Ch. 75 The Battle Continues

Chapter 75: The Battle Continues

The battle field looked worn and heavy-laden with weary soldiers and dark woes. As they fought with all their strength, there seemed to be nothing they could do to progress against the imminent enemy. As this week went on, I felt as though I was this soldier having to add on more armor and plot different strategy attacks in the raging battle verse the adversary. Nicole went with the young adults to a three-day campout. We had originally planned her baptism for this Saturday. We knew it was going to be tight though since we still needed to teach her a few things, have her interview, and all the other essential planning. We went forward with a prayer, but I felt this ominous  feeling all week that it was going to be a lot harder than we were expecting. My companion kept assuring me that these feelings come the weeks of every baptism, but I knew it was different. Well, when we finally got to see her on Thursday, we rang her doorbell, and her brother comes down the stairs. He looks at us and says, “Uh...my sister isn´t home.” and we just replied, “What do you mean she isn´t home?? We were going to teach her today everything she needed to know for her baptism.” He just had shook his head, but wouldn´t look at us in the eye. I knew something was up. We kept questioning him on where his sister was, and so he finally let us see the texting conversation he had just had with his sister. It went something like this:

“Franklin, tell the hermanas that I am not home. I decided I´m not getting baptized this Saturday, and I want nothing to do with the church anymore.” We just sat there, staring at the phone completely stunned. We had been progressing so well with her! No, we weren´t going to give up that easy.

To the frontline gentlemen… er...Hermanas. And so began the battle with Satan.

We ran up to her door, knocked on the door and sat there. And sat there....and sat there... until she finally came and opened the door to her house, but then she ran in her bathroom. (We must be scarier than we thought). My companion tried to coax her out to talk, and I just kind of sat there perplexed at the whole situation. It didn´t make any sense. Finally, her mom came in and was able to coax her to open the door. Right when we walked in you could almost sense a darkness in the room that was visible in her eyes. However, as soon as we made eye contact with her, the darkness left immediately and was quickly replaced by a peaceful light that showed in the smile across her face. I don´t think I´ve ever seen anything like that. I also don´t think I ever truly valued the power that missionaries have being set-apart representatives of the Lord. As we sat down to talk to her, she explained to us that she didn´t know if she felt ready to give up the things of the world to be baptized. We assured her that alone, she probably couldn´t, but with the help of the members here and the Lord she was more than capable. We also told her that if she didn´t feel ready, that it was understandable, and we would wait to do the baptism another week. She told us that she would pray about it and she would get back to us. Honestly, we took that as a –we should-prepare-for-next.-week sort of an answer, and we didn´t think about it until Friday afternoon. We were eating lunch when Nicole called and said, “Hermanas, I need to talk to you now. Can we go get an ice cream?” “Of course!” we practically half yelled while sprinting out the door. We went to her house and on the way to the closest ice cream shop, she said, “Hermanas, I´ve decided that I still want to be baptized this Saturday. I know it´s what I need to do.” As we were sitting there celebrating with her over our ice cream, our bishop in his full police attire came over and pretended to arrest us. Hahaha It never gets old....anyway. After putting away the handcuffs, Nicole explained to him about her decision and our Bishop did a happy dance right there in front of everyone in his police uniform. We don´t joke about baptism. Ok, even though that sounds like we joke about it, we were just really excited.  Anyway, as we were leaving, she asked us if we would make orange cupcakes for her big day since it´s her favorite dessert. Of course we were more than willing. As we were parting, we had the feeling that we should follow her to the train station—she told us she was meeting a friend from the Barcelona ward here. We thought it seemed sketchy, but we decided that our only time making cupcakes would be right at that second with one of our investigators, and our Betty Crocker domesticated side got the better of our fearless warrior side. What can you do?  So, we decided to go get the cupcakes done, and at midnight Nicole´s mom called us. Concerned, we hesitantly answered the phone, “Hola?” She replied, “Hermanas! When are you coming back with Nicole, isn´t it a little late...?” I don´t think she realized that Hermanas can´t be out past 10.  However, we were obviously concerned that Nicole hadn´t come home. We decided to pray right there and just put our trust in the Lord. To make an extremely long and exhausting story short, we were in the chapel at 7 o clock with an arm full of cupcakes, an empty font, and a runaway girl that never went home. We found out later that she was in Barcelona with her ex boyfriend. Obviously we were disappointed, but we did everything we could do. Maybe she just needs another week or two....who knows. Which reminds me....Yes, Satan is pushing really hard with Nicole, but Quiangbin came to his lesson last Wednesday and pointed to the picture of baptism and then to a girl receiving the Holy Ghost, and he says, “Hermanas. I want this.” and after a little bit of Spanglish, we decided that he was ready to be baptized in a couple of weeks. He is reading the Book of Mormon like crazy, prays, and hasn´t missed one Sunday since we first invited him. He is incredible. We told president to start looking for a priesthood holder that speaks Chinese. Haha He told us that the Lord is preparing an army in China, and he´s seen a lot of miracles in the mission with the Chinese. I thought that comment was perfect with the week we had. We aren´t backing down here! The battle continues though. The only white flag you’re going to see is the white baptismal clothes!

Les Quiero!

Hermana Hopkins

Ch. 74 Let the Spirit Talk

Chapter 74: Let the Spirit Talk

Obviously, I needed a lesson about the Spirit, because I feel like I had to be on my toes all week with our investigators! We had a family home evening that was combined with an investigator family, the bishop´s family, and all the young adults and most of the young men. One of the sister´s in the ward was supposed to give the lesson, but two hours before, she called us panicking that she couldn´t give the lesson and needed us to do it. We sat there spitting out ideas for about an hour, and finally felt like we should do a lesson on the armor of God. We threw together a complete armor set of cardboard fabulousness. Haha Oh, and we used my pink fuzzy slippers—there´s just something about them that scream “preparation of the gospel of peace”, and then we ran to the family home evening. We asked for a volunteer and it just happened to be our bishop. We all died laughing as he fit himself to our nicely tailored, cardboard armor complete with pink fuzzy slippers. But I think it really helped a few of the young men understand the importance of always putting on the armor of God.

Then, we had to do a split on Wednesday night. I was going to teach a struggling family how to do family home evenings, and my companion was going with our recent convert, Marta to teach our Chinese investigator Quianbing (I know, the spelling changes weekly). When I got to the Family Home Evening, I had it all set up in my mind of what I wanted to do, and as soon as I sat down, I realized that I needed to teach the Restoration. I argued the idea back and forth for a while, but I knew this family needed the Restoration. The mom and daughter were baptized a little over a year ago, and the father and brother are investigators. As I taught them of the story of Joseph Smith, the brother just stared at me and said, “He was my age...and he had his prayer answered.... and then he restored the church of Christ. How can I know if that´s true?” I explained to him that he just has to do what Joseph Smith did. Afterwards, the sister announced that she wanted to prepare to go on a mini mission (the members here have the opportunity to serve in one of the areas of our mission for 3 weeks to a transfer), and she´s been less active for the last few months, so it was a great miracle. Meanwhile, my companion is having a lesson in Spanglish with our lovely Chinese man. He´s so great! He hasn´t missed a week of church since he has started taking the lessons, yet he barely understands what is going on. The spirit must have touched him, because there is no other way he would be following like he is. He´s so funny, everyone loves him at church because he bows to them when they shake his hand, and is very respectful to the older members in the ward. He usually has to leave early so he can go to work, and he tells us, “I have to go now. I return.”  He´s so great. We have also been working a lot with Nicole this week. She is making such big steps of progress. Every time we go though, we end up teaching a different lesson then what we had planned. She was doing so good until she went to this party and drank half the night. So, obviously tithing was not what she needed at this moment, so we made a list of all the characteristics that she wants in a future life and family in the church, and all the characteristics of a future alcoholic partier, and had her compare them. I really hope we were able to get through to her since she is so close! She is stronger than she thinks, but she has no one to tell her otherwise, so we are stuck helping her fight this battle against the adversary. She actually is going on a campout for the next couple days with the young adults in our ward (there are more of our investigators going than members. Haha!), so hopefully she will be able to build up a support. Their dad had us come running to their house the other night at exactly 7:00. We had to be there exactly at that time, not a minute more, and not a minute less. We rang the doorbell at exactly 7:00, went up the stairs, and when he opened the door, there was a big dinner waiting for us. We asked what it was all for, and he replied, “It was the only way I could think of to help try and repay you for what you are doing for my family. Thank you.” It was such a tender moment to see the spirit working with them, and softening their hearts.

Last week, I was given the assignment to give a talk in Sacrament Meeting because the theme was going to be missionary work. Easy enough. So, this whole week of course I have been procrastinating it since it was only 10 minutes and I knew I only had to share a couple experiences, bear my testimony, and that´s all I would have time for. Halfway during the week, I got a call from the ward secretary asking me if I could actually talk for 15 minutes. That was fine, just add a couple of my favorite scriptures in there and it was good. However, on Sunday morning I got the distinct impression that I needed to have an outline for something a little bit better. I decided that it was probably because God doesn´t like us to be procrastinators, so I decided I would come up with something with a little more substance. When I got into the sacrament meeting, I noticed the bishop had a funny look in his eye when I walked in the door. What could that possibly mean...well, when he announced it was my turn to give talk, he stopped me as I was just about to get up to the microphone and whispered in my ear, “Hermana Hopkins, the other two people who were assigned to give the talks today didn´t show up. Can you talk for about 30-40 minutes?” I just stared at him and started to laugh as I looked down at my half-a-page outline. Then he whispered, “Just let the Spirit do the talking.” Ok, easy enough—I kind of just wanted to roll my eyes at that comment, but I also knew he was right. So I said a little prayer in my heart that I would be guided of what to say for pretty much the entire sacrament meeting....and it was a really incredible experience. As I was talking, ideas just kept coming into my head, and it was one of those moments where I really felt like the spirit was just putting the words right into my mouth. As I finished my talk, and sat down, it was really a testimony building experience for me to see the spirit work right through me. I thought it was pretty cool and I started to relax, but as I got up to greet a couple of our investigators, the Sunday School President came over to me with a panicked look on his face, and said, “Hermana, the Sunday school teacher has an interview with the bishop, could you teach the class??” I had no idea what the class was even on, but of course I agreed to it. I walked into the class and saw the word “Honesty” written up on the board, and picked up a manual and read the first paragraph really quick. Ok, I could do this. As I was about to start the class, the president walked by me and whispered, “Hermana, just let the spirit do the teaching.” I think my week was definitely preparing me for this Sunday. On Sunday, we were so excited that Marta was called to be the Young Adult President in the ward. She´s going to do so great, and I felt like a proud mother as she was being sustained. Actually, it was a miracle because her mother came to church to see her sustained too. I hope she was able to feel something. I realize that the Spirit is so important in this work, but sometimes, I wish the spirit would give me an hour´s notice...haha

Les quiero a todos!

Hermana Hopkins  

Ch. 73 UNO

Chapter 73: UNO

 “Ok,” I thought as I looked down at my cards, “I got two reds, a wild, and a draw two.” As we continued our fast pace game of UNO, I knew this had to be the craziest missionary tactic that I had come up with yet. As we were sitting with José Luis and his family in their dining room playing, I also knew that it was going to be worth it. José Luis is the boy that I told about a few months ago that had decided to go on a mission despite all the conflicts that seem to keep coming his way (many of those coming from his own family), and we promised him that we were going to try our very hardest to help his family be baptized before I leave my mission. When we got there on the blistering hot, August afternoon. It would seem that everyone was dying of the heat with little or no energy left in them. Well, that is hardly the kind of attitude needed if we are going to have an interactive lesson about Joseph Smith and the Restoration. I knew we were going to have to do something different because this particular family has had the missionary lessons for over 4 years, and the dad hardly has stayed in any of the lessons before. I was determined that this was going to be different. So, when I sat down in the dismal room, I looked for anything that could spark some energy. That´s when I saw the deck of UNO cards waiting for us on the table. That was it. I started to second-guess myself, but I really felt like we needed to play this game of UNO. I think their family was expecting us to start a normal lesson, but when I suggested we start with a game of UNO instead of a prayer...let´s just say it spiked everyone´s curiosity!  Everyone joined for a couple rounds of some UNO, and it did just the trick. When it was time to start the lesson, everyone stayed and was alert during the whole lesson. José Luis´s cousin, Hector, is our age and doesn´t believe (or should I say doesn´t think he believes, but he really does) in God. I´ve noticed that problem a lot with the young adults in Spain, it´s really sad. But, we taught him the Restoration, and we watched the Restoration movie with him, and he seemed like he was really starting to understand. What I love is that all his questions and concerns are easily resolved in the Book of Mormon. The more and more that I teach, the more and more I realize how and why the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion. What was the miracle about the lesson is that José Luis´dad not only stayed through the whole lesson, but he told his nephew, “If you want to know if God exists, you have to do what Joseph Smith did and ask with a sincere heart.” My companion and I just stared at him—yes, we were seeing progress. In fact, José Luis was so excited afterwards that he said he saw new hope that he had never seen before in his family. He wants it so bad...and so do we! Even though they didn´t come to church this week, we plan to have a good Family Home Evening with a couple families in the ward and Bishop´s family. It will be great. Also, this week we had a really touching lesson with Nicole. Nicole has a goal to be baptized in two weeks, and she was progressing so good....until her boyfriend comes into the picture. I´m not sure if I have already told her story or not, but this is the same girl who was 17 and thought she was pregnant, it ended up being negative, and then her boyfriend turned abusive. We´ve been really able to progress with her, but she still has some ways to go. She told us that she wanted to go back and be with him, and we just stared at her like some sort of wild zoo animal. WHAT??? My companion grabbed her shoulders and said, “NICOLE! What are you THINKING??” Sometimes as missionaries, I feel like people´s mothers. Haha But, she just replied, “Well I just love him and he asked for forgiveness....and I really love him!” I couldn´t understand. How could you love someone like that when you are seventeen, and he´s almost put you in the hospital not once, not twice, but five times!! We want to help so her see she deserves better than this. I was thinking that she must be lacking some serious attention around the home maybe. So, we called the whole family in, and we talked about how we are children of God and that he loves us, the impression came to mind that we should do a “love circle”. I have done it several times in the mission, and I go around and have each member of the family say something nice about every other member in the family, or something they admire in them. I thought it would be good for Nicole to see that she can find love within the home, but I must say, I was definitely surprised. When it was time for Nicole, her mom just started bawling and went off on a pretty much where-did-I-go-wrong tantrum, and don´t even get me started on what the grandma said!! I just stared at them, and said, “OK, let´s just focus on the positives.” and then her grandma just stared at me. I gave her an encouraging nod, but she just continued giving me a blank stare. Are you serious?? The dad told me to just continue and move on to the next person. I could now start to imagine why she is having so many problems! When it came to the dad, he started by saying some things that were kind of harsh as well, and by this time Nicole just broke out bawling, and threw herself to her mom. All we could make out was, “Mom, I´m sorry. I´ll change and try to be better. I want to be better!” And that´s when the dad said something that was so inspired. He said, “Nicole, if you want to change and be better, I think you need to follow the invitation of the Hermanas and be baptized. It won´t be easy, but it will be worth it. I´ve made some bad decisions in my life, but the decision to be baptized I will never regret. To this day, I still remember how I felt as I entered the water. You can experience that as well just as your brother did recently.” (Her brother was baptized 8 months ago) Now, this father has been less active for over twenty years, so we were all taken-aback when he said that. It will be a miracle to see Nicole baptized, but as a missionary I know that we can expect miracles when we do all that we can...even if that means pulling out a deck of UNO cards.

Les quiero a todos!

Hermana Hopkins  

Ch. 72 Slam Dunk

Chapter 72: Slam Dunk

"Hermanas! I have an 'ideal' investigator for you", Edmond exclaimed in the middle of the lesson. We just looked at the strange outburst of our little African investigator with a puzzled look on our faces. We had just finished teaching him about Joseph Smith, so slightly confused, we replied, "Yes?" 

"After we are done with the prayer, we can go visit my friend and his mom that are always in this park. They don´t believe in God, and they need to believe in this. Is that ok with you?" We told him we would love to meet his friends, and after we had finished the lesson, we were led briskly down the road to go visit Edmond´s friends. We have been teaching Edmond´s family for a couple months now. (His parents are the ones that fed us the African food). Edmond is only 10 years old, but he is so mature and smart, and just has the happiest personality. We love teaching him, and he loves to be involved with the church. The parents have a really positive view of the church, but....let´s just say they are a little hard to make commitments with. So when they say, "See you Sunday!" We know it really means, "See you the next time you catch us at home." haha I guess everyone has something to work on... Anyway, we got to the park and the mother and son were nowhere to be found. So, we sat on the bench next to our disappointed African boy. He had a Book of Mormon in his hand already to go (can you say hello future missionary??), when he looked up and saw another friend playing basketball. He looked at us with a sly look on his face and said, "Hermanas. You are from the United States...do you play basketball." I just smiled and replied, "Yes, I know how to play." He looked over again and asked us, "Well....what if we played with my other friend while we wait for my friend and his mom to get here." I looked down at my pencil skirt and dress sandals......

"Ok. Let´s go." 

So we started playing a little game, and that´s when everyone in the park saw two Americans playing basketball, and naturally, everyone wanted to play against the American girls in skirts. Let me just say it was hard, but we made America proud. :) haha Even some parents came over and played! We had a good game going when we realized we were going to be late for our next lesson. We agreed we would come back in a couple days to share a message, and everyone agreed to it, and it was even more of a slam dunk because the friend and his mom came at the last minute and said they would be willing to listen to our message too. I was so excited. With starting my last transfer in the mission today, I am glad that I was able to start with a swish. 

Also, this week we decided to give Josep and Angela a challenge. We have been working with them this entire year, and they come to church, but they aren´t really in the process of conversion since they say they don´t have the faith to pray or read their scriptures. So, we wrote them individual letters and explained that if they read and pray together every day for a month, they would see a miracle with their family. They accepted the challenge, so please be praying that they are able to recognize the miracle that God puts into their lives!! Marta as an update is doing wonderfully. She is progressing and really wants to keep learning. She loves planning things with the young adults, and they are all best friends now. She´s so incredible, and I am grateful she feels like she has a family in the church. 

This week we also started teaching...Qxia Bin. Sorry, no idea how it´s spelled, and yes. yes, we are teaching a Chinese man. Just one more country to check off the list. However, he doesn´t really speak that great of Spanish...or English...so we watch the Restoration in Chinese with Spanish subtitles. He has a lot of potential, and he came to church this week. He is the only member of his family here in Spain and he´s about our age, but his whole family has a Christian background (I thought that was really odd being from China, but cool too). It will be interesting to see how we can further our teaching with him. 

As the final piece of news.....everyone get ready...because your prayers have finally paid off....

I received the news today that CATI AND TONI ARE GOING BACK TO CHURCH!!!

To say that I didn´t scream and jump up and down and cry a little would be a lie. I did all of the above, in the middle of the train station today when I saw my old companion being transferred. So please keep praying for them. I love them so much, and it would be the icing on the cake to finish my mission next month knowing they are back on track. I love you all so much, and I am so grateful for all your love and support and prayers!!

Les Quiero!!!

Hermana Hopkins