G'Day!
Thanks for the
wonderful e-mail! This week was really good! At the beginning of the
week (Monday-Wednesday) it seemed like it wasn't going to go very well
at all because we had several cancellations with appointments and we
didn't have much success tracting either. However, the rest of the week
really picked up well and we were blessed with a lot of success! One of
our investigators that I was talking about in a past letter, Puot
(pronounced like Port), a 21 year old Sudanese man, has been progressing
great and has a pretty solid baptismal date for the 1st of September
(the last Saturday of this transfer) so that'd be really exciting if he
was able to be baptized on that day because he'd be maybe the 2nd or 3rd
Sudanese member in the Stake (which is about 1000 people large) even
though there is a huge amount of Sudanese residents in the
area. He speaks really good English though and is studying in school to
be a lawyer! He really loves reading the Book of Mormon that we gave
him a while back and he highlights it and everything so it's been really
nice to see his excitement to learn and to follow Jesus Christ. Tommy
and Tracy are also progressing really well and supposedly they've set a
date with the Bishop for their marraige so hopefully we'll be able to
set a date for her baptism during the coming week. Melissa and David are
still doing really well, they haven't set a date for their marraige yet
but obviously it is a long process and a big decision but they are
moving towards it and they've already noticed the difference in their
family that the Gospel has brought so they'll definitely get there in
time. About a week and a half ago, though, we'd fasted so that David and
Melissa would have extra strength in trying to live the Word of Wisdom,
and this past week in a lesson David
told us that he'd given up smoking cold turkey and he'd been off them
for nearly a week already! He'd been smoking almost 50 cigarettes a day
too and for him to go down to none at all was a miracle! So we were so
happy for him and his commitment to re-living the Gospel (as he is
already a member) and setting a good example for Melissa and their 2
kids. That experience definitely helped give me a stronger testimony of
the power and blessings that come from fasting. This past Sunday was
Stake Conference for the Pakenham stake and it was great! As I mentioned
earlier, the stake is huge, and for Dad if you imagine the amount of
people that are at the stake center at home for the Priesthood session
of General Conference but doubled or tripled that's how many people were
there! I'm certainly glad that I wasn't one of the speakers because I'm
sure it was intimidating to look out over everyone. The speakers were
wonderful, though, and there was one speaker
who was a returned missionary from the Phillipines! He actually left on
his mission when he was 26 years old, so he was definitely committed to
the work when he left. He was telling some great stories about his
mission and if I remember correctly he said that he and his comapanion
at one point had no beds and no running water in their hut (yes, a
hut) that they lived in, so that definitely made me feel blessed to be
in a nicely equipped flat here. But we were able to have a couple people
we teach come to the meeting so that was definitely an uplifting
experience for them. So I'm sorry there isn't too much news or stories
this week but I'm sure this next week will have a lot of great things to
write about! Thank you so much for your love, prayers, and support.
Elder Rafferty and I very much appreciate them and the Lord has greatly
blessed us in our area and I'm sure it is a result of your prayers. I
hope your week at home goes great and that it
is enjoyable! I'll talk to you again soon!
Love
Elder Hopkins
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