Follow your promptings

Sunday, June 08, 2014

Early morning love notes from the hermanas!

Up at 4 am to leave our apartment by 5 am to be to the Central and Plaza Chapel in the Trenta y Tres Stake. The drive was supposed to be about 4 hours.  Because of the early hour, there was no traffic and we arrived earlier than expected. We enjoyed the beautiful sunrise.

Plenty of cattle everywhere.

Can't see them too well, but there are sheep out there.

On our way to Trenta y Tres. Melo is next week!

Our presentation went well but we were also asked to talk in Sacrament Meeting. During the week, I had many thoughts about what I could do.  I thought I could play the piano.  That takes no language skills.  I thought I could give a 30 second testimony in Spanish and let Mike have the rest of the time. But, I just couldn't ignore the inspiration I received the other night, even though it made no sense to me.  

I always get my inspiration for things I am pondering just before I go into a deep sleep. Because this is always the case with me, I have learned that I shouldn't ignore the thought or prompting. I was prompted to share a pioneer story about Angeline Hodgkins. I spent Saturday (while in the chapel at the Carrasco Capilla Abierta) using Google translate to translate the talk into Spanish. I gave up reading it though because my skills are just not there and Google Translate always needs Mike to tweak it a bit. 

So Saturday night, I decided not to give that talk and just play the piano. When I got home Saturday night I practiced a couple of songs.  

In the morning, I was still unsure, so I printed my talk in English and Spanish and took my music. Once at church on Sunday, after our Sunday School lesson on the restoration of the priesthood, I knew that my pioneer story was what I needed to share.  I asked Mike to translate for me.  Wow, the spirit was so strong. Mike choked up, I choked up and the members were also visibly touched. I told the members that they were the pioneers of Uruguay and that they needed to write down their experiences for their posterity. I told them how special it was for me to find some of Angeline's brothers' and sisters' families and do the temple work for them.   

Lesson reinforced:  Follow the promptings!  

The Stake President invited us over to his house for lunch.  They were very gracious and we had a wonderful time with them.  His wife spoke very good English and she enjoyed practicing with me. That was our first invitation into a member's home.  They gave us a scrumptious bag of Brazilian peanuts. They are very crisp and quite addicting.