which were about four or five.  They did so, but with no luck of anyone answering.  That brought them back to the door they had started on.  Instead of going down to the next floor of apartments, they decided to knock once more on the door.

They approached the door and knocked energetically and waited.  This time they heard the switch on the peephole move, indicating to them that someone was in the apartment.  They knocked again.  This time they heard a faint voice say, “What do you want?”

Elder Knowles responded by saying, “We are messengers from Heavenly Father and we have a message for you, from him.”  After saying this, Elder Knowles was a bit surprised at the way he had worded his response, but it shortly left his mind as the door opened.

Standing in the doorway was a young woman, around the age of 25.  Her hair was stringy and greasy, and she looked as if she were about to wither away.  She allowed them to come in and give her the first discussion, which talks about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

During the discussion, they noticed that she made little eye contact with them and acted rather uninterested.  When they finished with the discussion, they asked if they could make a return appointment, and she agreed.

They came for the return appointment and brought the sister missionaries with them, and introduced them to her.  They turned the woman over to the sister missionaries, and they continued to teach her.

In the months that the sister missionaries visited with this girl—Manola was her name—the sisters gave updates to the elders to let them know how she was progressing.  After several months, Manola wanted to be baptized.

Elder Knowles was at this baptism.  When he saw Manola for the first time since they had met her months ago, she was a completely different person—almost unrecognizable.  She was beautiful.  She had a beautiful smile, her hair and clothes were well-kept, and she glowed.  He was so happy to see her.

When Manola saw Elder Knowles, she came up to him and said, “Elder, I want to tell you a story.  The day you and your companion came and knocked on my door, I was in a bad way.  You see, I was married to a wonderful man, and we had a beautiful 3-year old daughter.  One day I was cleaning our apartment while my husband was at work, and I had the windows opened to air everything out.  When I wasn’t looking, my little girl climbed up on the kitchen counter and over to the window.  She fell 11 floors to her death.  After that, my husband left me, and I became just a shell of a person.  I became so depressed, and I lost my will to live.  I decided that I couldn’t go on living, so I was leaning out the window of my apartment, ready to commit suicide when I said to Heavenly Father that if he didn’t want me to die, he needed to send me a sign.  It was at that moment that you knocked on my door.  I decided I wasn’t going to answer the door, and I didn’t.—But you came back a few minutes later, and I decided to see what you wanted.  It was then that you said you were messengers from Heavenly Father and that he had something he wanted to tell me.  I’m so grateful that you decided to come back and knock on my door again.”