G'Day!
Thank
you so much for the wonderful
e-mail this week! I loved getting it and reading it as always. Merry
Christmas-Eve as well! It doesn't feel like Christmas one bit over here.
I think for two main reasons, one being that as missionaries we really
don't have any time at all to get into the festive spirit or do any
celebration type things, and two being that it's the exact opposite
temperature that I'm used to this time of year. So it definitely will be
an interesting Christmas season this year. I guess first off it's nice
that the world didn't end on the 21st a few days ago! haha. I wonder
what everyone was saying after they realized life was just continuing
on, especially for those who sincerely believed that was going to be the
end. Well this past week was one of the fastest weeks of the mission so
far! It just flew by soooo quick and I can't believe it's already
Monday again. I think the main reason was that we had the big, all-day
Christmas conference on Thursday, so we had to
squeeze everything we normally would do on Thursday into any empty time
on the other days that we had. The Christmas conference went really
well though and it was an awesome experience! They said that there were
about 180 missionaries there (which doesn't include the 20 or so from
Tasmania, who had their own conference down there). It was especially
fun to see all of the other missionaries I've gotten to be good friends
with that have moved to other areas. The first half of the conference
was a really nice devotional type thing in which they read off the
Christmas story, while after every paragraph or so they'd have a musical
number or a video or have us all sing a Christmas hymn. So that was
really nice and it was good for feeling the Spirit. They also had some
of the missionaries that were the only ones in the mission from their
home country talk about how they celebrated Christmas with their
families. They had one from Pakistan, Kenya, Canada, and I
can't remember the other one at the moment. But they all did a really
good job and it was cool to hear some of the different traditions that
they each did. After the devotional we all went and had a huge feed that
they'd prepared for us (it'd have to be really huge to feed 180 hungry
missionaries). It was so delicious and definitely filled us up. After
the lunch, they set up the cultural hall for the second half of the day
which was a talent show. It actually turned out really well and there
were a lot of cool talents that people had. A lot of them did some sort
of musical talent, whether it was just singing, or guitar and singing,
or even beat boxing and singing (which was pretty cool)! Elder Hirata
actually participated in it (because Sister Lifferth called us and asked
him to) and he played a pretty difficult piano rendition of "If You
Could Hie to Kolob." He did really well considering he'd had about 2
hours total practice time and since it was a
pretty hard song to play. So that was neat! There were also some people
who did some dances which were cool, and then some slideshows, and the
longest one was about a 23 minute skit which was pretty funny! So that
was a really awesome experience there and I think everyone really
enjoyed it. I certainly look forward to whatever they do next Christmas.
On the regular missionary work side of things we had a pretty good
week. The Glosters did switch the baptism to the 29th (this Saturday) so
that the Dad could be there for it, so that will be a really great day
this week. The kids have already learned heaps since we've taught them
just two times and they remember everything quite well. Rodney has still
been doing really well, and is now probably our most progressing
investigator. He's been living the Word of Wisdom perfectly since we
taught him about it and the best thing is that he's recognized a lot of
blessings that their family has received since he's
done so. That's probably the most important thing, because when you see
the Lord bless you once for doing something, you from now on will
continue to do so because you know that it's a true commandment, so
hopefully that will be the case with Rodney as well. We found out one
cool experience with one of the less-active families that we visit
regular this past Saturday. It was with the Sekene family (Vince is
actually using the computer next to us in the library right now, haha).
Last visit with them we'd given them a challenge to read the Book of
Mormon daily for the coming week because that was something that they'd
been a bit slack on. So they happily accepted the challenge when we gave
it to them. When we saw Bro. Sekene on Saturday and talked to him he
said their family had experienced so many blessings since they've kept
that challenge. I guess I wont go into too much detail of what the
blessings were but he said that they had just received a
massive amount of unexpected blessings that really helped them and were
much needed. So that's always a testimony builder to me to see when
others are able to enjoy the wonderful blessings that come from keeping
the commandments, even when it's one of the much basic or simple such as
reading the scriptures each day. It's just a proof that Heavenly Father
knows each of us and all of our efforts that we do each day, big or
small, and will always provide the things we truly need. Those
experiences that Rodney and the Sekene family had are the kind that you
truly seek and want because those are what provide a testimony of the
Gospel and are something you can always turn back to if you ever are in a
difficult situation or ever have any doubts that Heavenly Father is
there and if this is his true church. We really hope that this coming
week we'll be able to set a baptismal date with Rodney because we feel
that he's ready and feel that the Spirit has really
been working in him and we know he and his family have seen so many
blessings since he's begun to live the Gospel. This past week we also
had quite a tough experience with a less-active man that we teach. He
was really, really depressed lately because he missed his kids (one who
had died very young and the others who I'm guessing were taken from
him). He also was sad at the state of life he's in because he's let
himself go a lot in the past few years. He told us that recently he'd
also had a lot of suicidal thoughts but he'd tried hard to push them
away. When we were there he told us that he felt the was no point for
him to be here any more. However, we were able to have a really good,
long and powerful lesson with him about the plan of salvation and how
God has a plan for each one of us and if we still here on Earth it's for
a specific reason. He seemed like the lesson helped him a lot, the
hardest part for him was understanding why his daughter died
so young. We told him we didn't obviously know the reason why her time
had come, only Heavenly Father knows that, but that because she passed
on when she did that she'd be going straight to the Celestial Kingdom.
He appreciated that knowledge, and through the help of another member
who he's close with he was able to be consoled and ended up coming to
church yesterday and had a wonderful experience. So we had a lot of good
lessons this past week and look forward to a lot more this week. I
especially look forward to Christmas tomorrow and being able to talk to
you! As I always say, I appreciate so much all the love and support and
especially the prayers on our behalf. I hope that you have a wonderful
Christmas season! I'll talk to you tomorrow!
Love,
Elder Hopkins
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