Tuesday, August 7, 2012

August 6, 2012

G'Day!
 
Thanks for the wonderful e-mail! This past week was really great! Unfortunately though, about half of the appointments and lessons we had this week cancelled on us so that was a little dissapointing. However, we definitely made up for it in our finding because for this past week we've gotten 23 new people to go and teach, as well as some other investigators who are beginning to progress through the lessons well! One of those people that we're actually starting to share some little spiritual messages with is actually the Bishop's brother! So that's a pretty interesting experience! His brother hasn't been to church in about 30 years, so he's not even a member anymore but he's still very nice to us and he seems like he still believes that the church is true, so that's good! Melissa and David are continuing to progress towards a date for their marraige and still have a great excitement for the Gospel. There was another Mission President's Fireside last night and they were able to come to that so that definitely helped boost them spiritually and continue to inspire them to live the commandments. We had a referral this past week from one of the members for the address of her brother and his partner who are living together. They're actually in the exact same situation as Melissa and David are in, where the man (Tommy) is a less-active member and the women (Tracy) is the one who's ready to progress in the Gospel, and obviously they aren't married as well. So we set up a time to see them, and when we went over there for the first time to teach them a lesson, before we'd even really said anything, Tracy and Tommy told us that right now they're trying to find out the soonest they can get married for a small wedding and that they want the lessons while they're working towards the marraige so that Tracy can get baptized as soon as possible! So that was a pretty big miracle because for one you don't really have people tell you they want to be baptized before you've even taught them and also to have an unmarried couple tell you they want to get married as soon as possible is about as rare as it gets! We also found out yesterday that they were able to talk to the Bishop and they should be haven't a wedding through him in about 30 days, so she'll most likely be ready for baptism either the 2nd or the 3rd weekend in September, so that's probably been the most amazing experience of my mission thus far! We have a couple other investigators who are pretty close to baptism, some of them with a date, but we aren't sure how solid those dates are for baptism but we could end up with several baptisms in September. Pakenham continues to be an amazing area to serve in and I feel so blessed to be able to be one of the missionaries sharing the Gospel here. My faith in Jesus Christ has definitely increased because I don't think I've had an unanswered prayer yet and I am always showing gratitude to the Lord for the blessings he's given me. I hope to continue to be able to have amazing experiences in the week to come (hopefully our appointments will hold this time around!) and continue to find those people that Heavenly Father has prepared for Elder Rafferty and I to teach! I'm so thankful for all of your love and support. I hope everything continues to go great back home and that you're able to find missionary opportunities as well because there is no better service you can do for someone than sharing the Gospel with them! I've seen the blessings it brings to people's lives already in the short time I've been here. Anyway, thanks so much for writing me and I'll talk to you again soon!
 
Love
 
Elder Hopkins

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