Chapter 15: The Lord's Time

Chapter 15: The Lord's Time

I am just going to get straight to the point this week; I am sure that everyone is anxious to hear about Francisco. Well, I don’t really know where to start. Like I said last week, we finally were able to confirm an appointment with him for Tuesday. We took two of our most trusty members with us so we knew we would really have the spirit with us. Then it happened. We began with a prayer, as usual, when I heard the little under the breath mutterings of an Evangelists. Our cute Francisco was doing an Evangelical prayer! After the prayer, we started talking to him about his experiences reading the Book of Mormon and Our Legacy (which he has finished-not the Book of Mormon, but Our Legacy.) He said he loved reading about them, but he was also attending another church. We already had guessed so from the prayer, but still. My first reaction? My competitive nature wanted to scream, "Let it be war." Then I felt this overwhelming feeling of love come over me. I knew that God was watching over Francisco, and right now, we just had to be there for him as he struggles to find the truth for himself. Even though I hate the gift of agency at times, I know that it is important that he find out for himself. At the end of the lesson we challenged him once again to pray to know that this church is true and to be baptized on July 6. He said he would tell us the next time we visited him, which was scheduled for Friday afternoon. So, we decided to fast for him Thursday as a district. Well, halfway through our fast, he calls us and says he is going out of town for the weekend, and won’t be able to meet with us. We were really disappointed, but we were reminded that missionary work is done on the Lord’s time. Also, we found a great girl named Feily. I am not sure if I mentioned her before, but we contacted her on the street, she is 16 years old, and she is from the Dominican Republic. We had tried to meet with her and her family a couple times before, but they were always busy. We finally were able to meet with them, and it made my week! I was so excited! When we first got there, they were just sitting in their family room laughing and spending time together as a family. We always start with a hymn and a prayer in our lessons, and when we were looking for a hymn, the dad says, "Can you play Haz Tu Lo Justo??" (Do What is Right)  My companion and I just looked at each other. There’s no way he didn’t have a connection to the church before! Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear much of what it was, because he had to leave right after the prayer, but we want to find out this week! Anyway, the lesson was one of the best first lessons we have ever had! Feily was totally open to everything! Her mom listened as well, but she is very much affiliated with the Evangelical Church (again, trying not to be bitter...haha) Except it was great because her mom said, "Feily needs something like this in her life. If she figures out that it is true for herself, and wants to be a part of this church, then I fully support her!" It was so great! It was funny because they had a little electric piano, and they wanted me to play some hymns on it, and I didn’t know this, but my companion had signed me up to teach Feily piano lessons. I can play a few things, but to teach, I would have to be blessed with that gift haha. Anyway, we were super excited after that, and she said she wanted to come to mutual to meet the other young women and to come to church! Unfortunately, we got another reality check that it is the Lord’s time, because she cancelled on us for mutual, and didn’t show up to church...Of course we are going to continue to work with her though! She even was asking about our missions and how she would love to do something like that as well if she figured out if our church is true (except I knew it was a when not if.) So, we had two big disappointments this week with working on the Lord’s time, but when times are rough, there is always something better around the corner! I don’t remember if I have written about her, but this week, we met with a less active member, Alicia. Now, Alicia is from Cuba, she is about 60 years old, and has a really bad smoking problem. That is why she is less active. When we visited her about a month ago, she had no desires to come back to church and she was still smoking quite a bit every day. This time, she was a new woman! We know the Lord was preparing her this month. She has been struggling with some health problems, and she was just so humble. We had actually accidentally switched our lesson plans for two people that day. The lesson before we taught the lesson we wanted to teach Alicia originally and we started teaching the lesson we had prepared for our previous visit to her! It was the sacrament. It was one of the best lessons we have taught since arriving in the field. We read 3 Nephi 18 with her about the sacrament, and she was in awe that it’s almost word for word as what is in the bible. She just told us, "Hermana´s, I know I need to come back to church so I can take the sacrament, but I really just want faith right now. Don’t Pray for me to be healed physically, pray for me to be healed spiritually." Although we thought it was a mistake, it ended up being the perfect lesson for her to hear! We are going over to her house tomorrow as well because she asked for a blessing from the bishopric. I can’t believe the difference! On a different note, our wonderful Hermana Popo invited us over for lunch the other day. She called us about 10 minutes before and said, "Hermanas, please wear sandals!" When we got there, she had a grand feast awaiting us (truly, I have never felt so full in my life! I thought I was going to have to roll home!) and then the greatest thing happened. She went into her closet and pulled out a giant tool box. What was inside the giant tool box?? The biggest pedicure kit I had ever seen. Hermana Popo was a professional artist. She wanted to give us pedicures!! Because she is always so good to come with us to visits, we couldn’t very well resist, could we?? She was darling! She did the whole shebang! I know that she struggles with her testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, but she always is so kind to us missionaries. I figure that Christ took the time to wash the apostle’s feet, and that she was being very Christ like. Not to mention we have very nice looking feet now (which was well needed after all our walking!!) She is so great! Then our last lesson this week was very interesting. We taught a man named Joel on the street because he couldn’t meet in his piso on Sunday night. We would usually meet in the church then, but it was quite the walk from where we were. So, we decided to teach him the gospel of Christ, which in essence, is the fourth article of faith. While we were there, one of his friends came up and wanted to listen as well. It was really funny though because we forgot they were having tons of fireworks that night. So there I was, bearing my testimony of the spirit when one goes off right in front of us and I let out a scream!! haha So it kind of ruined the lesson, but it was funny! We will see how they work out this week when we meet with them again. For the rest of the night walking home was like walking through a battle field--falling fireworks from the sky, trying not to step on little poppers, it was kind of a mess! And they were going until almost 6 in the morning! They love their parties here! I love being a missionary here in Spain around these wonderful people and feeling the presence of the Lord every day!

Thanks for all the love and support! 

Hermana Hopkins

Chapter 14: Lessons Learned From Hotel Barcelona (June 17, 2013)

Chapter 14: Lessons Learned From Hotel Barcelona

Before I came on my mission, I had a vision of what I thought the life of a missionary would be like: You wake up loving every morning and looking forward to the day. Then after energetically getting ready for the day, you hit the streets with a new found sense of excitement for the work. You knock doors to really nice people who are of course waiting just for you to receive the gospel in their homes. You teach lessons every day, you can fluently speak the language, and you see miracles every day. I am here to honestly tell you that unfortunately, this is not true. In fact, almost none of it is true. Except for one thing. You do see miracles everyday. Some days, you come home completely frustrated because you have three appointments planned, and none of them follow through. So, you decide to contact in the streets, and not one person will listen to you. You get home completely exhausted and just want to go to bed. Of course there are great days, but I never thought about how hard it was going to be before hand. Now, let me expound on this--I do love my mission. I LOVE my mission, but I didn’t realize that it would be so hard. This week was transfers, which means the old missionaries leave, and the new missionaries come. We are the Hermanas that live in the area of the mission home, so it was our responsibility to turn our piso into a hotel. After preparing for 4 hours to receive 11 Hermanas into our 2 Hermana piso, we went and picked them up from the mission home. A flood of memories came back into my mind from my first day in the mission. The confusion, the excitement, the fear, all of it. I realized how far I had already come, and I was excited to see how the new Hermanas were doing. I think most of them were just ready to go to bed. haha It was absolutely insane, and we had Elders delivering air mattresses at 11:00 at night, but we made it work. We took a couple Hermanas with us to our appointment (our only one in the entire week that followed through), and they loved it. It was a good one for them to go to. His name is Joel, and he told us that we look like we walk with Christ. I loved that! He is a little flakey when it comes to church attendance, but he really loves the idea of the plan of Salvation, so we are working with him. He said, "Hermanas, please just tell me where I am going after this life." We described to him the Plan of Salvation, and he asked us, "Why doesn’t everyone in the world know this?" We told him that we are trying! We just need all the missionaries we can get in the world so people like Joel can have access to this information. We had the new Hermanas with us for 2 more days, and we were in charge of getting them to their proper transportation, getting registered to Barcelona, etc. They are really a great group of Hermanas. Now here is the part of the week I wasn’t expecting, we had two Hermanas that are moving in with us until they can find a piso to live in. Best part? They were supposed to go and FIND their piso themselves. As they were leaving the other day to go out looking for one, the one turned around and asked how you say the word "rent" in Spanish. Well, long story short, the four of us were soon on the streets of Cornella looking for a piso for these Hermanas. That was something I wasn’t expecting to do as a missionary. haha We were switching off calling the numbers of pisos for rent, and when it was my turn my companion told me to ask the man selling it how many bathrooms there were. So I asked, "Cuantos baños tiene?" (baños is bathrooms). He replied, "20." I turned to my companion and half exclaimed, "This piso has 20 bathrooms, buy it now!!" haha ok, so I knew something was up, but still. I gave the phone over to my trainer because she knows more Spanish, and she just laughed. She told me later that he had thought I asked, "Cuantos años tiene" which means how old are you. hahaha We all had a good laugh over that. Things you say as a new missionary I guess. Now, back to the work this week. It was straight up miserable. We had 1 lesson with Joel, and the rest of them cancelled on us. One of our really good investigators named Marisa called us and said, "Sorry Hermanas, I just can’t have you over anymore. I can’t keep going on with something that I know is false." We walked the streets and knocked doors, and couldn’t find anyone who was listening to us. Worse part of the week?? We still hadn’t heard from Francisco by Thursday night. Now, Francisco would wait outside his apartment building if we were 5 minutes late for our appointment, and he still hadn’t contacted us. We were so worried. I can’t tell you how long I spent on my knees each night praying for something to happen. Well, on Thursday night, my life became quite the whirl wind. The ward missionary leader called me and asked if I would sing for Sacrament meeting with another Elder. So Friday, we had a lot of other ward business to do, and now I had to find a song to do. We decided to do the EFY medley (Armies of Helaman/ Sisters in Zion) However, we couldn’t find an arrangement in Spanish, and so we spent the evening creating an arrangement ourselves. Elder Wilkinson, bless his heart, played it for us and created a beautiful arrangement. So I thought everything was settled until Saturday morning. We had the Ward Talent show that evening that the ward had been looking forward to for 6 months. The missionaries were planning a hilarious skit that we were going to practice that morning before Ward Correlation. That’s when they asked me if I was singing a solo for the talent show. I told them, well I am singing for sacrament meeting and I am part of the missionary skit. Well, the activities leader was apparently not very happy with me. haha She told me that I was going to sing a solo, so I need to get prepared. Alright, so I had 6 hours to prepare a solo... to top it off, they wanted me to sing “You Raise Me Up” by Josh Groban. Really. So, again, we were rushing to come up with arrangement that would work since it was a really hard song. Again, bless Elder Wilkinson’s heart. haha I thought of all weeks, why was everyone asking me to do all these things?? Sometimes, you have days where you don’t really feel like singing, but unfortunately, I had no choice--the activity leader is a fierce woman. haha So, we felt like we should try one last time and invite Francisco to the Noche de Talentos. We had Jorge, his friend in the ward, call and invite him to hear me sing (really, not that enticing, but I’ll take it.) and he said of course he would come!! The heavens parted and I could hear the hallelujah chorus. That inspired us. We called all of our potential investigators that had cancelled on us, and 4 of them said they would come as well!! This talent show was a blessing sent from Heaven. Anyway, Francisco came, and I stumbled through You Raise Me Up (definitely not my best performance seeing that we only had 30 actual minutes to prepare, but luckily I was familiar with it.) I got kind of choked up singing it while he was taking a video of me singing (isn’t he just the cutest investigator ever!!), even though he couldn’t understand the words because they wanted me to sing in my native tongue. People don’t realize how much missionaries care about their investigators. After the talent show, Francisco came up and said, "Alright Hermanas, sorry I haven’t been able to meet with you or call you back. My life has calmed down again, can you come over on Tuesday?" YES!!! We are back in business!! It was definitely the highlight of my week. That morning, my companion and I had been really let down with the work. We were both reading in Alma 31:31 for personal study, and when we came together for companionship study, it was a really weird experience. We just looked at each other and cried. If anyone is wondering if my tear ducts are working, they are. :) But, she told me something that really made me think. She said, "Hermana, the Lord sent you here knowing both your weaknesses and your strengths. He didn’t send you here to fail. He knew that you weren’t going to be perfect, but he sent you to this area because he knew your strengths. There might be some days where you won’t find a new investigator, but maybe you will touch somebody with a song you sing, and help them feel that God loves them."  And just later in the day, look what happened! It was such a tender mercy for me. But it also made me realize that it isn’t just true on a mission. God doesn’t send us here to fail, he sends us here knowing exactly where we need to be in order to succeed. Of course we won’t be perfect, and we are going to make a lot of mistakes, but if we didn’t have those, there would be no room to grow. I sang again on Sunday with Elder Wiscombe, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of the Army of Helaman in these days. So back to what I was saying earlier in the email, there definitely are a lot more harder days than I imagined. Some days in and of themselves are trials, but I know it will help us grow. The lesson I learned in our little Hotel Barcelona is that you have to look for the miracles each and every day. If you spend your days dwelling on what little success you had, then you are going to be miserable! To finish our week, we went to Park Guell and see some of Guadi´s amazing architecture. It was so fun to be able to just enjoy being in Barcelona. I can’t wait to tell you all what the next week will bring.

Les Quiero!!
Hermana Hopkins

Chapter 13: The Island Carol

Chapter 13: The Island Carol

          We have all heard of Charles Dickens’ The Christmas Carol, and I am here to tell you the story of the Island Carol. Yes, this story begins with me—Hermana Scrooge. Alright, so I wouldn’t say I was quite on the same page as Mr. Scrooge, but for all intents and purposes, I would say it is quite fitting for this week. So here I am a missionary in Barcelona. I have loved every day just going through the motions of missionary work. I loved the area, my companion, the ward, but of course, we all have our little frustrations. This all changed when I received a text on Tuesday morning. This text basically said that since I was doing such a fantastic job in Barcelona, they were going to ship me out to the islands to let me rest and enjoy the beach for a couple of days. Ok, so the text really said that I was going to be having a companion exchange for 2 days on the island of Mallorca. So I got my bags, and I was excited to see what it was like out there. I was first visited by the ghost of areas past. It is NOT Hawaii, let me tell you. I have never loved my area more. Not only did my little part of Barcelona become much more beautiful, I love the people in my area, and I love the investigators that I have here. From the second, alright probably more like the hour, that I stepped off the plane, I just wanted to be back in Barcelona. Then, the next ghost was the ghost of companionship present. I have never appreciated my trainer more than I did for those couple of days. When I stepped off the plane (which was weird, I didn’t expect to be on a plane until I was flying home) I noticed that there were no missionaries waiting for me. I didn’t have a phone since my trainer had it back in Barcelona, so I just walked up and down the exit hoping they would be there. They weren’t. So I sat and waited for 45 minutes hoping that someone would remember that Hermana Hopkins had landed in Mallorca. Luckily, they finally showed up. So that was a great start. The Hermana I was working with was a Sister Trainer (the equivalent of Zone Leader), so I expected a hard working missionary. However, I didn’t expect to be treated like I hardly knew anything. I sat in a two hour appointment not being allowed to say a word. I wasn’t allowed to touch the phone, and I didn’t take any part in planning. At all. Every time I started to contact someone, she would just take over. She really was nice, but oh my goodness. The funny thing is, she would always compliment my Spanish saying I was one of the best non-native trainees that she had ever heard. It was slightly ironic, and I felt so bad for her trainee. I love my trainer so much now, I can’t even express it. She treats me like an equal companion. I never realized how important it was for someone in training to be able to take equal part in everything. I also never realized that there were trainees who weren´t taking an equal part. Then I had the final visit of the ghost of wards future. I love my ward here in Barcelona. I was so sad being separated from them for a day. I missed teaching my English class where the ward mission leader and cute Gladys are our faithful students. They brighten my week, and I didn’t realize how attached I had been to our wonderful ward here. Nobody tells you when you leave on a mission that you pretty much have to say goodbye to home every single time you leave an area. It’s awful and wonderful at the same time. All I know is that I think I have separation anxiety now. Haha On the flight home, I was considering all that I was blessed with back in my area. That is when I had one of the worse landings of an airplane that I had ever experienced. The grandpa next to me picked up his cane and yelled some mumbled curse in Catalan. In retrospect, it was hilarious. At the moment, I thought I was going to die. Haha So, I could add my life to the list of things I was so grateful for. Shaking with wobbling legs, I grabbed my trainer and practically blurted, “Don’t make me go back there!!” haha Everything in Barcelona looked so much brighter and beautiful. I came back with a new resolve to make the most of every day here. I talked to my trainer about how grateful I am for her, and she said, “ You know what, it makes me sad to hear about Trainers like that. You were called to this mission with not any less authority than anyone else. Experience in the mission does not make you any more privileged to do the work. You have equal rights to receive revelation and guidance than any one else for your area.” It’s so true! And I will NEVER complain about making a phone call in Spanish. My biggest advice to any missionary comes from our mission president (I believe, I heard it from my trainer though), “ Your most important investigator is always going to be your companion—you can’t do the work unless you have the spirit of unity with each other.” Although it will be a really hard goodbye in 6 weeks when my trainer goes home, I am so grateful that we have been able to develop a strong friendship with our companionship. I can definitely see the difference. Now, the mission work this week was definitely a trial. We lost contact with our dear Francisco. I was terrified. Fortunately, he called us Friday night and said he had been on vacation and that he would be at church. Then, we had an INCREDIBLE lesson with Angela and Manuela. We decided to call in the help of our amazing primary president, Catalina. She is honestly one of my favorite people here. She came in and taught Manuela (who is 7) about the Faith in God program and how she is a Child of God. It made Angela, her mother just cry. Then, Catalina bore testimony of the importance of church attendance and how it was Angela’s responsibility as a parent to take Manuela to church. It was exactly what they needed to hear. Well, remember when I said this week was a trial? Yes, my beloved girls moved out of our area. Not only did they move out of our area, but we helped them move out of our area. One Metro stop out of our area to be exact. I just wanted to cry. But I had Francisco to look forward to at church, right? Hmmm. It was the craziest church block I had ever attended. It was absolutely hilarious had Francisco not been there. To begin, the Elders brought an investigator to Sunday School. He stood up, said he had no faith in God and that he felt like he had been deceived coming to our church to find out if there was a God. The lesson was on Eternal Families, and he told everyone that there is no way that was possible. Then, another person brought up how their neighbor was sealed twice, and how is THAT possible. Madre mia. It was ridiculous. We asked Francisco when we could come by and visit him this week, and he gave us the “I’ll call you”…we are really worried, so pray for Francisco. Then Relief Society…oh Relief Society. A lady from the street who is a menos activo, I guess, came in. She was on drugs, I can tell you that for sure. The lesson was on the will of God. When asked what is the will of God for us women she raised her had and said, “To be prostitutes; all you religious people are fools because there isn’t a God.” Right about then, I was a mix between mortified, and trying to hold in my laughter. I just looked at my companion and we both were biting our cheeks trying not to laugh out loud. What a crazy day. Transfer calls were last Saturday. It was the longest day of my life. From 10:00 to 10:30 we were just staring at the little mobile device that held our fate for the next 6 weeks. No changes here, so I guess my Island Carol truly followed the same pattern. I am excited to enjoy the time I have here while I can. We were blessed with one great potential investigator on Sunday. We will meet with her this week. She is super cute, 19, and from the Dominican Republic. She was just like, “Oh ya come over and teach me. I am really interested!!” YES! You rarely hear that from youth here, so I am so excited. I love the work here and I love being a missionary. Although the work was hard this week, I know that it helped open my eyes to see what I have been blessed with. I think God will bless us more when we take the time to see the little miracles that happen every day.

Les Quiero!!

Hermana Hopkins

Chapter 12: The Number 11

 Chapter 12: The Number 11

 There is power in starting off your week with faithful and hopeful heart. I truly think the Lord will bless us and guide us to the people that are ready to receive our message. We began our week with eleven potential investigators. That’s incredible, right? Well, I thought so too; but apparently, this week I wasn’t faithful or hopeful enough because every single one of them cancelled their appointments with us. So, you could say that we had a little bit of a rough week. Haha It almost became a joke. We even started calling three hours before to confirm that we were coming at a certain time, and every time without fail, they were not home or they didn’t want to meet with us anymore. However, we did have a couple really great appointments still. But, I am sure that you are anxious to hear about Francisco. Oh Francisco. Because we had “so many appointments”, my companion and I were forced to do splits. I know, I know—it sure doesn’t sound intimidating, but it is. I tried to convince my companion that I REALLY don’t know Spanish yet, but she had faith in me, told me the Lord wouldn’t have called me here if He didn’t think I was ready, and gave me the boot out the door. I was simply terrified. I don’t think I realized how much I rely on my bi-lingual companion. Haha Well, I met Jackie, a member here, and we went off to do missionary work for the evening. We were supposed to go to a cita (appointment) to a boy and him mom named Carlos and Maria, but they cancelled on us an hour before we went out. (You thought I was joking, didn’t you?) Carlos is 14 and has been faithfully coming to church for a couple years now. He is practically a member. He is going to EFY here this summer, he goes to mutual every week, and the only problem is his mother. His mom doesn’t want him to get baptized, and cancels on us every time we want to go visit him. It’s sad, really. Anyway, so instead we made a list of less actives we could pass by, and then do contacting on the way. It was honestly a gift of tongues experience: she spoke some English. Hahaha I wish it was the other way around, but I am working on getting there, and she helped with my Spanish as well. I was just praying that we would find one person that would want to listen to us so this member could see a miracle during the work. Jackie is 32 and her husband died almost a year ago. He was a cop in Honduras (that is where she is from) and he was caught in a shoot out and killed. Her faith I think was a little shaken, so I wanted her to have a great experience. She also brought her nephew, and he is 10 I believe and super excited to see into the life of a missionary. Only one of the less-actives was home, but we contacted this great girl on the street. I was so excited! She told us that her family was investigating the church and used to go to church in Ecuador, I believe, and that they have been looking for the church here since they arrived. Jackie literally grabbed my planner out of my hands and set up an appointment herself! She was a great missionary, and I actually had a good time. While I was on my split, my companion was teaching Francisco the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity. (You can probably see now that I got the good end of the stick haha). We always start our lessons off with him asking about his reading in the Book of Mormon and if he has any questions. She told me it scared her because he started off with, “Sorry Hermana Wilson, I wasn’t able to read all that much these past couple days…” So she was just thinking, “Oh no, we’re losing him!”· But then he continued, “…because I am on chapter 8 of My Legacy.” I haven’t even read My Legacy.  I don’t even know how he got a hold of that book. He is just incredible. Now, this is the great part. Like I said, she was teaching two kind of intense lessons, but this is what Francisco told her: “Three years ago, I had a feeling that I should get married to my wife. We have been together for 35 years, but just felt like we should. Three months ago, I felt like I should stop drinking not only alcohol, but coffee and tea as well, and smoking is not a problem.” WHAT!!! I started jumping down right there on the street when she told me. Hermana Wilson challenged him to pray about him baptismal date for being June 7, and he said he would and would let us know on Friday…Well, like I said, it was a disappointing week. It’s not that he didn’t do this, but he was moving down the street, so he couldn’t meet with us. So, we’ll find out his answer during the week and hopefully plan for next week. He is so ready!! I just get so excited about the work whenever we are at his house. That was definitely the highlight this week. We also taught Angela and Manuela this week the Plan de Salvación (I can say that one is Spanish.) They aren’t really progressing, but we felt like we should move on to this lesson anyway. It was so powerful! Just to brush up, they are Evangelicals that are mad at their church for something right now. They are not sure if the Book of Mormon could really be considered the word of God. It was an amazing lesson. Angela, the mom, told us that she had never thought about the option of becoming an eternal family here on earth. We bore our testimonies of eternal families. I told her that I would not be thousands of miles away from my family if I didn’t know with all my heart that through the gospel, we have can live forever. My companion bore a really strong testimony as well, and it was just like girls camp. We had two members with us that live with her and they bore their testimonies and we were all crying! Haha I just love Angela and Manuela so much that I want them to experience the joy that I have! They are so adorable! I have said this a million times, but you develop such a love for the people you teach as a missionary. You want that person to know that God loves them and has a plan for them! The gospel is such a beautiful and happy thing; I can’t imagine not having it in my life. Which brings me to Iveris. I love her, but she is a frustrating girl! She told us straight up: I believe everything. I know the church is true, I know the doctrine is true; I just don’t want to change my life. I like it how it is, even if I know the gospel will bless me. Sigh… we are working on her! We are going to teach her Eternal Marriage next week. What teenage girl doesn’t want to live forever with their Prince Charming?? That’s got to be the bait we are missing to reel her into the church… (Fishers of men. Remember?). Which reminds me! Remember that group of girls I talked about a couple weeks ago, where coral bore testimony to them? Well, they come to the same spot in the park every week. They have welcomed us into their group. Haha It’s really hilarious. They have a HUGE group of friends, so they there are 2 that are usually there that we know and the rest are different every week. They called us over this week and yelled, “Hey, Hermanas! We have some questions for you!!” So we went over there and the other kids were like, “Uhh…what?? Sister Missionaries?? You got to be kidding me.” Then the others that were there were like, “Hey!! Give them some respect!! Give ém some besos!” haha! (Besos are the kisses on the cheeks) We were laughing pretty hard. Well, we weren’t really laughing when the questions they wanted to know were why we wanted to live the Law of Chastity. It got really awkward, really fast. Haha Actually, it was just really sad. One of them was fourteen, I repeat FOURTEEN, and she was telling us that WE were crazy. Then they offered us cigarettes, and we were like ya sure what the heck. NO I am kidding. We just told them that we respect our bodies and we don’t do that kind of stuff. Interestingly enough, they thought it was way cool. They were just like, “Wow, you guys are so profound!! We totally respect you.” I guess it’s good that we are in with the local teenagers, right? Haha They doesn’t like the Elders because they said they feel like they are judging them. Hmmm I guess sisters just have that kinder touch. ;) Well, to finish off our less than fantastic week, we had an…interesting experience on the street. We were contacting people on our way to our piso one day right before medio dia, and we came across this lady from South America. She seemed religious, so we thought, why not? (You start to be able to tell who is religious haha) Well, we started talking to her about the Book of Mormon, and she completely went ballistic on us. She was just saying that it was written by a 14 year old boy, it was not from God, it’s heresy, etc, etc. The usual. So, my companion took out her Book of Mormon to show her it is like the Bible and explain it to her, and showed her the picture of Christ in the front. Well, we found out right there that she was an Evangelical, because she was SO offended that we had a picture of Christ in our Book of Mormon. Apparently, people of the Evangelical religion believe that it’s pretty much sacrilegious to have pictures of Christ. She turned to us and pointed her finger in our faces and pretty much spat out, “You need to get on your knees and pray, and you pray about this book, and the spirit of God will tell you if it is true or not. And he will tell you that it is not! You just don’t have the spirit with you!! Shameful!!” My companion did tell her that we have prayed about it, and we know it is true, but it was to no avail. She took herself with all the energy she could muster and humphed off. (I don’t know if that’s a word, but that is the only way I can describe it.) Actually, to be honest, I thought she said we DID have the spirit with us. I almost said gracias!! But then, I felt like I shouldn’t, and my companion told me what she really said after. I am understanding more Spanish, but I am missing a couple little, but important words. Hahaha Our week did end on a good note though. We got to eat at a member’s piso in a beautiful part of the city to break our fast after church. She is a Filipina, so she speaks English. She was just the cutest thing! She says she made a new goal that she was going to Love the lords servants more by feeding them once a month! She is so cute. She was making the Bishop dinner too for after he got out of all his meetings. I love the Filipinos here, they are always so charitable. So this week had some hard times, but it’s during these hard times that I feel like my testimony is strengthened. I LOVE the gospel and the happiness that it brings. I have never realized how much I valued it when I was at home, and surrounded by it daily. It makes me sad when people don’t even want to listen, because I know the gospel can help them through any trial. My companion said it perfectly this week: The gospel is like a delicious, chocolate cake. You can look at it, you can smell it, but you won’t know that it’s delicious until you try it! I know that when we really study it and live it that we can know for ourselves that it is true! Yo se que este es la iglesia verdadera!! Les Quiero!!

Hermana Hopkins