Ch. 55: The Wedding Singer

Chapter 55: The Wedding Singer

I think we have all had those nightmares when we have a big event, and there is always something that comes in the way. And as hard as you try to get to that event, you just can´t make it. Then, you wake up and think, “Phew, it was only a dream....”

This week, I lived it.

It all started when I was asked to sing at the wedding of one of the recent converts here in Vilafranca. I have never been asked to sing at a wedding before, and I was actually kind of excited. The only thing that puzzled me was what on earth was I supposed to sing at a wedding with keeping with the missionary rules. However, that problem was soon solved when the soon-to-be bride asked the elders as well to sing a quartet with me of Families Can be Together Forever. All was set and ready to go a week before. Then, as we were talking to a few of the Relief Society women, they asked if we would help make the refreshments for the reception to be held at the church shortly after the ceremony. Being the sister missionaries that we are, of course we said yes with little hesitation. So, Saturday arrives and we knew we needed to get baking everything at about1:00 in order to get everything to the church by 5:00 so that we can get to the wedding that starts at 6:00 on the other side of town. Well, like we all know as missionaries that plans never work out quite like we wanted them too.... Our lesson that we had planned that morning went an hour over time, so we weren´t even able to go to the grocery store to get our supplies until1:30. We started getting cooking at 2:00. We were flying!! I was making some truffles while my companion was making some baked goods and I turned to her and asked, “What are we supposed to put all this on? Do we have any trays?” My companion looks at me, and then looks down and says, “Will this do?” I look down and see one of the most hideous bed trays (you know, the ones like when you are sick in bed and someone brings you dinner) I had ever seen. No, that was not going to work! We are doing this for a wedding!! So we grabbed our shoes and ran out the door to go get trays fit for a wedding. Luckily, there was a shop right up the street that we knew of. Not so lucky was on the way back, in my haste, I failed to see the little present that a dog had left for my right shoe before it was too late. Great! So here we are panicked that we hadn´t even started the cookies we said we would make, and we had less than an hour! So, we really started flying and got everything done at about 5:15, which was ok....not great, but ok....So we called the Elders to see where they were because they were going to help us carry it all to the church, and one of them had set their clocks wrong (go figure) and they were waiting for their brownies to come out and told us they would meet us at the church. So, there we were balancing like 4 trays of food waitress style to more than a mile away to the church. However, we got in the elevator of our apartment and realized that neither of us had open hands to push the button...so carefully....ever so carefully.......SPLAT.

Cream cheese frosting when flying down my black skirt. (luckily it was only 2 cookies) So, I ran back inside to clean off my skirt and then we were finally off to the church. We arrived at the church at 5:50. We had 10 minutes to get across a 30 minute walk. After debating how on earth we were going to do it, we decided in a taxi. However, the taxi driver told us that it would be a 10 minute delay until it could get to the church. 10 minutes!! We could run to the taxi station in less time than that.

And that is exactly what we did.

We took off in a dead sprint in all of our nice clothes towards the taxi station, shouted the instructions to the driver, and he took us all of about 30 seconds and made us pay eight euros.... talk about taking advantage of us Americans!! So we took of running again and walked in at 6:08. If it had been an LDS wedding in the states, we would have been just fine. However, because we are in Spain, we missed everything but the exchanging of the rings. Well, then it was just our time to sing, and after all the running, we were pretty tired....but took my fingers through my hair and got up and felt good as new, then the elders followed suit, slightly out of breath, and then I look at my poor companion...... hahaha She is bright red, huffin and puffing, her once-curled hair is now a sporadic mess, and she is dripping sweat. I just put my head in my hands...could this day get any better?? We sang the song, and everyone made jokes at us of how Americans are always late. Ya, ya....However, hopefully we planted some seeds with that song and all of the non-members listening. Everything ended up working out, and it was an enjoyable evening.

However, as much as I would love to be a wedding planner here in Spain, I am really a missionary, and that is what the week was truly focused on.

Last week I talked a little about Eusebio, our Bolivian friend who was praying about baptism. This week, we taught him the Plan of Salvation, and it was a beautiful lesson! As we were teaching the lesson, I kept getting the impression to talk about the temple. We usually don´t do that during a second lesson because it is a lot of new information for the investigator, but the impression persisted, and so I decided to ask the ward member with us to share an experience she has had about the temple. She explained that her grandfather had recently passed away, but right before he died, he asked the family to do his temple work for him. This was really weird since his entire life he had not been completely against the church, but he didn´t ever want to be involved with “the Mormons”. However, his heart was softened just when most people thought it would be too late, but with the blessing of the temple, they were able to do the work for their grandpa and grandma, and they had a sweet experience doing it. Eusebio just shook his head and said, “That makes sense. God loves us, and has a lot of mercy with us.” At the end of the lesson, after we explained the Kingdoms of Glory, I turned to him and asked, “Eusebio, if you want to live in this kingdom with your family for the eternities,” pointing to the celestial kingdom, “What do you need to do right now in your life?” he replied, “I need to follow the example of my Savior.” and so we asked him if he would be baptized. He whispered, “Of course I will be baptized. I would like to learn more, and go to church a few times, but if this is right, then of course!!” We were so excited after this visit, we practically danced all the way home. We wanted to meet with Marlon, our golden investigator, but he has been having finals, and so we haven´t seen him. This week for sure we will have more news on him! We are just seeing a lot of new things that will be going on in this area, and it´s definitely exciting! To end a great week, we went with a couple of the ward families to a big Sunday Spanish dinner up on the mountainside. They made us the traditional Calcots that they do here only in Barcelona, and with a ton of other things that I have no idea what they were, but they were good!  And then we were able to watch the Sunday morning session of general conference, which is always so inspiring! What incredible opportunity we have to listen to modern prophets and apostles!! I love you all and hope you have a great week!!

Les Quiero!

Hermana Hopkins