Replay Translation - Thank you Kathy Hawkins

The story of how the missionaries find the family of Silva Barbosa

Once upon a time …

April 16, 2016 The missionaries of Bastia (Elder Hansen, Elder Pesnell, Elder Underwood) are waiting for a meeting on the east side of the town of Biguglia (or the section of town), but they received a call that cancelled the meeting. Having not made a plan to replace it – the missionaries decided to go back and seek the spirit of the Lord to know which decision they should take. Elder Pesnell turned to Elder Underwood and asked him which town. Elder Underwood having sought out the spirit said Borgo and then he went to sleep in the car. The others made fun of him saying that he chose a city really far away from Bastia because he wanted to sleep on the trip. The spirit confirmed it so they went to Borgo. All three missionaries arrived in Borgo with prayer in their hearts. Payed attention to their feelings and thoughts. Elder Pesnell and Elder Underwood knew the Lord could listen to Elder Hansen who was starting to seek revelation. At the beginning of the route he said “straight ahead” and again for 2-3 streets he kept saying “straight ahead”. On the 4^th one, everyone was quiet and Elder Hansen exclaimed “left!” They took a left and parked the car.

                The missionaries started to go door to door. Nobody answered. Not the first or the second. At the third door they encountered a little girl at the door. Elder Underwood responded instinctively “Are your parents here?” and the little girl ran away immediately and Elder Underwood said to his companions “we have to baptize this family.” Then, a young man came to the door and looked at them behind the door. The missionaries said “hello” to the young man and he ran away exactly like his sister had done. Finally, the mother came to the door, holding a little girl in her arms. The missionaries started to talk to her about family. She said that she knew the church. Elder Underwood supposing she didn’t know the church because a lot of people say they do or think that they do but are mistaken – he responded with a suspicious eye. She again responded that she did know the church because she was a member of the church.

                The missionaries rested awhile and for several seconds wondered how this could be possible. She wasn’t on the list of members of the church of Bastia. She explained that she just came to Corsica and she never had been to church. They made a meeting with her and left. In the car they were all surprised because of the miracle that they had seen that day.

                Time passed and the miracle happened and she is coming to church and she has a daughter Maria 11, a daughter Gabriel that is 6 and Helena that is 2. And they are coming to church and they have strengthened the branch in Bastia.

Voila – See There. There it is.

The history of how the missionaries of Bastia met Beatrice

The day was July 11, 2016 almost 3 months after the proceeding story. Elder  Underwood was the only missionary who was still there from the above mentioned group. Now they were doing missionary work with Elder Wilkey and Elder Ramsey. In doing their daily work the missionaries again searched out the inspiration like before the missionaries had made a lot of work at Borgo and they had a lot of success. It seemed to the missionaries that maybe the day to stop working the mission in Borgo had stopped (like they had knocked on all the doors). In reseeking the spirit they received inspiration to go to a specific quarter. On the map, there were not a lot of houses but they knew that it was the will of the Lord that they should go there.

And they went and they started to go door to door. The missionaries quickly realized that there was hardly anybody in that quarter that wanted to talk to them. They talked to 3 people that didn’t want to talk to them about family or God. So the faith of Elder Underwood was beginning to become weak because they were coming to the last door of the neighborhood. All of a sudden they opened the door and the missionaries knocked on the front of the property (which is the outside gate – not the door). Elder Ramsey rang again. Elder Underwood thought it was ridiculous (unuseful) to ring and he thought they weren’t going to have any success in this neighborhood. Never the less, they thought it was possible. Elder Ramsey looked to see if there was another house below. He saw a woman and instinctively said “hello”.

Elder Ramsey saw a lady and asked her if there were 2 doors for this building. She said no. It is the same building. Having broken the ice for this conversation. Elder Ramsey talked to her about the family. They realized that she spoke Portuguese instead for French. Elder Ramsey asked her if she speaks English and she didn’t. She went up the stair, but she kept talking to them. The missionaries tried to understand but they couldn’t understand. They could barely understand that she did know the Mormons. This surprised the missionaries because they hadn’t met anyone in this neighborhood that was Mormon. They said that clearly she did know the church because her parents were members of the church in Portugal. Elder Underwood responded with enthusiasm “Are you a member of the church?” She responded that her parents were members of the church but she couldn’t understand what they were asking her. Elder Underwood said “are you?” This time she understood and she said “Yes, I am a member of the church.”

The missionaries were a little bit used to this phrase because that is what people would say thinking they could get rid of the missionaries. The missionaries asked her name and kept talking to her. Elder Underwood asked Elder Ramsey to borrow the phone to call someone. They called Claudia who told her that they had a Portuguese woman that was a member of the church and she gave the phone to Beatrice (the Portuguese woman) and they talked. For several missionaries couldn’t understand what was going on and finally Beatrice took the phone and called her daughter and told her daughter that she wanted her to talk to the missionaries. Everyone talked together about the book of Mormon. The missionaries finished by giving a book of Mormon to the little girl Raphaela with the invitation to read it. It seemed to the missionaries that this was a good lesson and so they left with a prayer. At that moment there was someone else at the door. Elder Wilkey told Elder Underwood to turn around to see who was at the house.

He turned to see Maria (who was the daughter of Claudia, and the family was following behind. They had walked from their house because they didn’t have a car – just to come see this family. In talking to her Claudia said that she already knew this family because the two girls go to the same school and the missionaries were enchanted by the situation they found themselves in for several minutes. Unfortunately they had to leave. Because of this Elder Underwood asked Claudia to give a prayer and close in Portuguese so that Beatrice could understand.

Having offered the prayer, the missionaries said good bye to everyone and left. And passing by the house several minutes later they saw the two families had gone into the house so they could finish their conversation. The missionaries thank God for the miracle that they saw and went back to their house happy and humble.

The end.