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
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