Sister Ashley Hopkins
Spain Barcelona Mission March 2013-September 2014
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Ch. 78 The End?
Chapter 78: The End?
As tears blur my vision while staring at this
keyboard, I can´t help but think of a time exactly 18 months ago. I had just
passed security, and as I was waving goodbye to my family going up the
escalators to my flight to Spain , I once again was
fighting back the imminent tears. I kept thinking to myself, "It´s only 18
months, you can do it! Be strong!" and I was immediately blessed with a
peaceful feeling that I knew everything was going to be alright, and that I was
doing the right thing. Now, as I am saying goodbye to this beautiful country, life
as a missionary, but most of all, the people I have come to love with all my
heart, I am once again telling myself, "It´s been 18 months. You can do
it. Be strong!" As I look over this last year and a half, in some ways I
can hardly believe that it has passed soo fast. Then as I think about it, I
think to myself, "It´s only been a year and a half?? I´ve grown in many
ways, seen so many things, and learned so much." Looking back, I realize
that I probably went through a lot more trials and a lot more difficulties than
happy and joyful times. However, those wonderful memories make up for any hard
time. I thought I was leaving my family for a year and a half, and I physically
left my blood family, but I have been so blessed to have found an even bigger
family here in Spain . This last week, I
just couldn´t quite fully express my gratitude for all their love. Every time I
turned around, it seemed, someone was shouting "Surprise!!" and I
would see a room full of bright faces wishing me the best in my travels. Marta
and José Luis threw me a surprise family home evening complete with a cake with
my name on it, and made a poster of my nametag. Then, on Thursday, I was
greeted into our "dinner appointment" by all the young adults and
youth in the ward. Everyday was packed with sweet memories but bitter goodbyes.
On Sunday, the entire ward got together and planned a suprise farewell. I
walked into choir practice, and the bishop asked me if I could start playing
the piano. I walked into the room to start playing, and there was half the ward
smiling at me. I could hardly believe it. After that, the bishop gave them the
time to come up and bear their testimony and say something that I had done for
them. Obviously, I was eyes were dripping like Niagra Falls . Especially when our
wonderful Bishop got up. As soon as he started to tear up, I couldn´t stop the
water works, and that´s how I feel I´ve been ever since. Marta got up and bore
her testimony, and it was just a powerful witness to me that my mission was
worth it. Every minute. Even if Marta, or any one of my other converts, was my
only convert, it would have been worth it. Even if I didn´t have one baptism,
it would have been worth it. Why? Because the most important convert of my
mission perhaps was myself. I have always had a testimony of the gospel of
Christ; I never really put it in question. However, as a missionary, I have
been able to see first hand that the church brings happiness. Why? Because it´s
the truth! The little things like prayer, family scripture study, family home
evening, paying your tithing, really do matter!! As we do these things, we see
so many blessings. I have learned that as we are exactly obedient to what the
Lord says, we don´t have to just wait to see a miracle happen, but we can
expect them. I know that angels truly are ministering unto the children of men,
and there are people all over the world that are being prepared. We only have
to be worthy to find these people. I can´t honestly say that I´ve always wanted
to serve a mission. The call to serve really came to me as a surprise. I wasn´t
really praying about serving a mission, but it was probably the most
recognizable prompting that I have ever received. And I would never ever take
back the decision I made to serve the Lord for this short period of time in my
life. I know that God lives, and that He is our Father in Heaven. I know that
out of love, He sent His son, Jesus Christ to be our Savior and Redeemer and be
our perfect example. I know that out of love, God restored the Church, that His
son did this through Joseph Smith and I testify that he saw what he said he saw
because I have felt it manifested to me by reading the Book of Mormon. I know
that we can feel of their love and learn how to apply the gospel to our lives
by reading the Book of Mormon. I know that we have the priesthood restored, and
we have a living prophet. I know that through the keys that he holds, that we
can be sealed to the people that we love forever. That is the knowledge that kept
me going through the hard times and brought me comfort when I was tested. I
leave with you all with my testimony as a missionary of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latterday Saints, and I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have
had to bear his name for the last 18 months. It definitely has proven to be a
“happily ever after” but I don´t think that it´s the end. There is still so
much to do, to learn, and grow. I love you all, and thank you so much for your
prayers and support.
Les Quiero a todos!!
Hermana Hopkins
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Ch. 77 The Gospel is For Everyone
Chapter 77: The Gospel is For Everyone
One of the biggest lessons I´ve been able to learn in the mission thus far is the fact that this gospel is for everyone. When I was called to Spain, I imagined myself teaching little Spanish families in the Spanish language. I never imagined myself helping my companion frost a dragon cake at the last minute while throwing chopsticks in my hair for a Chinese baptism. But, that´s what happened this week. We were going all out for possibly my last baptism in the mission-we wanted to go out with a bang. So, my companion and I got chopsticks from his Chinese Restaurants, and we wore the colors of the Chinese flag, and we made a cake and frosted a dragon. It was super impressive. We had a Zone Conference all day until 4, and the baptism was at 8, and we didn´t get back into Vilafranca until 6, so it was a really hectic preparation, but everything went super smoothly. Until the Elders came. Quianbin—Bin for short—still hadn´t had his interview (that normally doesn´t happen) until an hour before the baptism! We were pretty certain that he would pass, but we were getting pretty nervous to cut it that close. Well, when the Elders walked in, we knew that something was wrong... to make a long and very depressing story short, they had lost all of our mail from the last month on the train. So, if you have written me a letter in the last month, I´m sorry but I will never get your letter. It was a little bit of a downer on the baptism, but we tried to stay focused. It was a nice little baptism. Most of our investigators his age were able to attend, and I think they were really touched by his faith. It´s a big step for Bin since he doesn´t really understand the language all the way. He is just following what he can read and the little Spanish he can follow. Yet, he is always there on time to everything, and sucks up every word that he can understand. He really is such a great example to me. It was really interesting as well; during the welcome he received from the Bishop, the Bishop talked a lot about ancestors. He said, “Of all the converts that I have ever welcomed to the ward, you are the first where I´ve been so prompted to tell you to start looking for your ancestors to take to the temple. I know the Chinese have a lot of respect for your ancestors, and this is the greatest honor you can do for them.” It was really cool, and afterwards, we met with the Bishop in his office, and he repeated the same thing, “Bin, there is someone waiting for you to do their work. You need to start working on your genealogy.” So, we are going to help Bin start his genealogy this week. I´m really excited. We´ve also been working on a few young adults that are so close to baptism. I don´t think I´ll be here to see any of them baptized, but they are practically members. The young adults have just exploded in this ward. It was funny, we have been working with one in particular, Bryan, for about the whole time I´ve been here. He hasn´t really progressed, but he likes the activities. The problem has been all along that he really questions the existence of God in the first place. He always got really close, but he said that the elders would usually scare him off, and then he would stop taking the lessons for a while. So, we´ve been trying to win him over to the dark side...er...the light side this entire time. I didn´t really ever see very much progression with him though, until this week. We were in a cita with him and he said, “Hermanas....I think I felt the Spirit.” We just dropped our jaws. “WHAT?!?” WHEN?? HOW!?!” He explained that he´s been feeling a lot of peace and comfort recently as he comes to family home evenings, and he started reading the Book of Mormon (obviously a good sign, right?) He still has a lot of doubts, but it´s the closest that he has ever been to baptism in his life. I really see a lot of potential growing now. I´m really excited to see how his story ends later. As for now, we´re trying our best to make sure he feels the love that God has for him, and how much He wants him to know that He is there guiding him....and we may or may not have tried to do that through a spaghetti fight. (Don´t worry mom, there wasn´t sauce on the noodles. No stains.) haha I guess you could say that we aren´t your usual hermana missionaries, but we get the job done. Also, I had my last intercambios (I have no idea what this word is in English anymore. It´s where you switch with another hermana companionship for a day) and I ended up working in Hospitalet a.k.a. Little Latin America right outside of Barcelona. Seriously, there are like no Spaniards there. So, I was with another Hermana going to her investigators for a day and we went and visited an ex-exotic dancer from the Dominican Republic. It was a hoot of a lesson, let me tell you. She was so interested in the gospel though! It just shocked me of how, once again, this gospel is for everyone. I´m just trying to do everything I can so that I can leave Spain with no regrets, and spread the gospel to as many people as possible, and I´ve been so blessed to see as many miracles as I have. One week to go, I can hardly believe it. Pray for me—I´m sure it will be a roller coaster of emotions. It doesn´t seem real!! Les quiero a todos!!
Hermana Hopkins
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Ch. 76 Reinforcements Have Arrived
Chapter 76:
Reinforcements Have Arrived
After the gruesome battle scene that we saw last
week, we decided to go into this week much better prepared—ready for the
battle. Not to mention, we had a Talent Show to plan! Yes, it was our turn to
plan the ward activity, and we were so excited to put on an awesome talent
show, but I´ll get back to that in a minute. We went to Nicole´s house last
Monday night to figure out why she had left for Barcelona to party instead of
coming to her own baptism. When we walked into her house, there was a very
different spirit there, but don´t worry. It was a good change. It ended up being a miracle that she
made those decisions so she could feel the consequences of choosing the wrong
before baptism. She even asked us for a copy of Preach My Gospel so she could
prepare for a mission. . She
seemed like a completely different person: more mature, more spiritually-in
tuned, etc. She told us that she experienced some pretty tough things while she
was gone and that she wanted to be baptized immediately. Hermana Vaziri and I just
looked at each other with a little bit of worry in our eyes. The last time she
wanted to be baptized immediately.... we asked her when she wanted to be baptized and she looked us right in
the eyes and said, “Tomorrow.” Uh.... “Or... Saturday.” Ok, Saturday we could
do. We could put together a baptism in four days, but over night is a little
hard. So, we decided we were going to go to her house every day so that she
would have a little bit of spiritual nourishment every day. So, Hermana Vaziri
taught us how to make fudge all together before our Family Home Evening (which
is when she announced to all the
young adults that she really was getting baptized), and we did her hair for a
date... however. We did have a scare after the date. She went to Barcelona again and didn´t come
home for 3 days!! We felt a little bit better because she had permission from
her mom, but she was cutting it really close, and we didn´t want her to be with
all her friends and all the temptations right before her baptism. So we prayed
a lot, and then had to focus on our talent show. We spent a couple days putting
up stars and moons in the church because it was the Noche de Talentos (night of
talents...uh talent night? Is that better?) and then we were helping the young
adults put together their talents. They wanted to do a skit, so we were trying
to be original. We weren´t coming up with something funny for a skit, and then
it came to us: synchronized swimming. It was hilarious. We got blue sheets and
we held them up in front of the stage while they did a “synchronized swimming
routine.” Hermana Vaziri and I ended up dancing a country dance, and they made
me sing as well, but the young adults really stole the show. It was really a
fun night, and we had a great turn out. However, we were exhausted when it came
time for baptism planning.... but we were determined to be more prepared this
time. We were not going to let Satan have any room to come squeezing in and
chilling her feet! No more cold feet baptisms! So, we called in reinforcements.
Yes, it was time to call in our miracle worker... Marta! Our last recent
convert has turned into our best assistant here. (She just got called as a
Relief Society teacher and Young Women Camp Director—she´s an angel. Oh and
just a bragging moment. She got called as the camp director 5 days before girls
camp. (What a champ.) Anyway, we called her in, and bless her heart; she pretty
much babysat Nicole all day for her baptism. Nicole thought we had planned a
secret girls day out with her to honor her baptism....but really we just wanted
to make sure she was accompanied by someone responsible who had the spirit all
day. While we went crazy looking for ingredients to make the desired chocolate
cupcakes, Marta took her out to lunch, then to buy cupcake decorations, and
then to her house to pick out clothes for her baptism. We were so grateful for
her by the end of the day. However, the cupcakes have a long miraculous story.
Ok, not that long and not that miraculous, but you know. Vilafranca is in the
middle of their biggest celebration for the entire year, and so all the stores
are closed. So, when Nicole asked us to make chocolate cupcakes, it slipped our
minds that we didn´t have chocolate powder or eggs. So the hunt began to find
these items. We were about ready to call our elders that live a half hour away
to pick us some of the ingredients when we thought of Jose Luis´ parents (our UNO family). They live
right next to us, so we decided we would try it out. Exhausted, and about ready
to die, we were soon given not only our eggs and cocoa powder, but a few
recipes to try, powdered sugar to make frosting, and a huge plate of food for
lunch. They were our little angels. Oh! And don´t forget the ice cream. Even
though they aren´t members, I think they got some major bonus points with
Heavenly Father for giving His servants a scoop of ice cream on a hot, crazy
day. Anyway, we made the cupcakes and flew together everything we needed,
and met Marta and Nicole at the church so they could start decorating the cupcakes
while we filled up the font and got the program done. Besides the fact that the
printer wouldn´t work to print out the programs, everything was going really
smoothly. As soon as the program started, the spirit just filled the room.
Marta shared her testimony, and it honestly just brought tears to my eyes to
see how much she has flourished in the gospel in just a short amount of time.
After Hermana and I sang, we went to the font, and as Nicole and Bishop stepped
in, he put up his arm to say the baptismal prayer, but then she put up her hand
indicating that she needed a moment. We all just sat there and felt the spirit
fill the room, and we watched her brush two big crocodile tears from her
cheeks. She had finally felt the love that God had for her. As she went under
the water, it was almost like you could feel her leaving her rough past behind
her, and starting over new. One of my favorite parts of baptisms is asking them
how they feel in the bathroom before they change. She explained that right
before she went in the water, she could feel all the bad feelings she had ever
had just leave her, and she just felt clean. It was really sweet when she bore
her testimony too. It was one of the most spiritual baptisms that I´ve had.
However, nothing can go perfect.... after the baptism we were panicked for time
to drain the font, and the thing to drain it stopped working. So, we all joined
together and grabbed bucket after bucket of water and carried them to the sink.
I´m just grateful that no one slipped and fell... it was kind of fun though.
Also, to add to the craziness of the week we taught Quianbin the rest of
the lessons he needed to know for his baptism. It was....so easy. Satan doesn´t
touch our Chinese man. We had to get creative in our teaching, so we
pretty much straight up read the lessons with him while he followed along in
Chinese. It was so funny though. When we taught the Word of Wisdom he was like,
“This. This is easy. I no smoke. I no drink. Next.” hahaha Then when we asked
him if he was ready to keep the law of chastity, he looked at me as though I
were Potifer´s wife provoking him in the flesh. He was horrified that I would
even question him. He´s just the best. He reads and studies more about his
baptism than anyone I have ever seen. Should have expected as such from the
Chinese....He´s great! So, even though Satan thought he had us beat last week,
he should have thought twice before he crossed the Hermanas de Vilafranca!! Les
quiero a todos!!
Hermana Hopkins
Monday, August 25, 2014
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
Monday, August 18, 2014
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
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