Thanks for the great e-mail, I was excited to
hear from you! This past week was a pretty good and flat out (busy) one
for us with heaps of blessings and miracles. Back on Tuesday we had Zone
Meeting again which is always great. This time, though, it was more
like District Meeting with the Zone Leaders because some of the
companionships that live pretty far out were told to sit this one out
(you'll understand why soon). But it was still a great meeting and we
talked a lot about how we can improve as a Zone, specifically in our
finding efforts (Tracting, talking to people on the street, getting
referrals, etc.). We also talked about the new goal that President
Lifferth and the Assistants set for us, which is that each Zone should
get 5 baptisms each month, which our Zone ended up getting this past
month but is still a fairly lofty goal to achieve. So after discussing
the expectations, we talked heaps about things that could help us as a
Zone achieve this goal, with the main ideas ending up being 'Zone
Prayer' every Thursday at 10 a.m. (every companionship in the Zone prays
at the same time for a specific purpose), miracle callouts (the Zone
Leaders gather one miracle of the week from each companionship and then
read them off in a voicemail that's sent to everyone, for the purpose of
helping to motivate us and let us know of all the great things that are
happening throughout the Zone), and a 'Zone Fast' (pretty
self-explanatory, we all fast on the same day as a Zone for a specific
purpose). So these three things should be a great benefit to all of us
as a Zone and we're all excited for each of them. The following day,
Wednesday, we had President interviews with President Lifferth back at
the stake center in Narre Warren (hence why the missionaries far out
were asked to stay home during Zone Meeting so they didn't have to
travel huge distances 2 days in a row). So that was fun to be there with
all the Zone again as well as President and Sister Lifferth. It's
always good to have the opportunity to sit down and talk with President 1
on 1, although it wasn't much of interview, because he basically asked
me two questions, "Are you keeping the commandments," and "Is Elder
Hirata ready to be a trainer?" haha so it was quite a short meeting but
still a good experience because President Lifferth is such a great man
and has an awesome spirit about him. So we were at the interviews with
all the missionaries for only about 2 hours or so, so after that we just
went back to work. On Thursday we had our first Zone Prayer which was
cool as (in case you didn't know, Aussies like to put 'as' at the end of
things to mean something like 'very', so in this case 'very cool') and
this first one was for the purpose of everyone in the Zone being led and
guided to those who Heavenly Father has prepared for us to teach the
Gospel to. So being a part of that gave us some renewed faith and an
excitement to see what blessings we could receive from that. So later on
in the day we went and began tracting a certain street that we'd picked
and the first person that opens the door to us is named Michael and he
was the nicest and humblest guy we've met and he seemed quite keen
(interested) to have us back and hear about our message (the
Restoration). So already we could see that the Zone Prayer had an effect
on our efforts. The rest of the day went really well especially when we
had a feed at a member's home, the Skipwiths (from New Zealand). They
really like having us over now because they all lived in Japan for a
while so they enjoy talking with Elder Hirata in Japanese and also
making us Japanese food for dinner, which is very good! Also this time,
they were extremely generous in giving us each a New Zealand All Blacks
(the biggest Rugby team) custom made T-shirt and hat! We were so excited
to get those and are going to wear them every chance we get now. So we
greatly expressed our gratitude to them for those gifts. On Friday we
had exchanges with our District Leader, Elder Krix, and for that
exchange I was with him in Pakenham and Elder Hirata and Elder Gaffney
(Elder Krix's companion) went to work in the Narre Warren North area. So
we had a pretty good exchange, not so much in the statistics category
but we had some solid lessons and a lot of fun because Elder Krix is
crack up (funny)! He's from Sydney, Australia and this is his last
transfer on his mission so that must be a pretty wild feeling for him to
be going home in such a short time from now, and it was cool for me
because I'm the last person to go on exchanges with him. So I was able
to learn a lot from him and his experience. So on Saturday we spend a
lot of time with a young less-active couple named Cruiz and Chelsea
because in the morning we went and shared a lesson with them about the
Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. It went really well and at the end
we watched a Mormon Message that tied in with the principle of Enduring
to the End but also it seemed like it was tailor-made for them because
it was like watching their life play out before them because the
situation in the video was exactly the same as one they'd had recently
and even the young couple in the video had the exact same age and gender
of the kids as Cruiz and Chelsea so they were able to relate really
well and it helped them feel the spirit well. Then later on in the day
we went over again to have a big feast with them to kick off fasting for
fast Sunday which was delicious (and a bit unhealthy, haha). Sunday was
an awesome day as well. Church was really good, however, I think a lot
of people forgot about daylight savings time because the numbers were a
bit low to start but it ended up filling up eventually. After church we
went to go and see Michael (from Thursday) again to teach him the first
lesson about the Restoration of the Gospel. When we saw him he was just
as friendly and nice as before so he let us in. We started off really
well and answered all of his early questions that he had and the spirit
was very strong there as we went through Joseph Smith's first vision
with him. At the end of the whole lesson he accepted the Book of Mormon
and was happy to read and pray about it to receive an answer of its
truthfulness. We also invited him as he comes to know of the truth to be
baptized on November 17th and he gladly accepted! So that was a
wonderful teaching experience for us and a great miracle resulting from
the efforts of the Zone Prayer! That was a great way for us to end the
past week on a high note. This next week is the last week of the
transfer so we'll be sure and work extra hard and put in our best. We'll
find out this Saturday night the news on if we're staying or going.
Also general conference is this weekend for Australia so that will be a
wonderful opportunity to go and watch that and be enlightened by all of
the general authorities and the Prophet! Well that's us and hopefully
you have a wonderful week ahead as well back home and I'm so grateful
for all your love and support that's definitely help us with the work
here in Pakenham. Always be looking for missionary opportunities as well
because there's nothing more rewarding and important that we can do
than by helping someone come closer to Jesus Christ. Well thanks again
for the e-mail and I'll talk to you again soon!
Love,
Elder Hopkins
Elder Brandon Hopkins and Elders in the Zone.
Elder Brandon Hopkins and Elder Hirata looking tough in their New Zealand "All Blacks" (rugby team) T-Shirts.
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