Ch. 71: The Missionary Soap Opera

Chapter 71: The Missionary Soap Opera

 

“If he doesn´t want to be part of your family, he needs to be kicked out on the street!”·Not the words that I was necessarily expecting to come out of my companion to a crying investigator. I was just trying to take in the whole situation. I felt  like my role as a missionary this week has taken the Hollywood direction, and my role is now the lead missionary in the newest LDS soap opera.  

CUT.

Let me explain a little more. Every ward has their “eternal investigators”. These are the people who for some reason or another won´t get baptized, but are practically members. They come to church, they go to activities, some of them even have visiting teaching responsibilities. Well, we have been working with a family that seemed to be under this criteria, and we were determined to shake things up a little bit. We went into the house and gave a lesson on the blessings of baptism when the mom calmly explained to us that she couldn´t get baptized since she wasn´t married, and they couldn´t get married because her “partner” had a problema with cheating on her with this other girl (what??), and that she wasn´t going to get married to him until he could prove himself loyal. We thought the whole situation was bizarre, and the poor kids have had to watch their parents go through that. We are especially working with their son, Manel. Manel is a recent convert that was baptized just over a year ago, and has been through sort of a roller coaster ride since his baptism. Essentially, he was baptized to please his mother, but soon after had a very strong spiritual experience and knew this really was true and that he needed to truly change. That change has been kind of hard for him, but he´s getting there.  He´s been coming and helping us with our citas and really has a strong testimony. Well, the other night right after we had walked into our piso after a long day, we heard the timbre ring (In Spain there is a timbre at all the apartment buildings. You ring it, and you can talk through it to the piso you want to talk to so they can let you into the building). We were wondering who on earth would be ringing out piso timbre at 10 o clock at night, and then we heard Manel´s voice come over the phone.

“Hermanas?”

“Yes Manel?”

“Can you read me a scripture.  Any scripture. Just read me a scripture.” We could tell he had been crying and so we grabbed out our scriptures with haste and starting reading scriptures that we had previously found comfort in. He explained to us that one of his best friends had been killed in an accident and with all his family issues, well needless to say he was going through a rough time. We shared our testimonies with him, and tried to give him the most comfort that we could. After about 45 minutes, he left for home feeling a little better. Every time I open the scriptures, I am more and more convinced of the love of God that we can find on every page, and I am so grateful that this recent convert has also learned of their power. But, the story doesn´t end there. On Sunday, his Mom comes into Relief Society and just collapses on my companion bawling. Obviously alarmed, we took her outside and she explained to us that her partner wanted nothing to do with her, but was still going to live in the same piso.  And she doesn´t have a job to pay for the bills or food or anything, so she can´t really tell him to hit the road. That is where my companion cut in and told her that her “partner” needed to take a hike. I just told her that she was a Daughter of God, deserved better than that, and that she should talk to the bishop. Well, later that evening we returned to the church for an activity, and she comes up, practically skipping no less, and informs us that they had worked out their problems and are getting married next week. I just sat there and stared at her. She was more excited because that meant she could get baptized. Again, I just stared at her. We didn´t want to give any advice, or get involved with the situation more than necessary, but this family could use all the prayers they can get.  Hermana Vaziri and I both looked at each other with concerned faces. Yes she could be baptized….but why on earth was she marrying this man that has been cheating on her for eight years?? This part of the soap opera is to be continued…

However, our drama unfortunately doesn´t stop there this week.  Last week, I talked a little bit about our runaway investigator, and she had a really sad experience. There we were working in the ward garden with her brother actually, when he received the call that we all needed to run to the train station. We all ran there to see his mother their just bawling (I think I have seen enough tears this week to feel our next baptismal font!) This part might be kind of graphic for young audiences, but I thought it had a good moral to the story. (and it has an ok ending). We have been teaching this 17 year old girl, she just ran away, and a few days later she called her mom crying that her boyfriend had tried to strangle her, she was alone, and pretty badly beaten up. We convinced her to come to church with her brother and her mom, and she told us that she felt so loved. I was so grateful she was able to find the love and attention she was looking for in a healthy way…but I can´t help but wonder why she keeps going back to these situations. This is the third or fourth time. It´s absolutely incredible to see the difference in people´s happiness after coming to church. Luckily, this week is youth conference, and so she along with all the youth in the ward are off to Barcelona for the week, and I think it will be a healthy distraction for everyone.

                And just when you think the drama couldn´t get worse—it does. Ok, actually this is more fun drama. African drama! Yes, our cute little Alberta is just about to pop; I´ve never seen anyone more pregnant in my entire life. She was told that she still has about a month to go, but I just don´t see how that is possible. Well, she had a doctor´s appointment to go to this week, and her husband usually goes and translates for her, but he got called into work…So, she called the only other English speakers she knew. We´re here to serve, so why not! I told her that we would all go to the hospital with her and translate. The doctor´s appointment was a presentation about the epidural and the actual birth. I was a little worried about the vocabulary that I was going to need, and then my fear tripled when I soon realized the presentation wasn´t in Spanish. It was in Catalan. I leaned over to Albertha, “Albertha, you told me this was in Spanish. This is is CATALAN.” She just looked at me with wide eyes and replied, “But Hermana Hopkins. You’re a missionary. I know you can do it.” Ok, what am I supposed to say to that!! So, I tried to do the best I can. Catalan has a lot of Spanish influence, so I was able to make out most of it…I hope I explained to good enough for her. Halfway through, they did a presentation of how they do the epidural… I looked over at my companion and her face was just green, and she was rubbing her temples. I was trying not to laugh when I realized I was getting kind of queezy too… That was a really big needle….. The best part of the whole presentation was when they were trying to calm down a couple of almost-mother´s that were also in the room by saying, “We want your birth to be comfortable and a pleasurable experience.” My companion and I looked at the needle, and the picture of the woman giving labor on the board and tried to hold in our laugh. Comfortable and pleasurable is not how I would describe child birth. It was a very different experience compared to most of our usual missionary service. We also are helping Albertha clean her piso this week….We asked her how to clean her carpets, and she handed us a little brush that I would normally use to clean potatoes.  My arms were practically shaking after we had sufficiently brushed the crumbs out of the carpet. Vacuums—God bless the USA. Haha  As we cleaned, Albertha told us, “I don´t care if my little baby plays soccer or is good at school…I just want him to be the next prophet!”  We told her that you never know….and she said, “Ok, well at least a bishop.”  She´s so cute.

                The only “normal” missionary news I think I have is when we had a really sweet experience with Marta this week. She is just getting a long great with all the single adults in the ward, and is just growing so strong in the gospel. We decided to take her to a visit with another investigator her age, and she just bore such a strong testimony. We told her that she just seemed like a missionary! Well, later that night at the family home evening we were at, she announced that she felt the impression that she needed to serve a mission, and that she was going to spend this next year preparing to go. I almost started crying right there, but instead I jumped up and down with her and gave her a big hug. She is honestly so prepared, it´s been such an exciting conversion process. It was funny too because in the activity on Sunday we had a testimony meeting, and she went up and bore her testimony, and two ward members came up to her and said, “We just feel like you are going to go on a mission!” She broke out into to tears and said that it was exactly in her plans to do that.  It´s like she has been a member for years. She´s so great! Although I feel like this week was very long, and full of drama, I think the things I have been learning the most is just how important the gospel is in my life. I am so grateful that I have always had that anchor. That´s not saying I haven´t had problems or won´t have problems, but I know that there are some problems that you can avoid by living the gospel daily. I am so grateful for parents who raised me in the gospel and taught me correct principles. This week has been a very humbling week to say the least. I am so grateful for the people I have in my life!!

Les Quiero a todos!!

Hermana Hopkins