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