Ch. 53 A Week of Laughs, Smiles, and Blessings

Chapter 53: A week of laughs, smiles, and blessings

I feel like this week could be summed up easily by an experience my companion and I had while knocking on doors. We were walking down the street, and it started pouring rain. Luckily, the building we were looking for was just a 10 second run, and the door was already open. Clearly set up to be a miracle, right? Well, as we came to find out, about 90% of the building was Muslim and there was a Muslim wedding going on the fourth floor, so through every hall was echoing very strange Muslim chanting music. Obviously a spiritual environment. Haha As we started our search we came across this Spaniard lady, who started to show some interest, but said she had to go and we could come back another day. Well, my companion invited her to church. I was standing slightly behind my companion as she was pointing in the direction of the church, and I got a big elbow right in the middle of my nose. And right where she hit it, it made my eyes water. So, as you can imagine, I am buckled over laughing (and it hurt too!) and the lady at the door has this horrified look on her face like my companion had just tried to kill me, and then she said, “Actually, I don´t have interest anymore.” and slammed the door. I tried to tell her I was ok.... We were laughing so hard we couldn´t even breath after. I think that is basically how I have learned to do the missionary work. You really just have to laugh it off and stay positive. I had this really great miracle to share this week...but it kind of ends like the elbow to the face. (Not to ruin the ending or anything.) We were praying so hard for an investigator that had real desires to learn and to come to church. We contacted this old Spanish man (while we are being completely honest, I thought nothing would come from it, I was just showing God I was willing to talk to anyone and everyone.) Well, he grabs my arm and says, “I am an atheist and want nothing to do with you!” and I just thought, “Well that´s rude! He could have just said no thank you!” and then he grabbed my arm again and said, “But my wife was looking for your church Sunday and couldn´t find it. I will give you her cell phone and our address and you can talk with her. Come by tomorrow at 5 and she will be home.” So, excitedly, we went over to meet our new investigator. We thought she was so golden! She had tried to kill her self for three years in a row, but then decided to turn her life around and follow God. She was raised Catholic, but she was looking for a church to give her hope. We introduced her to the church and the Book of Mormon and she loved it! She asked if we could meet her halfway between her house and the church, and she would walk with us there. So, we waited on Sunday, and she never came... So I called her and she said, “I read the Book of Mormon, and I want nothing to do with you Mormons.”

I was absolutely shocked. The Book of Mormon has never let me down!!

I honestly felt so bad that I had tears in my eyes as we entered the familiar church building without our investigator. I was praying so hard! What happened!! As I sat in the meeting, I kept praying. When it came time for the sacrament, I started thinking about it again. That´s when I realized something. Of course, every person who reads the Book of Mormon is not going to believe it. When Christ was on the earth, people were able to look into the eyes of the Son of God as he performed undeniable miracles, and they still rejected him and killed him. The Book of Mormon is wonderful, and all those who read it with an open heart wanting to know if it is true will know.

But I was still caught on how she could not believe it, so we passed by her house after church. Call me stubborn.

She opened the door and said, “Look here´s the thing, I don´t believe there is a second coming, so I can´t believe in your church.” Well, I thought that was pretty basic Christian doctrine. Apparently not. Anyway that helped me understand where she was coming from a little better.  Oh well. We did our part.

This week, however, was full of laughs and smiles and blessings. Alberta finally felt up to coming to church, not to mention in her long elegant African gown. So cool! So, I got the opportunity to translate for her. She said that every time she has ever gone to church, she´s never understood a word, so it warmed my heart as she wept the tears from her eyes as she finally got to understand a church meeting. I never thought I would be teaching so many different people from so many different cultures!! We also have been working with our recent converts, and they have now introduced us to their friends. What´s crazy is all of them are old investigators that never really progressed, but the one family came to church! Not only did they finally come to church, but they invited us over to have a family night this week and to eat Venezuelen arepas!! I am so excited. I love the mission work. Sometimes we don´t see the immediate success—a fact I have to keep reminding myself of-- but I know that we´re making a difference. Even if it means taking soup to sick ward members (which we did 3 times this week), singing for an elderly lady, or just walking up and down the streets talking to everyone, the Lord is watching over us missionaries here in Barcelona!!

Les Quiero,

Hermana Hopkins  

Chapter 52 My Midlife Crisis

Chapter 52: My Midlife Crisis

I can´t believe that I have officially been in the mission field for a year. Really, it still hasn´t quite hit yet. This week has really been a time to reflect about the last year and think about how I am going to finish these next six months the best I can. I must say, I think I might reevaluate myself next week since this week was all just a little rough. I was able to talk to Cati twice this week, and I am sure you are dying to know what was said. So, get your tissue box ready.

The phone rang three times and my heart was pounding when I heard the familiar Romanian accent, “Hola?”

“Hi Cati it´s Hermana Hopkins....” and then I was abruptly cut off by a gruff "Get your bible." um oh no..... so I was thinking about how I did not want to bible bash with my favorite investigator in Spain, and she started showing me all these scriptures over the phone....and I was like, "Cati cati. Hold up. How are you? How is the baby?  Hermana Portas told me you were pregnant.” So we talked for a minute, and then I went back to the scriptures and then told her that we believed in them too! They weren´t even anti. It was really sad though...it was like all her confidence was ruined. I invited her to pray and ask God and she replied, “I talk to God every night...but let´s just be honest. I am just a human being. I am nothing... plus I am just a woman.” WHAT?? So I talked to her about her worth that she has being a daughter of God, we both shed some tears and then I went on to question her about her experiences when we taught her about the restoration and about the plan of salvation and especially about the temple. Well, we talked and I asked her about how she felt about the temple that her family could be together forever, and she said it wasn´t in the bible and I said it was and gave her some scriptures....long story short, we ended up talking for an hour... and then she said she had to go after going like crazy about the Book of Mormon. It was fine until I brought up Nephi... I can´t even tell you all she said. Partially because I didn´t understand her broken, angry Romanian Spanish. I left her some scriptures to read in the Bible and Book of Mormon, which she agreed to read and then I decided to testify one more time. She had told me earlier something like, “I can´t deny that the Book of Mormon is true but Joseph Smith isn’t a prophet.” So I told her “Well if the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith is a prophet, and this is the church of Jesus Christ on the earth. It is a blessing that we have the priesthood authority restored and that we have the opportunity to be baptized and sealed....and that is as far as I got out when she freaked out and said that we can´t be the only church that will be saved and hung on me.... she asked me earlier to call her Monday, so I called her this morning to chat and see how she was. She said after she was done talking to me last Tuesday she couldn´t eat and that she just felt nervous all day. She is really sick with the pregnancy and isn´t accepting any help from the members there. She told me not to call back and hung up.....

So, that is the end of the Cati story. I really hope that this is just pregnant hormones and that she will remember the love that she felt once in the church and come back.

Now onto the investigators that live in Vilafranca. This week...well... it was really hard. I think God is just really trying to make me the best missionary I can be or something because good gracious, we could really use a break! We had a few days where every cita cancelled and we walked the streets tirelessly talking and getting rejection after rejection. We even got spit on by an old man! (In his defense though, I don´t know if he really meant to. He had no teeth haha) However, I know that after looking back through every day we really saw the Lord´s hand in a least one way. There was always at least one person at the end of the day that was ready to listen...next week, or at least one person that was home that would let us in. Actually we taught Yerka, our lovely Dominican that wants to be baptized but has to work every Sunday. We taught her the restoration and she accepted it without doubt. Maybe with work schedule right now isn´t her time, but we´ll keep teaching her and helping her develop her own testimony. We also are still visiting our cute African, Alberta. She was planning on getting baptized this next week, but her doctors told her with her pregnancy that they would prefer her to wait until next month. So, her baptism date is set for April 19. Who knew pregnancies would be such an obstacle in the missionary work. Haha At this point I bet you are thinking that we aren´t teaching any Spaniards, but don´t worry, we are teaching them too. In fact, Josep is my new Spaniard grandpa. He´s come to three baptisms, and a lot of church meetings, but he refuses to pray! He has doubts that God really answers are prayers and is listening to us since he´s had such a hard life. He lives with his 11 year old daughter (everyone mistakes her for his grandchild) and he is the funniest Catalan man I think I have ever met. He is one of the “radical” Catalans that wants Catalunya to be their own country... so he always has some funny comment. The comment that made me laugh this week is we were teaching them and the daughter had the TV on, and he asked her to turn it off. She, very sassily, replied, “ I can listen and watch TV.. Our teacher in school told us that women have a gift at multi-tasking.” He dryly replied, “Tell your teacher she is a feminist and turn off the TV!” hahaha That about sums up Josep. He is really going through a hard time, and I hope he will just let the Savior in and heal his wounds right now. Also, we are working with a family here. They are a less active family that within the last 10 years lost one of their daughters. After that, all the family went inactive except the mom. It´s so weird though! They all have really strong testimonies and love to hear what is going on in the church, but they can´t bring themselves to just walk through the doors on Sunday morning. If it´s a ward activity they go, but they won´t all go to church. The daughter is also dating this man from Barcelona. About a couple months ago, she gave him the Book of Mormon to read. He is basically atheist, but said he would read it. We found out last week that he was starting 2 Nephi, so we enthusiastically accepted the honor of teaching him the Restoration. He seemed really interested, and we go to their house every Sunday night to have dinner. They are such a hilarious family. They always feed us real Spanish food, so it´s always a highlight of the week (not only the food, but the lessons as well.) I hope as we begin to teach the boyfriend, that it will rekindle the desires to go to church for the other family members as well. Today being p-day, we really just wanted to relax and unwind from the stressful week that we had, so we decided that us four missionaries in the ward would go hiking up to this castle and play UNO on the castle grounds. And that is exactly what we did! It was slightly disappointing that the castle was being fixed up a little bit, so there was construction stuff everywhere, but you know, how many times can you say that you played UNO underneath a castle and next to a moat? Haha I really do love the work here, and I am excited to work with all the energy of my heart for the next six months. We had a big conference this last Thursday, and the main message was to be “real” missionaries, and not just robots. Love the people, care about those you teach, and remember that we are in the service of the Lord.

Les Quiero,

Hermana Hopkins 

Chapter 51: Keep Strong

Chapter 51: Keep Strong

Sometimes in the mission, you have bad days. Sometimes you have bad weeks. Sometimes, you have REALLY bad weeks. And sometimes, you feel like Job. This week, we felt a little bit more like Job. However, we did see some really neat miracles, so we´ll keep to the positive. This week has been really good at finding less active members. Bishop asked us to pass by a list of members that don´t have phone numbers or haven´t been seen for a while. So, we looked at the list and noticed a note by a girl named Virginia that said, “Not interested at all. Don´t even try.”....Challenge accepted. I knew we were going to need extra help, so we made Oreo truffles (and we prayed, don´t worry we asked for that extra help too). So, when we knocked on her door, we were just like, “Hi we´re the Hermanas, and we brought you a dessert!” We were answered with the sweet sound of the door unlocking. She invited us in and began to tell us why she is inactive. I was speechless. She told us how her mom would go beat her if she didn´t wake up at 5 to say prayers, or if she was late to church, etc. I didn´t even know how to respond. I have never even heard of that kind of situation before. What?? She even told us that looking at the Book of Mormon gives her like night mares. Any help with this situation is greatly appreciated, because I have studied and studied, and feel slightly at a loss. Obviously we know that the church is perfect, but the people in it are not... but we just tried to love her and help her feel the love that God has for her. She told us we were invited back whenever we wanted and that she has some service projects she could use some help with, but she doesn´t really have any desires to come back to church. Well, it´s a step in the right direction! We also came in contact with a man named Marc Blanc. He has an interesting story as well, but a lot more manageable. He was baptized just a little bit over a year ago, and right after, his girlfriend left him and he lost his job. So, he went into a depression and has been fighting it ever since. The hard part is that he thinks he was only baptized to please his girl friend (who luckily doesn´t live in our ward) and that he is doubting the testimony he had. However, he agreed to take the lessons over again, and we hope that we can just start over from scratch so he can really develop an undeniable testimony. I love working with the less active members! We also are now teaching this lovely girl from Brazil (I feel like I am a Latin magnet!) She is from Sao Paulo, and is this cute little grandma, and her husband just passed away. She is really interested in the church though, and doesn´t have the all-to-familiar “I am too old to change” attitude. We just got to get her to church, but she said she would be very much open to baptism if she felt the Book of Mormon is true. She is super sweet! Also, we had the sketchiest cita with our Muslim. Ok, it wasn´t really that bad...I just felt like we were stepping into an epidsode of 24 (the TV show). (Before you panic mom, it really wasn´t that bad. Haha) So, he invited my companion and I to come eat Couscous in his friends restaurant. We invited one of the young adults to come with us, and we went to the restaurant. Well, I am pretty sure we stepped into a little hole in the wall, dark, well...you get the picture. I am pretty sure we were the only American girls that have ever stepped into that shop before. We were led into a back room with 4 men including our member. I thought we were going to die right there. I think that may be horrible of me, I promise I am not racist, but it was definitely a different environment. However, all of the men ended up being interested and asked for copies of the Book of Mormon. They are very open and giving people, really. We just left laughing though of how crazy it was of where we were teaching. So, really it was a great week. However, it did have some rough spots... like when we had a couple days where every single visit fell through, and no one wanted to listen....those days are really hard.... but what made it unbearable was the phone call I received on Saturday night. I answered the phone from my dear companion in Castellón. She could barely get it out.

“Hermana......”

“Yes?”

“Cathy and Tony dropped us.” I choked out the reply, “What???”

“Cathy and Tony dropped us. Cathy said she never wants to learn more about the Book of Mormon or the church ever again.”

I just stood there in shock. I had dropped the Book of Mormon I had been holding in my hand on the street by now, and didn´t really seem to notice the streams of tears that were dripping down my face. I honestly have never felt like that in my entire life.

Hermana Portas continued, “The investigator that she had been translating for gave her a lot of anti-Mormon material. She says she thinks the Book of Mormon was written by the Devil, and that he can do miracles too to trick us.” I was just dumbfounded. How could it be that she could forget everything with a little pressure. I just felt anger as I thought about the tears she shed while watching the Restoration, or the happiness and hope she felt when she learned she could repent, or the dreams she told us about when we explained the Plan of Salvation and the temple. Not only was I mad, I was so upset that not only is she throwing it away for her and her husband but for Gemma and their new baby that they are expecting. (I am really hoping that this is just a hormonal outburst). But then I just felt sad....I had told Marc Blanc earlier that when it explains the sacrament and the atonement in the scriptures, it says that when they ate of it, they were filled. Just one hour earlier I had been explaining that sometimes we have to feel empty in order to feel filled by the power of the Atonement. I didn´t think I would eat my words so quickly! I came home and had a really good long talk with my Father in Heaven, and just felt this feeling of peace and hope wash over me. I know it will work out, I just hope it´s sooner rather than later. I love Cathy and Tony so much, and it was really hard to hear that they were struggling, but even Joseph Smith questioned where God was while imprisoned. Only time will tell. I guess I have to be more patient and give God sometime to put his miracles into place. He loves them too. I felt so blessed after church as well, two families invited us over for their big Sunday night paella. So it was fun, we got to go up in the hillside and have a big paella! It was huge!! And I ate sooo much! I am going to miss that. :) I know that it was a tender mercy of the Lord to remind myself that He is still watching over me here. Sometimes it feels like nothing we are doing is making a difference and that people are too easily swallowed by the power of Satan to really bring them back to the Light of the Savior, but I know you just have to keep going forward and trusting that God not only has us in the palm of his hands, but all of his children. I was a little wounded, but I am ready to go. I know that I can´t let disappointments keep us down! On the train to Barcelona today, a man came up to us and said, “Are you Mormon missionaries?” We replied with a smile on our faces, “Why yes we are!” He told us that he was baptized about 20 years ago, and had made some wrong choices. He wanted to come back and feel the love of the Savior again. He also said his wife is not a member, and maybe she would be interested too. So, even when it gets really hard, I know to not give up because there is always a miracle just around the corner.

Les Quiero!

Hermana Hopkins  

Chapter 50: M.I.A

Chapter 50: M.I.A.

The following takes place between Tuesday and Sunday on the week of Carnaval.

Actually, it all really started Friday night. There we were, walking down the street when we went to call a member to see where he was going to meet us for our next cita when suddenly, our phone stopped working. It just died. We tried to get it to work, but it just died. So, we finished off the night and went home. Now usually, we have to call our District Leader every night to tell him we have made it home, but I didn´t know his number...since it is in the phone...so we tried to come up with a plan, but we thought of nothing. We didn´t really want to be on the streets late at night for Carnaval (pretty much their biggest holiday here, which means a lot of drunks in the street), so we decided that we would just take our phone to the store in the morning, and went to bed. Little did I know that our District Leader had called the Elders in our area who couldn´t leave for Carnaval and were told to call the closest members to us to make sure we had made it home ok. Well...he wasn´t home, and they couldn´t get a hold of anyone. So, the Zone Leaders got involved because that is who is next alerted, and after trying to get a hold of us for an hour, they went to the Assistants to the President who sent an alert out to the missionaries in our zone that the Hermanas of Vilafranca were MIA. Oh my gosh.  All because our phone was broken. Well, finally the Elders here got a hold of a couple of members at 12:30 at night, and the next thing we know, our door bell goes off ringing like crazy. I jumped out of bed and was ready for the oncoming attack and my companion slept through it. Are you serious?? haha Anyway, so I woke her up, and then ran to the door and it´s our Bishop, who happens to be a police officer here. So, naturally, with it being so late I wasn´t thinking rationally when the Bishop yelled, “Hermanas! Open the door!” and I am just thinking, “Oh my gosh. We are about to be arrested by our bishop.” So shaking, I open the door to see the very worried face of the bishop and the primary president. I felt so bad when he told me how he found out that I went in to make him a sandwich while he talked with my companion at the door. It will definitely be a night I will never forget. Now work wise we truly had a miraculous week. One of my favorite things is we are teaching the wife of a less active member from Ghana. She has been investigating the church for almost three years now and the missionaries have just had no luck with her. Well, I wasn´t going to have that! She´s been wanting a child for years now, and the bishop gave her a blessing last November that she would be able to have a child. Well, She is now about four months along, and she knows that it was because God blessed her. So, when we went and visited her this week, I asked her to tell the story, and how she felt. We explained that when she is baptized, she will receive the Holy Ghost to guide her as a mother, and she would feel the guidance of God during the birth as well. She accepted!! We are now planning her baptism for the 22^nd of March. Not only that, but we found a Grandma and granddaughter from the Dominican Republic on the streets that are so excited about the Book of Mormon! They said, “Why doesn´t the whole world know about this book from God??” We replied, “Well, that´s part of our purpose as missionaries and members!” It was so exciting. Also, I was really bummed about missing the baptism of Husane, my Muslim investigator back in Castellon, and I was praying for another opportunity like that. Well, God answers prayers! Meet, Mimon. Our new Muslim investigator who is also preparing for baptism this month! It will be a long road, but he said he would like to study the Book of Mormon. He really is intrigued by the idea of repentance bringing peace. He´s invited us over for couscous this week with him and his wife. He is from Morocco, and he came to the ward activity this week and really seemed to enjoy it. We did a mock plane crash. It was so hilarious. We had the hall of the church decorated (legit) like the inside of an airplane with instruction videos and flight attendants and everything, and sound effects! When the plane “crashes” two angels appear and takes us to each of the kingdoms of glory. It was really funny that in the Telestial room, the bishop and stake patriarch were playing poker there and talking about their “past lives”. The Terrestial Room was actually heart wrenching! It was this Mom looking at photo albums and talking about how she had been a returned missionary, her family had been sealed, and then slowly they just stopped doing the “little things” like family home evening, reading scriptures, praying, going to church every week, and how they fell away and are now separated for eternity, and they now just wanted to be in the presence of God. It was really good for the less active members that came and made us all realize how important the little things really are. Then the Celestial room there was a senior couple in the ward in their temple clothes holding hands and with Mormon Tabernacle Choir playing, and everyone just walked in and cried. It was a beautiful activity! We had one last miracle on Sunday night. We needed to teach one more lesson to complete our goal, and our cita we had planned fell through. We were so sad, but then the member we had with us stopped this man on a bike that happened to be his friend and he says, “Hi, I am doing a fast right now. Do you know what a fast is? It means I am really hungry, but I am praying really hard.”  It made the friend stop and talk with us, and we were able to have a great lesson on prayer right there in the street. I love last minute miracles where you think there is no way, and then God gives you a miracle just to remind you that He is watching over his work and wants to bless us. So, even though half the mission and ward thought we were M.I.A. This week, we were definitely right there fighting through!

Les Quiero!!

Hermana Hopkins

p.s. I heard this quote this week, and I wrote it down and put it on my wall to look at every day,

“Every day is beautiful and a blessing from God.” It´s so simple, but I really know that everyday is a blessing, and that is what keeps a smile on my face when times get tough.