September 17, 2012

G'Day!

 

Thanks for the e-mail. This past week was a very interesting one but at the same time it was a too eventful one either. On Tuesday we had another Zone Meeting and that was pretty good. The Zone has gotten really big and there were about 22 or so Elders and Sisters there. The Zone Leaders definitely have their work cut out for them! That was about the only main event this week, however. The first part of the week, Monday-Thursday, was quite unsuccessful finding-wise, as no one that we met was very interested at all in the Gospel and through the many hours we spent just tracting only 2 people said that we could come back and share a message with them. So that was hard enough to deal with but on Thursday I hadn't felt very well at all and we actually had to go home early that night because I felt very ill and I ended up being quite sick (not sure if it was the flu or something that I'd eaten) so that wasn't too pleasant either. On Friday I couldn't do really anything so unfortunately we had to stay in the flat because I wasn't in a condition to drive and Elder Hirata doesn't have a driver's liscence (not sure if I'd mentioned that last week, but I wonder if that is going to be a continuing trend with my companions? haha) so we just tried to work there. But the point of me listing off all these unfortunate things that happened isn't to make you feel bad for me or to just be a pessimist but to show that sometimes (as I'm sure most everyone knows) Heavenly just heaps on trials to see how we will respond and then give us blessings as we endure. So on Saturday we went back out again to work and both Saturday and Sunday were very successful and good days as we were able to set up a lot of appointments to teach and were able to get in a lot of good lessons. Also on Sunday when we went tracting for maybe 3 or 4 hours nearly every person we met was kind and interestecd to have us back to share more with them! So that was such a blessing and we certainly wouldn't have been able to see that happen if we'd just gotten discouraged from the rest of the week and decided to just not try as hard or perhaps not want to tract as much for fear of more rejection. Another great blessing from the weekend was that at church we were able to have nearly all of the less-active members that we visit and teach come to church and they all had a great experience and stayed for all the meetings! So it turned out to be a decent week despite all the trials and difficulties we had at the beginning of the week. So everything is still looking good for Tracey's wedding and baptism this coming Saturday so that'll be really exciting to see. Also either Elder Hirata or I might be the one to baptize her so we'll see how that goes! But she'll be a great new member and I'm confident she'll remain very strong in the church because she has heaps of good family support in the ward and surrounding area. After her there aren't too many others that are looking like they'll be ready to baptized very soon. Melissa and David are still doing good but they still haven't set a date for their marraige so until then she can't progress too much more than she already has in the Gospel. As always we have a lot of new people to go and teach this coming week so hopefully some of them turn out to be really prepared and ready to receive the blessings of the Gospel. A lot of our focus lately has been on some of the less-active members because it's definitely important to make sure the people that are already members are strong in the Gospel because that in turn will help in bringing new people into the fold. We also found out this past week that we'll be able to go to the Temple again this month on the 28th so we're all very excited for that! The Temple is definitely something you cherish a lot here because we only get to go once every 3 or so months, so it's very special when we finally get to go again! But I think that pretty much covers the main news for this week! Thanks so much for all your wonderful love and support, I certainly wouldn't be able to continue to work hard without knowing that I have loved ones encouraging me! I hope you have a fantastic and blessed coming week and I will talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins