November 12, 2012

G'Day!

Thanks for the great e-mail! I always cherish every minute of reading them each week and love all the things you're able to include. This past week was a pretty good week. Definitely not as snowy as Utah right now! I'll definitely miss the white Christmases for the next 2 Decembers. Melbourne weather continues to just be a guessing game as this past week we had a couple of hot summer days, but mixed in were some rather rainy days (plus hail!). So you can never quite put away the winter clothes throughout the summertime. This past Wednesday was a pretty fun day because we went on exchanges for the day with the Zone Leaders, so Elder Rafferty and I were once again able to work together in Pakenham! We went around to see all of the main people that we taught when he was still here and they were all very happy and surprised to see Elder Rafferty so soon again. We had a lot of really great lessons as well and were able to make a lot of progress with many of our investigators. Working with Elder Rafferty again made me realize the big adjustment it's been working with Elder Hirata as he's still learning english. Not to say that Elder Hirata's english isn't good, because it is quite good, it's just sometimes more difficult for the investigators or the people that we teach to understand exactly what he's trying to say. But then I can't imagine now having to learn an entirely new language in such a short amount of time and being able to teach the gospel with it, so he's definitely doing a great job! You asked in your e-mail about us having the opportunity to do service projects, and to answer, we have heaps of opportunities for them! There are several opportunities per week for us to provide service so it's been really great to help out. One of the things that we help out with a lot is with what are called 'self-dig gardens.' Some people in the ward came up with the idea a little before I got to Pakenham and they're just raised garden beds that you build a certain way so that when you put in plants they just replenish and re-plant themselves after each growing cycle. So it's a really effective and good system and they produce heaps of vegetables. They're trying to get at least one garden bed at each member's home so we help out with that about once a week, or once every other week. Also, lately it's been getting into a tradition of helping someone move house each Saturday, haha. The past two weeks (as well as a few other weeks in the not too distant past) we've helped two different families move. Last week we helped a nonmember family move house, who'd met and become friends with a couple of the sisters in the ward, so that was good for us to be there and kind of introduce ourselves. This past Saturday we actually helped David and Melissa move house as well! Luckily they were just moving to a different house in the same general neighborhood so they're still in our area! We've also had many other opportunities to provide service and I really enjoy each change we get to help out. Not only does it provide a break from tracting, haha, but it always feels good to be able to give service to whoever may be in need. Church was really good this week as well. We were able to have several of the people we teach attend this week again, however, not quite as many as last week but still a good amount. Cruiz was able to be ordained a Priest in the Aaronic Priesthood, so that was a really special moment! The next step will be to get him and Chelsea each some sort of calling. We've also begun visiting another new less-active family as well, called the Sekene (pronounced Sakaynay) family. They're an awesome family and have just barely been coming to church again the past few weeks for the first time in a few years. Vince Sekene (the husband/dad) was baptized back in New Zealand several years ago but they all went a bit less-active when they moved over to Australia (seems to be a very frequent trend with the less-active members we visit, haha).  But they've been going very well too, and hopefully they'll be able to progress towards getting to the Temple as well. Well unfortunately I'm out of time, so I'll have to end there for this week. But we look forward to the last two weeks of this transfer! It's really flown by so fast so we'll try to make every moment count! Thanks again for all the wonderful love and support you give and especially all the prayers on our behalf! I love you and I'll talk to you again soon! Have a wonderful week ahead!

Love,

Elder Hopkins