Chapter 15: The Lord's Time

Chapter 15: The Lord's Time

I am just going to get straight to the point this week; I am sure that everyone is anxious to hear about Francisco. Well, I don’t really know where to start. Like I said last week, we finally were able to confirm an appointment with him for Tuesday. We took two of our most trusty members with us so we knew we would really have the spirit with us. Then it happened. We began with a prayer, as usual, when I heard the little under the breath mutterings of an Evangelists. Our cute Francisco was doing an Evangelical prayer! After the prayer, we started talking to him about his experiences reading the Book of Mormon and Our Legacy (which he has finished-not the Book of Mormon, but Our Legacy.) He said he loved reading about them, but he was also attending another church. We already had guessed so from the prayer, but still. My first reaction? My competitive nature wanted to scream, "Let it be war." Then I felt this overwhelming feeling of love come over me. I knew that God was watching over Francisco, and right now, we just had to be there for him as he struggles to find the truth for himself. Even though I hate the gift of agency at times, I know that it is important that he find out for himself. At the end of the lesson we challenged him once again to pray to know that this church is true and to be baptized on July 6. He said he would tell us the next time we visited him, which was scheduled for Friday afternoon. So, we decided to fast for him Thursday as a district. Well, halfway through our fast, he calls us and says he is going out of town for the weekend, and won’t be able to meet with us. We were really disappointed, but we were reminded that missionary work is done on the Lord’s time. Also, we found a great girl named Feily. I am not sure if I mentioned her before, but we contacted her on the street, she is 16 years old, and she is from the Dominican Republic. We had tried to meet with her and her family a couple times before, but they were always busy. We finally were able to meet with them, and it made my week! I was so excited! When we first got there, they were just sitting in their family room laughing and spending time together as a family. We always start with a hymn and a prayer in our lessons, and when we were looking for a hymn, the dad says, "Can you play Haz Tu Lo Justo??" (Do What is Right)  My companion and I just looked at each other. There’s no way he didn’t have a connection to the church before! Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear much of what it was, because he had to leave right after the prayer, but we want to find out this week! Anyway, the lesson was one of the best first lessons we have ever had! Feily was totally open to everything! Her mom listened as well, but she is very much affiliated with the Evangelical Church (again, trying not to be bitter...haha) Except it was great because her mom said, "Feily needs something like this in her life. If she figures out that it is true for herself, and wants to be a part of this church, then I fully support her!" It was so great! It was funny because they had a little electric piano, and they wanted me to play some hymns on it, and I didn’t know this, but my companion had signed me up to teach Feily piano lessons. I can play a few things, but to teach, I would have to be blessed with that gift haha. Anyway, we were super excited after that, and she said she wanted to come to mutual to meet the other young women and to come to church! Unfortunately, we got another reality check that it is the Lord’s time, because she cancelled on us for mutual, and didn’t show up to church...Of course we are going to continue to work with her though! She even was asking about our missions and how she would love to do something like that as well if she figured out if our church is true (except I knew it was a when not if.) So, we had two big disappointments this week with working on the Lord’s time, but when times are rough, there is always something better around the corner! I don’t remember if I have written about her, but this week, we met with a less active member, Alicia. Now, Alicia is from Cuba, she is about 60 years old, and has a really bad smoking problem. That is why she is less active. When we visited her about a month ago, she had no desires to come back to church and she was still smoking quite a bit every day. This time, she was a new woman! We know the Lord was preparing her this month. She has been struggling with some health problems, and she was just so humble. We had actually accidentally switched our lesson plans for two people that day. The lesson before we taught the lesson we wanted to teach Alicia originally and we started teaching the lesson we had prepared for our previous visit to her! It was the sacrament. It was one of the best lessons we have taught since arriving in the field. We read 3 Nephi 18 with her about the sacrament, and she was in awe that it’s almost word for word as what is in the bible. She just told us, "Hermana´s, I know I need to come back to church so I can take the sacrament, but I really just want faith right now. Don’t Pray for me to be healed physically, pray for me to be healed spiritually." Although we thought it was a mistake, it ended up being the perfect lesson for her to hear! We are going over to her house tomorrow as well because she asked for a blessing from the bishopric. I can’t believe the difference! On a different note, our wonderful Hermana Popo invited us over for lunch the other day. She called us about 10 minutes before and said, "Hermanas, please wear sandals!" When we got there, she had a grand feast awaiting us (truly, I have never felt so full in my life! I thought I was going to have to roll home!) and then the greatest thing happened. She went into her closet and pulled out a giant tool box. What was inside the giant tool box?? The biggest pedicure kit I had ever seen. Hermana Popo was a professional artist. She wanted to give us pedicures!! Because she is always so good to come with us to visits, we couldn’t very well resist, could we?? She was darling! She did the whole shebang! I know that she struggles with her testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, but she always is so kind to us missionaries. I figure that Christ took the time to wash the apostle’s feet, and that she was being very Christ like. Not to mention we have very nice looking feet now (which was well needed after all our walking!!) She is so great! Then our last lesson this week was very interesting. We taught a man named Joel on the street because he couldn’t meet in his piso on Sunday night. We would usually meet in the church then, but it was quite the walk from where we were. So, we decided to teach him the gospel of Christ, which in essence, is the fourth article of faith. While we were there, one of his friends came up and wanted to listen as well. It was really funny though because we forgot they were having tons of fireworks that night. So there I was, bearing my testimony of the spirit when one goes off right in front of us and I let out a scream!! haha So it kind of ruined the lesson, but it was funny! We will see how they work out this week when we meet with them again. For the rest of the night walking home was like walking through a battle field--falling fireworks from the sky, trying not to step on little poppers, it was kind of a mess! And they were going until almost 6 in the morning! They love their parties here! I love being a missionary here in Spain around these wonderful people and feeling the presence of the Lord every day!

Thanks for all the love and support! 

Hermana Hopkins