Mi Juanita

Familia,
Thank you so much for the CUTE comic. I’m losing my incredibly close relationship with pop culture slowly, so it took me a minute to figure out what was going on, but then, oh, how I laughed! The article about the MTC was interesting too. We seriously don’t get any news out here at all unless we can hang around the senior couples more, which in my new area, isn’t really possible. Anyway, if everything goes according to plan, we’re going to get our new missionaries on Wednesday (TWO WEEKS LATE!) which is longer than the article said, but whatever, they’re finally coming which is good, cause we need those babies.
I’m becoming quite the expert on the Harmonica actually. It’s kind of hard to practice though, sometimes I play it in the morning before studies for a few minutes; the hymns are simple enough, and Come, Come ye saints actually sounds pretty perfect on a harmonica I found out.
Home sounds wonderful! I still really want to see Jensen’s animations and thanks so very much for the photos! (the link to blog) I was very happy to see them, but I hope you realizing that mis padres Y una de mis hermanas no esta en los photos… Porque? The rain sounds nice. We had a bunch of thunder storms out here for a while, but now it’s just hot all the time.
I don’t have a great deal of time today (again) sadly, because my new companion began telling me her life story today. It’s FASCINATING. I’ve already got a book planned. Anyway, I just let her talk because I was actually really interested to hear this and we usually can talk, but in short quick intervals between lessons and during meals and not for hours at a time. During companion study we have to strive hard not to get side-tracked, because we are two people who like to talk. Anyway, we finally looked at the clock and realized we still have a load of stuff to do today. And besides that, there’s really only one story that I want to tell you think week…
Remember the twins? Well, Patricia and Anotnia went to girl’s camp last week, while Juana stayed home. She did this because she was planning to leave on a trip to go visit “her aunt” for the rest of the summer. Her mom doesn’t want her to go, but she’s not really going to stop her which is too bad… So, we’re going over every day, thinking that we might never get the opportunity to see her again in this life. We ask her to pray about her trip to see if it’s the right this to do. We already know it’s a really bad idea, because her boyfriend doesn’t live terribly close to this aunt, but… it’s just really likely that at some point during the months she’s there, he’ll come to visit, and besides that she was supposed to get baptized, and is now putting that on hold until she comes back right before school. But, her sister’s are squared away and ready to go for this last Sunday.
Juana asks us to come back every day so we can teach her and talk more, and she finally tells us that she prayed and she’s not going. So, we start to talk about her getting baptized again and she says she really wants to, but she’s afraid because her boyfriend hates the church (he doesn’t know anything about it, but he has a huge problem with Mormons). Friday night we come by, tell her again that we’re so happy she’s going to be in town for her sisters’ baptism and that we want her to fast and pray about her own date for baptism, she says alright and makes an appointment with us for the next night (Saturday night before the baptism). Saturday morning, Patricia and Antonia get home from camp and we get a frantic phone call that Juanita is missing. The mom thinks that WE kidnapped her! Antonia knows we haven’t but the mom made her call us anyway, we tell her to check and see if she took clothes/left a not/call the bus station and see if she bought a ticket etc. Then we rush over there as fast as we call. Turns out, her clothes are gone and so is a bag, she hasn’t bought a bus ticket or left a note. We get to the house and aside from the fact that Antonia and Patricia are distraught, everyone is acting pretty normal and not in crisis mode. The brother’s chatting to a friend on the phone and listening to his death music and the mom and boyfriend are hiding in their lair. Antonia has to come out and unlock the gate for us, she looks happy at first but the second we come in she immediately bursts into tears and is clearly not alright. The four of us hid in their bedroom from the rest of the family and had a super-long lesson/conversation about temples, actually, and about their baptism the next day. They were both more determined than ever to get baptized. I think their sister leaving home just prompted them to make some right choices.
Pati finally reveals the note that Juana left—a note which she has decided not to tell her mother about for the time being, she lets us read it, and then we’re all crying and hugging again. It basically just said that she loves her sisters but she’s going to leave town with her boyfriend, so they can go have a better life together far away from this ‘home’ she’s got now.
Now, here comes the tough part were we all have to pray together, because while all this is happening, the very hostile boyfriend of the mom has apparently put it into the mom’s head that Mormons are very bad, bad people and that she does NOT want to let her daughter’s get baptized. Pati is eighteen and immediately says that she doesn’t care what her mom says, she’s doing it, she knows it’s true and no one’s going to stop her. Antonia on the other hand, feels the same way, but is only 14, so she need’s her mother’s signature to get baptized. And we don’t have that yet.
So, we decide to invade the lair of mom and boyfriend. We very eloquently make our case, after explaining again that we would never take Juana away in secret and that we only want the best for all of them and definitely want them to stay united as a family. I can see that during the process of this conversation, the mom is becoming more and more impressed with us and is listening less and less to her creepy boyfriend who basically says “Don’t let them do it, they’re really bad kids and it won’t change them, it’s a big decision and they’re just going to run off like Juana did,” Antonia and Pati were both very good and refrained from yelling, which is a new skill we’re teaching them.
Then… and I can’t believe this even went down, then, this scary person (boyfriend) begins devising a plan to get Juana back. The mom has demanded that Pati bring her the file that has their IDs and social security cards and birth certificates and everything. Pati only needs to look through it for a second to figure out that Juana took ALL of her information (smart girl). So, they boyfriend says “If we file a false police report they HAVE to go after them, all we have to say is that he kidnapped her, or that he raped her and they’ll have to track them down and take them into custody.” He goes off talking about this for several minutes in a room with Antonia and Pati who honestly woudn’t mind seeing his locked up, and two people who CAN’T LIE. After this long rant of plotting however, Antonia speaks up and says “Uh, that’s like, really, REALLY illegal and you can’t do that. And also, it’s evil.”
Yes. Yes it is Antonia. Mom turns to ask us what we think we should do, and our reply: “As representatives of The Church, we really can’t advise you on anything related to this or any other legal matter.”
So, mom still hasn’t agreed to let the girl’s get baptized. We had to leave because we had other appointments that day, but we came back at the end of the night when we were all finished, and had another lesson and a long talk with mom and boyfriend. We learned a lot. Boyfriend has two grown children (who he doesn’t have a great relationship with) who are members of the church. He’s never apparently discussed this with them or met with the missionaries, but that’s why he’s way suspicious of us. He already has this prejudice against the church because he doesn’t understand why his children joined. We ended up giving a short first lesson to them too, then FINALLY convinced the mother to sign Antonia’s baptismal record.
I wish I could say that the family came to the baptism, but they didn’t. Juana called Sunday and the mom said some pretty horrible things to her over the phone (she’s disowned) and Antonia defended Juana and ended up fighting with her mother about it, so the mom refused to go and the rest of the family decided to do other things.
The baptism was beautiful. I’ll be sending pictures soon.
Wherever Juana is and whatever she’s doing, I hope she’s happier and safer than she was at home. The good news is, this experience has led her to trust missionaries, probably more than she trusts anyone else, so if she ever meets them again, she’d be sure to let them in and give them a glass of water. As long as the boyfriend isn’t there…
We haven’t exactly given up though. There are missionaries in Alabama too, if we can ever get her address, we’ll send them after her.
That was my weekend! I’d really love to hear from you all soon, I love to know what’s going on back home. I’m working hard out here, I’m tired, but I’m happy. I love you!
Con amor, Hermana Lillywhite