Chapter 57: A Hallelujah for Easter

Chapter 57: A Hallelujah for Easter!

There is no better way to spend Easter than to celebrate it with the baptism of our little Africana, Albertha!! It was such a wonderful process from start to finish. Our little African has so much faith. It was seriously a blessing to be able to teach her. We had quite the little miracle while preparing her for her baptism. We passed by almost every day this week to see how she was doing. When we passed by on Wednesday night she was having a lot of side pains due to her pregnancy. They were debating on taking her to the hospital, but we decided to kneel down and have a prayer with her and her husband. We told her that the elders could come over and give her a blessing, but she told us that she really just wanted to go to bed and see if it would be better in the morning and to have the elders come the next day. When we came the next day with the elders, the pain had almost diminished and after the blessing, she said it was all gone. I love the faith of this cute girl. On Friday we came for her interview and all was going so well. I had never had a week go so smoothly before a baptism. Sunday morning she came to church in her total African attire (Love it!  She is from Ghana.) and after church we got to work setting up the font. I was determined to have the perfect baptism. The programs we had a little bit of a problem since the church´s printer wasn´t working, but after an hour of messing with it, it finally worked out. We ran home to make the truffles for a little something afterwards, and when we got back to the church, we had forgotten part of the chocolate, so we had to run back to piso and bring it back. We were out of breath and flying to get everything ready, but it was still running smoothly. She came in, and we got her in her white clothes, and started the program. The program was in English, so I was the designated translator to Spanish. Luckily, a lot of the Spaniards in this ward speak English such as the bishop and the people who gave the talks and conducted. The baptism was absolutely beautiful. One of my favorite parts of baptisms is when they come out, and we go to help them to the bathroom to change, and we ask them, “How do you feel right now?” Albetha had the best response ever. She looked at us, wiped a tear from her eye and said, “Everything in my life just changed. I just became a member of the church of God. I am a Mormon! My baby will now grow up with God in his life. My home will now be lead by two parents with the Holy Ghost.” I took her by the shoulders and I turned her to the mirror and I told her, “Albertha, what do you see when you look into the mirror?” and she looked at me kind of puzzled, and so I continued, “I see a beautiful daughter of God, and I know that your Heavenly Father could not be more proud of you.” Then she promptly folded her arms, and said a quick pray out loud and she said, “Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for letting me be baptized.” It was such a tender moment! Then we went back in to have the musical number before the confirmation, which was me. However, the pianist had to leave and go out of town, so I was doing it acapella. Which, at this point is just fine.  It´s not like anyone here knows the difference between notes. However, I was still a little nervous since I really hadn´t had any time to practice. However, I was singing If the Savior Stood Beside Me which I have sung a few times on the mission, so I didn´t worry too much about it. I went to give myself the starting note on the piano, and I was getting up onto the podium to get to the microphone, to my absolute horror, my boot hit the edge being the catalyst to the most ungraceful fall you had ever seen in your life. If you have seen the movie Miss Congeniality when she falls on her face during the evening wear competition, that´s me. Times 10. I tried to catch myself, but there was no use; I soon found myself an embarrassed heap on the ground. I didn´t want to get up, I just wanted to die right there. I got up on my knees and peeked my head over the podium to see the audience slightly elevated above their chairs in concern to see if I was ok. I was not ok. My pride had been shattered, and so I slowly slid back down....realizing the show must go on, so I sprung up and tried to think of something to say, and so I muttered out, “I´ve always been one for grand entrances.” Everyone laughed and laughed. Great. I can sure break the mood. Once I caught my breath from joining in their laughs, I sang the song, and she was confirmed. She and her husband (who is a member) gave a beautiful testimony afterwards, and it was a memory I will never forget. They are officially on the road to becoming an eternal family in the temple. What a wonderful way to spend Easter!! There´s nothing like leading someone into the waters of baptism the day that all men can remember as the day we received the hope for eternal life. I love the gospel. We also had some other great experiences this week. We have really been working on prayer with our investigators so that they can receive their own answers. We are teaching our lovely Catalan grandpa, Josep and his daughter, Angela, and they are so funny! They come to church almost every week, but they won´t pray together. He keeps saying that he already knows God won´t listen to him, so what´s the point even trying. However, it´s a little bit of progress since he didn´t even know if God existed before!! Ha! At least now he believes God is there....he just has the relationship between us and Him confused a little. He really is the best though. We had a lesson about prayer, and he promised us that he would pray with his daughter. Now we just have to see if all went well. It was such an incredible week full of sweet little experiences, but that is all I have time for. I love you all so much, and I am so grateful to be a missionary right now!! Sometimes we have to fall so that we know how to get ourselves back up. J

Les Quiero!!

Hermana Hopkins