Wednesday, August 1, 2012

July 30, 2012

G'Day!
 
Hello and thanks for the great e-mail! The weeks keep getting better and better here in Pakenham and this past week was especially successful! Elder Rafferty and I were able to get some of the highest numbers that Pakenham has had this past week, and obviously it's about the people and not the statistics but I can really see how the Lord has blessed us in this area to where we've been able to have great success! We were able to see Melissa and David this past week and they're still doing very well they were just very sick this past Sunday and weren't able to come so that was too bad. Right now they're both working to overcome some word of wisdom problems after we taught them the lesson for that, but they are really determined to do so and they know that they will be blessed for getting past them. Usually with Melissa and David we see them every Tuesday and Thursday evening, however this past Thursday during the day they called us and told us they'd have to cancel because they were preparing a birthday party for their now 1 year old daughter Mahli. So at first it was very dissapointing but then we thought that maybe the Lord wanted us to see someone else that night and the only way we could do so was if we were unable to see Melissa and David. So as we went on with the day we pondered on who else there was that we could see that might be effective. Eventually we decided to see one of our investigators named Port (from Kenya, but speaks great English) who we haven't seen for a few weeks because it's very hard to catch him at home. He'd been slowly progressing when were teaching him but then appoints with him were lost and our schedule became just too packed to find time to see him. So we came to his house at the time we would've had a lesson with Melissa and we were amazingly able to catch him while he was home! By the way, the reason that he's so difficult to catch is he is studying to be a lawyer and also he gets paid to play on a club soccer team so he has a lot of things to juggle. Anyway, we came in and taught him about the Plan of Salvation and he was very receptive to it. At the end of the lesson we challenged him to baptism for the 1st of September and he accepted! So that was a pretty great experience and hopefully he's able to follow through with the date as we teach him the rest of the lessons. That's an example that if something doesn't happen acoording to plan or even just how you want it that we shouldn't get discouraged because everything happens for a certain reason. We'll have a lot of work ahead of us this week, because we were able to get 15 new people to contact/teach and I'm sure there is someone in there that has been very prepared to hear the gospel by Heavenly Father. It's nice that Pakenham is the fastest growing town in Australia because there is never a shortage of work to be done and Elder Rafferty and I are never sitting around trying to think of what to do next. We continue to receive heaps of help from the members in the Pakenham ward which has really made a lot of the difference in our lessons and helping our investigators to progress towards baptism and increase the 'real growth' in the church that President Lifferth has emphasized. Speaking of President Lifferth we have the next mission president's fireside this coming Sunday so we're hoping to get several of the people we teach to come there because it's such a huge testimony building experience for anyone who attends! Anyway it has been a really awesome week and I'm looking forward to this coming week as well. I hope everything continues to go great back home and I am so grateful for all of your wonderful love and support! I'll talk to you again soon!
 
Love
 
Elder Hopkins

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