Chapter
10: The Rain in Spain
When it rains, it pours; but, to raise the
suspense, I will talk about that
story later. First off, I just want to say something about one of my favorite
members here, Archie. Oh Archie. He seriously brightens my life. He is a 70 year old Filipino, and he insists
on feeding us missionaries in the area every week, sometimes twice. When he
cooks for us, he won´t stop feeding you until all the food that he has prepared
is gone, and then he won´t let your even start to help cleaning up or he get´s
really offended. Anyway, this week, he made this GIANT pot of noodles for us.
My companion and I just looked over at the Elders with a
I-really-hope-you-are-starving-or-have-a-plan-look on our faces. So we shoveled
as much food as humanely possible on our plates, and began our feast. It never
ended. No matter how much we ate, there was always more. My faith has grown of
the story of Christ with the bread and fish, because wow. This food just kept
growing! At one point when I thought I was going to have noodles coming out of
my ears, Archie said, “Look, Hermana Hopkins! There is a tuna on the wall!!”
(He speaks fluent English) Naturally, I was going to look at the tuna on the
wall. While I was looking for this tuna, Archie put at least 2 more spoonfuls
of noodles and rice on my plate with this big grin on his face! I completely
fell for it. Hahaha But he told us if we finished our food, he would sing
Michael Buble for us. (How did he know!!) So of course I stuffed it in.
Unfortunately, he tricked us. He turned around and pulled out a HUGE pan of
banana bread. I thought you were going to have to make me a grave that said RIP
here lies Hermana Hopkins: death by noodles and banana bread. It was a miracle
that I made it out of there. Oh, and we didn´t finish. He sent us home with two
Tupperware containers of noodles. Hahaha I love that man. We always say,
“Archie, you are the best”, and he replies, “ No, I am the worst!” Now, on to
the rain story. I have never seen rain. I have seen sprinkles, I have seen a
slight shower, but no. I have never seen rain. It had been raining decently
hard all day, but then stopped right before my companion and I were about to
set off for the tracting portion of the day. We didn´t have anything planned,
so we thought we would go knock doors and contact in a part of our area that we
had never seen before. Of course I thought I would be smart and wear a jacket
and bring an umbrella. However, even these two items became futile in the
looming rains of all rains. There we were, walking down the street when it
starts to rain. I put up my umbrella and life was just fine, right? Wrong. Very
Wrong. We were about an hour and a half away from our apartment (we walk A LOT)
when the sky broke. Yes, the sky must have been broken. It POURED on us. My
umbrella became useless when the pouring rain became best friends with the
whirling gusts of wind. When this happened, my companion and I had been walking
on a little path made out of SAND . So to paint the picture, I am having water sprayed at me
at all different directions, my companion actually forgot her umbrella so we
are huddled under mine (which, like I said, was practically useless as this
point), it´s freezing with the wind, and I am having wet sand sprayed at my
legs and in my shoes. In other words, we looked like stray, wet cats stuck in
kitty litter. Now, at this point, we could have gone home, but being the
faithful missionaries that we were, we were determined to find someone who
would at least let us into their apartment building. No luck. So after about 2
hours of this, we started back for our apartment and tried to contact the
people that were just as crazy as us on the street. Which was about 3 people.
At this point, we came across the Barce Soccer Stadium (which is in our area),
and my companion says it will be way faster to cut across the entrance and
leave through the back of the parking lot. It seemed logical. Well, we are
cold, we are wet, we are shivering, we are really wet, and after a half hour of
walking from one side of this stadium to the other, we found the doors to be
locked. We just looked at each other and laughed. It was kind of a strangled
laugh because we wanted to cry, but at that point, it was just hilarious the
luck we were having. That´s when a security guard came up to us and asked how
we had gotten in there and that we needed to leave. My companion was like,
“Does it look like we aren´t trying?? “ He told us we had to go back in the way
we came. So we trudged to the other side, once again to find those door were
now also locked. Hermana Wilson thought this was really strange since they
usually leave the gates open for people to walk through until pretty late. Then
we turned around and figured out why: The Barcelona soccer team was being led
down a blue carpet into a premier party, and there in the background is us two
drenched sister missionaries. We just sat there and watched as they were led in
their tuxes into a grand party with waitresses handing them glasses of…apple
juice I am sure… when they walked into this grand event. So, even though we
were completely miserable, it was really cool to watch. So after watching for a
couple more minutes we found the proper exit. To get there, we literally had to
step over the blue carpet in our squeaky wet shoes and walk past at least 15
security guards. We just kept our heads down and tried to not make eye contact
haha. I bet you are all thinking that I am going to have this cool story at the
end of why it was all worth it in the end because we found a golden investigator
just waiting for our message in the pouring rain, but no. It´s not going to
happen, sorry to disappoint. The three people we did talk to probably thought
we needed a shower more than they needed the gospel…haha But sometimes, you
have to have those days in the mission. Now even though this was pretty bad and
it took us an hour to clean up the puddles we made when we walked into our
apartment, the next morning was practically worse. Remember on Mother´s day
that I was sick? Also remember how I said I was singing for a conference on
Friday? Well, I woke up the next morning (Thursday) with absolutely no voice. I
am brilliant, huh? So all day I was trying to sing the song but I sounded like
a dilapidated rubber duck. That night it got a little better, but I could tell
the Elder I was singing the duet with was a little nervous haha. It started to
get a little better, but it was still pretty bad. I could get through the song,
but it was far from my best. So, the Elders offered to give me a blessing. It
was so sweet, and it was a really great blessing. Not necessarily because of
the healing part, but another part that he said. He
said there are people here in Barcelona Bolivia Europe , especially Spain
Mucho Amor!!
Hermana Hopkins
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