Some cool looking birds.
A really cool religious building that I saw in Narre Warren.
Someone who is obviously a fan of the USA and Australia (AUS).
Monday, July 23, 2012
July 23, 2012
G'Day!
Thanks so
much for writing! This
week was a great week and probably the best one I've had so far. So
today is technically the first day of the new transfer and both Elder
Rafferty and myself will be staying in Pakenham! Usually when you're
getting trained as a new missionary you stay in the same area for the
first two transfers. So the next transfer will be a little bit more
intense than this one because either of us could be leaving, or staying.
But I'm really excited to continue to serve in Pakenham because I've
grown to love the area and the people so much! Two of the Elders in our
Zone are actually going to be serving down in Tasmania now so that's
pretty exciting for them! There weren't really many other changes so
that's kind of nice. This past week we were only able to teach Melissa
and David once and they weren't at church on Sunday so hopefully
everything is still ok with them! However, we went and saw one of the
new investigators I met while Elder Kryton and Elder Bisby were
down in Pakenham, and his name is Edward. We were able to teach him the
about the Restoration of the Gospel and at the end of the lesson we
were actually able to set a baptismal date with him for the 18th of
August so that's really awesome! He's 19 years old and he's Cambodian
and he's a really great guy! It's actually pretty funny though because
he's actually working on the library computer right next to Elder
Rafferty and I! This past Thursday was the quarterly interviews with
President Lifferth so our whole Zone went up to a town called Narre
Warren (about 20 or so minutes from Pakenham) and then we each went in
just to talk to President about how we're doing in our areas and if
there is anything we need help with. For this specific interview,
President Lifferth asked everyone in the Zone to memorize a scripture
for the four main principles in the Commandments lesson (which were Law
of Chastity, Word of Wisdom, Law of Tithing, and Keep the
Sabbath Day Holy) so we had to do a little work beforehand! They went
well though and President and Sister Lifferth are some of the nicest
people I've ever met and really love missionary work. That night I went
on another exchange, this time with the missionaries serving in Narre
Warren and that went through Friday evening (Elder Mudd is one of the
missionaries there). This time I served with Elder Mudd's companion
Elder Ika. He is from Tonga and he's a great missionary! He also speaks
english like a first language, and I also was able to have him teach me a
lot of Tongan and Samoan words so hopefully I can speak it fluently
soon! haha. But that was a really good experience up there with him, and
he's actually one of the Elders leaving to Tasmania so that was neat I
was able to serve with him before he left! So this Sunday was another
packed day! I'm pretty sure they set another record for attendance, and
we actually had 4 of our investigators attend!
The building that they're using right now is actually just a space to
rent out before they build a proper chapel in Pakenham, which was
supposed to be 2 years down the road but they've said they might have to
start sooner since the ward is getting so big! So that's how my week
was! I'm loving the mission so far and I'm looking forward to another 6
weeks here in Pakenham! I hope everything continues to go really well at
home! Love you all!
Love,
Monday, July 16, 2012
July 16, 2012
All of the Elders and Sisters in the Zone.
A large lit-up water fountain in a lake by Pakenham.
The really big Kangaroo on the right is called a "Big Red" and can get around 8 feet tall!
These are Australian wallabies.
More kangaroos!
And still more kangaroos!
Three more kangaroos out for a stroll.
July 16, 2012
G'Day!
Thanks
again for writing! This week
has been awesome and the Pakenham area is really starting to flourish.
This past week at church we had 202 people attend Sacrament Meeting,
which is apparantly is the most it's ever been in ward history! So the
membership and awareness in the area is definitely growing. Elder
Rafferty and I have noticed a steady improvement in our weekly
statistics and it's really cool to see the progress that we've been able
to make. Our work to try and sort of start anew in the area has really
paid off because we have several new investigators to the church and
many more people to contact so this coming week is going to be very busy
and we should be able to accomplish a lot! This past week I was able to
go on another exchange, but this time with the Assistants to the
President. That was a really good experience. It was in the same city as
the Zone Leader exchange, Dandenong, but it was in different areas than
before. I was with Elder Olsen, who's from
Canada, and he only has about 7 weeks of his mission left. It's easy to
tell he's been out here for that long because he is a really good
teacher and I definitely learned a lot of things from him that I can try
to apply in my own teaching. Melissa and David are continuing to
progress and this past Sunday they were able to talk with the Bishop
about doing a free marraige ceremony through him so then they can do the
Temple Marraige in about 12 months. This past week I've really learned
the importance of the members in missionary work. Whenver we bring a
member to the lesson, whether it be one of the young men preparing to go
on a mission soon themselves or a couple in the ward (we actually had 3
members in one of Melissa and David's lessons), it really makes the
lesson so much better. When Elder Rafferty and I just teach ourselves it
still goes well but there may be some experiences that we've never had
since we're only 19 that a member who might be in
their 30s has had that really relates to the person that we're
teaching. It really helps though that the members of the Pakenham ward
are all so ready and willing to go out and help with missionary work.
This past Tuesday we had our first Zone Meeting, which President
Lifferth just implemented into the mission, which is just where all the
Elders and Sisters in the Zone come and just give trainings or short
lessons on certain aspects of missionary work. It was really great and I
for one learned quite a bit! It's hard to believe that this first
transfer is already into its last week! It feels like I've only been
here maybe 3 weeks! The mission has already flown by so fast. This next
week has a lot of great things going on so I look forward on being able
to fill you in on all of them soon! Sorry that this week's e-mail is
kind of short but I forgot to grab my missionary planner when we came to
the library which has all of the little details that I don't
always remember! But I'll make next week's letter just jam-packed full
of good stuff! So I hope everything continues to go well back home and I
challenge you to try to find ways to help out with missionary work
(maybe ask Bishop for some ideas) because I know when the members are
involved in the work miracles happen and the blessing are endless!
Anyway, I love you all and I'll talk to you again soon!
Love,
Elder Hopkins
Monday, July 9, 2012
July 9, 2012
G'Day!
Thanks for
the e-mail! This 4th of
July week definitely wasn't as eventful as one in America but it still
was a great week! Elder Rafferty and I have been getting a lot of new
investigators to the church and new people to contact and teach so we've
been really blessed in that regard! One of our new people we're
teaching is named Melissa and she has a partner (or boyfriend) David who
is Samoan and he's also a less-active member of the church. She is from
Australia though and we've taught he twice this past week. She is
progressing at a very miraculous rate! She's already read up to Jacob in
the Book of Mormon, she's coming to church, and she prays twice a day
and together with her family (they have 2 kids). It's really amazing how
prepared she is by Heavenly Father. The only thing that will be
stopping her from getting baptized very soon is that she needs to get
married to David which I think they've already been planning on doing.
She shared with us an amazing experience with prayer that
really sparked her interest in learning about a religion. It was just a
couple weeks ago and she told us how her parents divorced a little
while back and that her dad hasn't spoken to her since. So one night she
just decided to try and pray to see if it really works and she just
asked God if she could know that her dad still cares about her. The very
next morning her dad called her up and said, "I don't really know why
I'm calling you right now, but I just feel like I need to let you know
that I do love you very much and hope that you're doing ok." I don't
think I've heard of many more experiences with prayer that were more
amazing than the one she told us (obviously she spent a little more time
telling it than I just did). So hopefully she'll continue to make the
necessary steps toward baptism. Also this week Elder Rafferty had to go
up to a leadership training since he is a District Leader, so Elder
Bisby (from my MTC district) and Elder Kryton (from
Canada, and he came out the same time as Elder Rafferty) came down to
Pakenham to work with me because both of their companions were at the
meeting too. So for most of the time they were here we all just did
tracting and GQ and amazingly we ended up getting the information for 12
people in Pakenham and then a couple for other areas in the mission,
which is higher than the standard number for the entire week! So we were
really blessed there and hopefully some of those people that we'll
contact will turn out to be good investigators. Yesterday was a pretty
big day for Pakenham because it was the first Sunday in the first LDS
church building in Pakenham! They'd just finished building it and it's a
lot nicer than having to drive 30 minutes to the other church building
in a town called Narre Warren. So there were a lot of people that were
able to come, from the people that we see there were 3 investigators and
2 less actives that were able to make it to
church! One of the speakers that came to our Sacrament Meeting was
actually a member of the Seventy. He happens to be in the 8th Quorom of
the Seventy, but still it was very neat! I'm constantly improving as a
missionary and I'm learning a lot from Elder Rafferty and I'm really
excited for this next week! The time is already flying by and I know
that I need to make sure I'm always working my hardest so that when the
time comes I'll have no regrets looking back on my mission. I'm very
thankful for all of the your love and prayers and support and I've been
very blessed so far here in Australia. I hope your week goes really
great and I'll talk to you again soon!
Love
Elder Hopkins
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
July 2, 2012
Thanks for writing me! This week was so busy with heaps of fun
activities! It flew by so fast! On Wednesday we had what are called
'Golden Reviews' at President and Sister Lifferth's home, which is about
a 40 minute drive from our flat. Golden reviews are where all the new
missionaries from a couple weeks ago come back and get taught more
principles and get some advice as we continue to grow as missionaries
and teachers. It was really nice to see everyone again, especially all
the missionaries from my MTC district! That was over at about 3 pm, and
after that was another learning experience for new missionaries (I'm not
sure how many of them did it on that day, but they all have to do it
eventually) was that we switched companions with the Zone Leaders for a
period of about 30 hours. So my companion for Wednesday night and
Thursday was Elder Sherriff! He's from Sydney, Australia so he isn't too
far from home! He's been out a year and a couple months and I
definitely learned a lot from him over the exchange! We were in the
Dandenong North area (about 30 minutes West of Pakenham) and it was hard
to come back to Pakenham afterwards because I met and taught so many
people that I wanted to be able to see again! One couple that we taught
were from China, and there names were actually Ching and Bing! But it
was a really good lesson, Elder Sherriff let me do a lot of the teaching
and they asked a lot of questions throughout, which let's us as
missionaries know that they're really sincere about it when they're
involved in the lesson like that. At the end we committed them to come
to the Dandenong Ward on Sunday so it went really well! So later in the
week on Saturday we were able to participate in a really awesome
experience with the youth in the Pakenham stake. It was called a
'Mini-Missionary Weekend' and for the youth it went from Friday-Sunday
where they kept the missionary schedule and went to a few devotionals
and things and did all the things missionaries normally do. The part
that we were involved in on Saturday was that from 1 pm until 6:30 pm
each mini-missionary was assigned a real missionary companion, which
means Elder Rafferty and I each had our own companion we'd go out with.
My companion was Brother Saliva (pronounced like Salifa) and we were in a
seperate area in Pakenham than Elder Rafferty and his companion were,
which means that after 2 1/2 weeks in the field I was already a senior
companion! Haha. It went really well though. We did some tracting for
about 30 minutes before it started to hail, but we managed to get one
new contact (or new person that we can come and teach) so Brother Saliva
really enjoyed that! On the note of the weather, Melbourne is known for
having all four seasons in one day, so I just thought that was
interesting that the weather here was actually more obscure than Utah's!
Brother Saliva and I also taught a few lessons and he was able to get
some good practice teaching actual people. After that was finished we
came back and had some awesome desserts and just talked with all the
other mini-missionaries and actual missionaries that went out on the
activity! It was a really great idea for a youth activity! So on Sunday
we had somewhat of a combined Sacrament meeting where the youth who
participated in the mini-missionary weekend had a chance to bear their
testimonies so it was really good! After church Elder Rafferty and I, as
well as a lot of other members of the ward, went to a Pakenham
community event called 'A Taste of Faith' where religions of all sorts
came together and each did a short presentation explaining a little bit
about what they believe in. The religions that presented something were
(in order of appearance) Baha'i, Uniting Church, Anglican,
Druze, Catholic, Islam, Pentacostal, and lastly The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints! It was actually a really cool experience
but it was kind of funny because most of the groups did a performance
(musical or something like that) with just one or two people but when it
was our turn something like 30 youth just crowded the stage and
sang some songs! So we kind of stood out in that category, haha. So
lastly, Sunday night was the Mission President's fireside, which is
every first Sunday of the month. In these the Mission President and his
wife each give some talks and then either one or two missionaries give
their testimonies. Also there were 2 singing performances by some of the
Elders (which were really good!) and then two people investigating the
church (one of them was actually just baptized on Saturday with his
family, which happened to also be his birthday, and the other was close
to baptism) bore their testimonies. It was an incredible meeting and I
really look forward to the next fireside! Well I hope everything is
still going really good at home and I miss you! Talk to you soon!
Love,
Elder Hopkins
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