December 30, 2013

G'Day!

 

Thanks as always for a wonderful e-mail! I always love to read them. I will have to e-mail a bit quicker today (I know I say that phrase a lot!) because we are having a Zone P-Day today in Melbourne city and thus have to leave for it a bit earlier, but I will write as much as I can. This past week was a good one, good on the fact it was Christmas and we got to spend a lot of time with different members and eat heaps, and of course Skype you, but just alright from the missionary work standpoint. Heaps of people, since it is the beginning of not only the Christmas holidays but school holidays here, were out of town or just really difficult to get a hold of. We managed to still see some success and teach several lessons (only 14 as opposed to our normal 20 or so) and still found several new people to teach. We also had some unfortunate news with Simone and Jack, neither of them will be getting baptized this coming Saturday. They will need a few more weeks before they are ready, but they still are continuing on with everything. She talked to her sister (who's a less-active member who doesn't have a belief in God anymore) who basically told her not to get baptized because she doesn't know enough. However, we had a really good lesson with her that night (Saturday) with perfect fellowship as well and resolved everything and she was back on board and excited for baptism. The next day though she didn't turn up to church and we couldn't get a hold of her until she texted us in the evening saying she didn't want to be baptized but wants more time. So that was a bit disappointing for us because we all know she is ready and already has had more miracles than most investigators have, but we hope it will be still soon that she is baptized. A lesson I learned about the importance of acting when we receive answers from God (as well as keeping a journal of answers) right away and not waiting is because now it's been about a month and a bit since the purple flower incident and she told us in the lesson that she didn't feel anymore like that was enough and was even doubting that it was a real answer from God. So we will continue to try to help her as best as we can. One cool miracle we did see though is that one of the Burmese investigators we have (the one who said they might be a member of the church) was able to come to a baptismal service for another ward, and she really enjoyed it and felt good there. She is progressing well and has read through like half the Book of Mormon already and really wants to come to church. As the new year approaches we have high hopes for success in the Mooroolbark ward and the members do as well. Sorry for a quick e-mail this week but I hope you have a wonderful New Year's Day! I'm grateful for all of your love and support for the year of 2013, and I know 2014 will be another great year! I love you heaps and have a great week! Talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

December 23, 2013

Hello again!

 

Quick thing, so the first video I mentioned at the beginning of the e-mail is actually called "The Reason Behind Christmas" not the "Real Meaning of Christmas." Have a great week!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

December 23, 2013

G'Day!

 

Thanks so much for the e-mail this week! And I loved all the pictures as well! It certainly isn't a white Christmas over here, but it has been quite rainy and cold the past few days which has made it feel a bit more like home! I'm definitely excited to get the chance to Skype with you this week! So I will be skyping here on Christmas day which means it will be Christmas Eve for you (I can tell you the future! haha) and I'll be Skyping at about 9 or so in the morning (which is just an hour and a bit before I normally e-mail if that helps work out the time). And President Maxwell reminded all the missionaries that the Skype calls should be between 45 minutes and 1 hour. It should be great! It certainly wont be as hard as the first Christmas call since I see you again in 6 months anyway! Also, for the Christmas season, if you haven't watched them already, you should watch the videos the church put out about Christmas. One is called "The Real Meaning of Christmas" and the other is like a music video called "What Shall We Give." They're both really good and help us remember the reason we have Christmas and the gifts we should really be focused on giving to others. You can find them either on LDS.org or probably on the church's youtube channel called 'Mormon Channel'. So I encourage you to watch those if you haven't seen them because they're awesome! So anyway, this past week was really good! Our missionary Christmas party went well and it was cool to see everyone that I haven't seen in a while. And I did get the packages for Christmas and birthday! Thank you so much for sending them! The rest of the week went really well also. Something really exciting that happened for us, the area, and the ward is that they put 2 sister missionaries in the Mooroolbark area too! When we met with Bishop last week and were talking about all the work that was going on in the area and how we had been blessed with so many things to do, he said it'd be great if they put another set of missionaries in the area. So he called up President Maxwell that night and asked if more missionaries could be placed in the area since it was growing so much and President agreed and put them in this Thursday! So it was a pretty quick response, which is awesome since we weren't expecting anything until next transfer. One of them is Sister Baker from Utah and the other is Sister Burton from Wales who just got in Australia that day. They also have a car and cover all the same area as us so the area should see heaps and heaps of further growth and miracles! We are very excited for all that will be accomplished with 2 sets of missionaries here, and it was a nice Christmas gift for the Mooroolbark ward haha. The only issue is that because members (especially the sisters) love sister missionaries they've stolen all of our dinner appointments, haha. But Bishop mentioned in Priesthood opening exercises that the members should make sure to feed both companionships haha. Perhaps it could be a blessing in disguise though because I want to lose weight in the last 6 months of the mission! haha. Over the year and a half here I've gone from about 75 kg to 85 kg (so nearly 20 pounds!) but in the past few weeks I've gone back down a bit to 82 kg which is a great Christmas miracle! That is probably not what you hope to hear about in my weekly e-mail but I thought I'd throw it in there haha. Anyway, the work is obviously going wonderful and we continue to see miracles all the time. Simone and Jack are pretty determined to be baptized on the 4th of January which is great! They are some of the most wonderful people I have been blessed to teach on the mission and have such a strong desire and testimony already and we know they will be strong members of the church. So we are very confident in them reaching that date for baptism. Shannon and Van we unfortunately weren't able to see this past week (it's been kind of hard to set up appointments with several people, as well as getting member fellowship because everyone is too busy preparing for Christmas) but Shannon came to church and goes to the YSA convention just after Christmas with some of the members from the ward which hopefully will give her some good spiritual experiences and help her further prepare for her baptism on the 25th of January. We also found a really interested Burmese family this past week who also have dates for the 25th of January as well for baptism and seem very keen for that. We passed them over to the sister missionaries when they arrived so they will continue to teach them. Speaking of Burmese people, Mary is still doing really well! She hasn't missed church since she was baptized and she has such a wonderful spirit about her! When we saw her this past week she mentioned that she wanted to start bringing some of her Burmese friends to our church to help them feel as happy as she does, which is awesome! She also is going to go help some of the other missionaries teach a Burmese investigator as well, so she is very involved in the Gospel even though her English is still fairly basic and she is almost 70. Since we didn't have as many appointments as usual this week due to the busy Christmas season we had more time to find new people, and we had a lot of success in finding many new people to teach. This coming week should be busy as well, especially on Christmas! We have member families to go to for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as another investigator family for dinner so we will be filled to the brim after that day is finished! We also have a little Christmas tree set up in the flat so we can feel a bit festive! Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas week and day and that it's filled with miracles and that you can feel the Spirit of Christ and of the season at all times! Thanks for all you do for me and again thanks for packages, I'm always very grateful for the things you do for me! I look forward to 'seeing' you this week as well. I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

December 16, 2013

G'day!

 

Thanks so much for the e-mail this week, it was a great one! Sounds like a lot of exciting things are going on, on top of the already exciting time of the year! I'm really glad you got your birthday card on your birthday Dad! That's pretty cool how it worked out that way! This first week of the transfer was another good one. So I guess you probably want to know about my new companion, eh? So his name is Elder Lau and he is from Hong Kong. So my quest to have companions from all over the world continues (so far it's been England, Japan, Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, Oregon, Australia, Utah, and now China!) haha. He was actually born in England (in the same town as Elder Rafferty!) because his parents were there studying at the time but they moved back to Hong Kong after 2 months. He has been out on his mission for 1 year and speaks really good English (because in Hong Kong, when it was still a British colony, all children learnt English. And he also studied at university in Utah at Dixie College and UVU). He grew up in the Gospel but both his parents are converts to the church. So it should be a really good transfer! I don't know if I mentioned it last week but this transfer is actually 7 weeks long, I don't know why, maybe just to make up for the 5 week transfer a couple of months ago. So our next transfer isn't until January 28th. It is scary to think that I am only in the mission field for 4 more transfers! AHHH! It's going so fast and no doubt it will just get even faster as I go along. Elder Afele, by the way, is in an area called Werribee, which is in the same Zone as Geelong, so hopefully he enjoys it there! Simone and Jack are still going pretty well, they won't be getting baptized this Saturday though because they've missed church for a few Sundays and also Simone is still trying to give up some things. Her dad, who's 85 or so, actually might be passing away today as well because of kidney cancer, which isn't very good! That's been the cause of them missing a few times at church lately because of a bunch of family things they have to do in preparation for it. They still have a strong desire to be baptized though, so it is just a matter of 'when' now. Most likely it will be early January at this point. We also have 2 other investigators right now who are preparing to be baptized in January, Shannon, who I've talked about before in the past a few times I believe, and Van, a new investigator from Burma. They are both working towards the 25th of January, Shannon seems very keen for it, and we will have to see how it goes with Van since we have only taught him once so far. But it is good that the Lord continues to bless us with things when other things fall through and we are always able to find new people to teach. We also had a cool experience during the missionary trade-offs program on Tuesday night. We were just going around to visit some members on the ward list that hadn't been in a very long time and not much information was known about them. We visited one named Brenden, and he answered the door and was very friendly and asked if we could come back the next day because they were just sitting down for tea (dinner). So Elder Lau and I went back the next day and he let us in and we met his wife and new baby and had a really good meeting with him. He's from Zimbabwe originally (he's Caucasian in skin color though) and was baptized about 12 years ago. He hasn't been at church or actively engaged in the Gospel in 10 years though, but as we talked he told us he has just felt something missing since he went away and especially more recently and he felt it was the Gospel that was missing in his life. It was good we saw him then because his family leaves to Zimbabwe on a trip this week until the 25th of January, but he said when they get back he wants to start becoming involved in the church again (his wife isn't a member of the church)! So that was a pretty cool miracle to find him. We met with Bishop this past week as well and he gave us heaps of people to go try to visit and we've been able to contact a few of them which has been good. This area has become great to work in because in many areas you usually are tracting or finding new people to teach for a little while each day, but here we've had to practically cancel things in order to make time for those activities. So we are staying super busy which is great and makes the time just fly by so fast! Yesterday was really good as well because the Stake put on a big Christmas music presentation in the evening. It featured a big Stake choir, a big orchestra, and a lot of vocalists and solos, all of course telling the story of the birth of Christ. It was 2 hours long and was really excellent! We had tried to invite everyone that we could to come and attend it, investigators and less-active members, and quite a few were able to come (at least from what we saw, the stake center was packed so we couldn't see everyone that came or left). So we are very excited for this transfer and know we will continue to see heaps of miracles! It might be a fraction difficult to keep up the amount of appointments we've been having over the next 2 weeks since it is Christmas and everyone is busy with all sorts of things, but we hope to still see some great success from our efforts. As always I am so thankful for all the love and support for me! I hope you continue to have a wonderful Christmas season as well! I will probably coordinate times for Skype next Monday, but if you could e-mail me your Skype account name again that would be helpful! I hope you have a wonderful week and I love you heaps! Talk to you soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

December 9, 2013

G'day!

 

Another wonderful week has gone by fast in Mooroolbark! This past week was actually the last week of the transfer so I guess I will update you on the news there. So Elder Afele will be moving and I will be staying in the area. We were sad that we both couldn't stay together in the area, especially during Christmas time, since we'd been having heaps of success. However, we know the miracles will continue to come for both of us. Elder Afele will actually be becoming a Zone Leader which is pretty cool, but we don't know what area it will be in. So I find out who my new companion will be tomorrow at transfer meeting. Anyway, this past week was excellent again and the work continues to roll forth greatly! We are continuing to be very blessed by the Lord with opportunities to teach, and for the past 4 weeks we have been able to teach 84 lessons in total! So we have been able to steadily maintain between 20 and 21 lessons per week, and the ward has been fantastic in helping us as well as they are all stepping up to take part in the work, whether it is fellowshipping investigators we have or bringing their friends to church/activities. A great example of the success you can have when missionaries and members work together was on Saturday. The Mooroolbark ward had a big Christmas party at the chapel that they'd put a lot of effort into. We made an effort to invite as many investigators as we could to it because activities are always one of the best ways to help people get involved in the church and get to know the members. We were blessed to have 10 of our investigators come to the activity as well as a couple of less-active members, and some of the members brought some non-member friends as well. Heaps of the members went up to those of our investigators and fellowshipped them and talked to them throughout the activity (which was about 3 hours) and those that brought non-member friends introduced them to us. So because we were able to work well together and everyone was so friendly and welcoming to all who attended (of their own free will of course, not because they were asked to talk to any investigators) the activity turned into a huge success and all those that came really loved it. One of our investigator families that came that have 2 kids in their late teens actually told us on Sunday that the ward activity was actually the first time in a couple years that they had spent that much time together as a whole family, which was amazing to hear! So when the members are exemplifying the pure love of Christ and have a desire to actually work with the missionaries miracles are guaranteed to happen. Also at church this Sunday there was a less-active member who came who hasn't been to church essentially since he was baptized about a year ago and who we've been trying to help get there for several months, so that was another miracle. Simone and Jack are also still progressing really well and another example of how the members make all the difference is in Jack. When we first started teaching them Jack would kind of do his own thing and listen in occasionally but didn't really believe in God or Jesus Christ. But as we have been teaching them more and more he has been slowly becoming more interested in the Gospel and church. But the biggest change happened as he attended some of the youth activities the past few weeks and the young men really helped him feel included and made him instantly part of the group. Jack for the first time really felt loved and that he fit in in a group of people his age. He has loved it so much that on Saturday at the ward party Simone had to leave for an emergency but Jack actually begged her that he could stay and she agreed and let him stay for the remainder of the activity. The wonderful fellowship and love of the young men not only has effected Jack's feeling of fitting in but also has increased his desire and love for church and the Gospel. He actually told us last night over the phone that after reading the scriptures and praying more for the past little while that he now believes in God and in Christ! We were so overjoyed to hear that and felt so grateful that he and his mom have found the path of the Gospel to help them through a really difficult time of their lives and especially that the ward members young and old have helped them feel at home and loved. As each new week goes by as well we have been able to continue to receive from the Lord more of His children to teach and we are remaining very busy in the work trying to be able to visit each one of them during the week. We also found out another really cool thing this past week with one of our new Burmese investigators (there are heaps of Burmese people here in Mooroolbark). They are from the Chin state in Burma and said after we came the first time and taught them about the Restoration, they thought about the name of the church after the lesson for a while and remembered that when they were younger they actually attended The Church of Jesus Christ in their village their and some of them were baptized at age 8! Not only that but they said that heaps of other Burmese people here, who all currently go to a Baptist church simply because it is in their native language, also use to attend the church there! And there are about 900 Burmese people that go to the Baptist church here so who knows how many are actually members! We still have to investigate a bit to find out if it truly is our church they were talking about but nonetheless it was still pretty cool to find that out. We are also going to start a free English class for all of our Burmese investigators to help them to learn English so they can understand more of the Gospel when we teach them but also so they can become a more involved people in their society. One of the members who's 23 years old got back recently from teaching English in China and has agreed to help us with this each week, so we look forward to getting that started up probably next week. Mary (the Burmese lady who is our recent convert) is also doing amazing in the Gospel! We were unsure how she would go with continuing in the church after baptism, as in how much she would be able to understand and how far she would progress because of the language barrier, but she has continued to attend all 3 hours of church each week and is soaking up all the things that she is learning. We just finished teaching her about the Temple this past week and she will be preparing soon to go there. She obviously has a unique opportunity to do a wonderful work for her family since she is the only member of the church in her family. So everything is going so well here in Mooroolbark and we are loving the work! I'm very excited to be here for another transfer and look forward to this wonderful time of year! I love you heaps and I'm thankful as always for all that you do for me and all the prayers offered on behalf of my companion and I and also for those we are working with. I hope you have a fantastic week ahead this week and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

December 2, 2013

G'day!

 

Thanks so much for the wonderful e-mail! Sorry it's taken until so late to be able to e-mail you back, we actually went to Healesville Sanctuary today which was awesome! If you remember, I went there very early in my mission when I was still with Elder Rafferty and it has all of the Australian animals and such. We went with all the District (so 10 of us altogether) and because of the times of some of the shows there we had to leave earlier and thus we didn't have time to do e-mails, hence why I am writing to you now. Anyway, I will unfortunately have to be a bit quicker again which I am sorry about, but I hope to be able to get down all of the important things. So we had some unfortunate news on Tuesday because at 1 pm the assistants to President Maxwell called and said that Elder Wood had to be packed and ready to move areas by 3 pm. There was another companionship where one of the missionaries was leaving so they needed someone else to replace him and since we were in a tripanionship we were kind of the 1st ones targeted, which is understandable. We were all sad though since we have been having heaps of great success and Elder Wood was also sad since he didn't get the chance to say goodbye to very many people after serving here (his 1st area) for 5 months. But it turns out he actually just went to the next area over from us in a place called Yarra Valley, so he is still in the same District as us, which meant that we saw him again today at Healesville Sanctuary haha. So even though we lost one of the members of the three musketeers, Elder Afele and I still had a successful week. Simone and Jack are still going really well and are reading heaps and obviously continuing to pray many times each day. Jack came to the young men's activity for the first time this past Tuesday and he really enjoyed it which was great. We have also started teaching some more part-member families in the ward as well which is always one of the best settings for missionary work. The Mooroolbark ward has also really started flourishing in missionary efforts of their own. So many of the members are starting to step out of their comfort zone and reach out to others in sharing the gospel in one way or another. They have all found a great joy come from that and everyone is starting to 'catch the wave' as Elder Russell M. Nelson said in General Conference. That obviously is great for the ward and the ward members, but it also has been helpful for us as well since we have been given several referrals for people to teach by the members in the past few weeks. On Wednesday we had a Zone Conference which was good and inspiring as always. Another cool thing that happened recently was we have started teaching a German man and his wife who have a fascination for American Indian history and culture. They were telling us when they were living in America for a few years they became good friends with a Native American man who told them a lot of history and stories that his people have. One of them that stood out to us (and any member of the church) was that there has been a story passed down for ages (much earlier than the first Spanish settlers) among his race of people of a man who came down to them and told them he was a messenger sent from God and how this man taught the Natives the law of God and visited them a few times and would pray with them and minister to them. I found that pretty incredible coming from an actual Native American that there is an actual tale amongst the Indians that matches almost exactly the events in 3 Nephi of the Book of Mormon when Christ visits them. I believe the race of Native Americans that was being talked about is called the 'Hopi' Indians. There was also a really cool story with Mary (the Burmese lady who was baptized just 2 weeks ago) from this past week. She had been away for a few days and we hadn't been able to get a hold of her. Then we were talking to her fellowship on Thursday and she had just visited with Mary and told us what was going on. So after her baptism, President Maxwell had sent her a letter congratulating her (because he was involved in the baptismal interview, so that was very kind of him) but before it got to Mary her daughter and her daughter's husband (who she lives with and is Buddhist) took it and read it. Mary didn't actually get to read the letter until 5 days after. Her daughter and her husband got very angry with Mary and would just yell at her and say bad things about her, and they actually went around the house and threw away all pictures of them that Mary was in and said to her that she was no longer one of them. It was getting too much for Mary that she left for a few days to stay with a relative nearby (which is when we couldn't get a hold of her). But we were told by the fellowship (and Mary as well) that Mary just told the family that she knows it's true and right what she did and she will continue to be active in the church. So that was quite amazing to hear that Mary was so strong about it, but also sad that her family basically disowned her. So I think those things are all I have time to talk about this week. Thanks as always for all that you do for me! It's so hard to believe it is already December and that Christmas is so soon! I hope that you have a wonderful week this week and continue to see miracles and blessings as well as many opportunities for missionary work big and small! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

November 25, 2013

G'day!

 

Hope you have had a wonderful week this past week! Thanks for the e-mail and also for the Thanksgiving package! That was great and Elder Wood and Elder Afele enjoyed the extra's for them as well and say a big 'thanks'! We have had another great week this week and continue to see so many miracles! But unfortunately the internet at the place we do e-mails was down all morning so now we are able to do it (2:30) our time but have to be somewhere in a few minutes so I was pretty crushed knowing I can't e-mail too much info. The main big news for the week is that Simone and Jack are preparing for baptism on the 21st of December! They are really excited to work towards that date and the way it works out, Simone would actually be confirmed on her birthday!! Also, since you talked about Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving 'feasts' in your e-mail, you'll be glad to know that we had a big Thanksgiving feast yesterday with a family in the ward who has some Americans in their family and thus celebrate all the American holidays. So that was very enjoyable! We did have another amazing week this week and are continuing to see heaps of miracles. Over the past 2 weeks combined we've been able to teach 43 lessons, which is really good for us! We are busy literally all the time with people to see, and normally on the mission where my companions and I have had heaps of time to do tracting or talking to people on the street, we maybe get 5 hours maximum a week of finding because we have been blessed with so many appointments. So things are going excellent here in Mooroolbark! Sorry I can't e-mail much this week but hopefully I can make it up next week! Thanks a million for all the love and support and prayers! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

November 18, 2013

G'Day!

 

Hope you have had a wonderful week this week! This past week was definitely one of the most miraculous weeks of the mission! There is so much that I could talk about so I hope I will have time to get all of the miracles down. So I guess first of all, the highlight of the week was that our investigator Mary (Myat Khin in Burmese) was baptized and confirmed on Saturday! It was a wonderful service and a blessing to be a part of it. She was baptized and confirmed on the same day because since she is still learning English and is about 69 she gets nervous when she's in front of a lot of people so Bishop gave the 'OK' for her to be confirmed at the service as well. I had the opportunity to do one of the talks before she was baptized (on baptism) and then I also participated in her confirmation. Elder Wood was the one who baptized her since he was the first missionary to find her and it was also his first baptism of the mission, so that was special for him! Elder Afele performed the confirmation. It all went great and the Spirit was strong there, and there was good support from the members that did attend. Mary was then sustained before the ward as a member yesterday at church. She was very happy and relieved after the baptism because in the days leading up to the baptism she had several trials going on. Not physical trials, but more of mental trials as in Satan trying to get at her mind and convince her it is not right and so on. Ever since Stake Conference last week she had been extra worried about the baptism and eventually her mind became so overwhelmed that she decided she wouldn't be coming back to church and left to go see her old pastor in Wantirna (the city that the Temple is in). So she went back there and stayed with the pastor and his family, but when she slept there the night before her baptismal interview she had like a vision in her dream that caused her to realize she needed to come back, which she did! We couldn't quite understand all of what she described the dream to be because she had trouble putting it into English, but it had something to do with seeing unclean people that had leprosy or some type of skin disease (maybe the same dream Peter had in the Bible! haha) but nevertheless Heavenly Father was able to guide her back to the Gospel so she could be baptized! So that was just one of the many miracles this week, onto some of the others. So we have some investigators Simone and Jack (who I may have mentioned before I'm not sure, they are a single mom and her 12 year old son) who we've been teaching for just a few weeks. Simone had contact like 12 years ago with the church and her family all joined the church but she didn't. Now her family has all left the church but she has a huge desire to follow Jesus Christ in her life now and do what's right so she excepted the invitation to see the missionaries again when Elder Wood and Elder Afele tracted into her just before I got here. She's Australian and has had a basic Christian background. Since we've been teaching her, her main concern has just been being able to accept the Book of Mormon as the additional word of God. We'd had some good discussions with her but about 2 weeks ago when we came to our lesson she was quite distraught. We soon found out that she had stumbled upon some anti-Mormon material on the internet as she was looking for information on the church (which I think I told you about before). We were thankfully, with the guidance of the Spirit, able to answer a lot of the concerns that had been brought up by this material and just testified of the importance of reading and praying about the Book of Mormon to receive her answer if the church is true. She then told us how she had been praying (but not reading yet, unfortunately) to know if the church is true but asked God specifically to put a purple flower in her garden as a sign to show her it's the right path. She had never had a purple flower before nor planted anything like it so she felt it would be an unmistakeable sign of truth. We were kind of hesitant and uneasy about that and told her that God usually doesn't work by odd signs like that but mostly through the feelings the Holy Ghost gives us. She said ok and promised that she would try praying for those feelings more diligently as she read (it'd been a few days already since she asked for a purple flower with no signs of one). So a few lessons went by and we thought we were teaching them pretty well but she still didn't seem to be receiving her answer to the truth of the things we'd taught. We weren't sure what would help her but we prepared a pretty good lesson for her on Thursday on how to receive an answer from the Holy Ghost and recognize it and also the purpose and role of the Book of Mormon. We went there with our fellowship and sat down with them and began our lesson. We started talking about the Book of Mormon and she asked if there were any evidences of it either in discoveries in the world or in the Bible. Elder Afele showed her the 'other sheep I have, which are not of this fold' comparison between John 10:16 in the Bible and 3 Nephi in the Book of Mormon. Simone read the 3 Nephi verses twice over and had a very concerned/questioned look on her face. Then all of a sudden asked her son to come with her out in the backyard so she could talk with him in private. We didn't know what to think but we were worried she was going to come back in and ask us to leave or something. However, she came back in and they were both looking quite shocked and happy. Simone then told us how when she went outside that morning she found in her garden a tall purple flower! We then went outside to see it as well, and sure enough there was a single purple flower beginning to bloom. It was such a miracle! Elder Afele, Elder Wood and I were all kind of stunned seeing as we didn't expect such an answer to come, but we were certainly humbled and our faith was strengthened in the power Heavenly Father has to answer any prayer that we need answered. They were at church yesterday and we see them again tonight and will talk about baptism, because she said as soon as she knows what's true she will be baptized. So that was a big obvious miracle for us! Another miracle was one of the members in the ward, Harmony Byrne (who just recently came back out of inactivity), gave her friend a Book of Mormon on Wednesday who has really been struggling as of late and who she felt was ready to receive the Gospel. Her friend accepted the Book of Mormon and also an invitation to meet with the missionaries, so Harmony called us after her meeting with him and arranged for us to go see him the next night (Thursday). Her friend is named Tenzen and is and 18 year old Australian. At the moment he has just been staying at the Maroondah hospital mental health clinic, not because he has any mental deficiencies but because he had a bit of a mishap with some security guards and they wanted to keep him there a few days to make sure he's sane (he gets out tomorrow). Tenzen is a very spiritual person and is so sensitive to the Spirit's promptings. We shared mainly about how God is our loving Heavenly Father, about the role of Jesus Christ in God's plan and the importance of following Him, and also a little bit about the Book of Mormon. Tenzen said he felt so good throughout the lesson and when we shared with him Galations 5:22-23 (the different feelings the Holy Ghost gives us) he said how he felt an overload of all those feelings. He then accepted an invitation to be baptized. He's been very prepared in many ways, and even before our lesson with him he had decided that he would read the Book of Mormon every night until he finished it. We've taught him one other time since then and we are very excited to see him progress! We've seen so many other miracles this week and have several others progressing towards baptism as well, so the Lord is pouring out blessings upon us! It's been really good being in a tripanionship at the moment because we're all determined to be hard working and exactly obedient which we know is what has brought so many blessings. So anyway, I've run out of time! I didn't get to say all I wanted to but hopefully I've given you enough reading material already, haha. I love you heaps and miss you! Have a wonderful week this week! Talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

 

Elder Afele, Elder Wood, new member Mary (Myat Khin), and Elder Brandon Hopkins

 

November 11, 2013

G'Day!

 

Thanks so much for the great e-mail this week! It's good to hear that you are staying pretty busy! This past week was another really good one. Stake Conference was really great yesterday and all the speakers were excellent and the spirit was very strong there! There were about 5 or 6 speakers in total (all of them spoke between 5 and 10 minutes, except Elder Hallstrom who spoke for about 40 minutes) so it turned out really well. We also had a great lesson yesterday with one of our investigators who has been kind of investigating the church for over 2 years! Her name is Shannon and she is 20 years old and from Australia. In the lesson yesterday we talked more about the blessings that we get from baptism and how it is just the first step, or the gate, to our path towards eternal life. We were able to set a baptismal date for the 14th of December which will be awesome to see her progress towards that day. That is the last weekend of the transfer as well, and I don't know if I had already mentioned yet or not but this transfer is actually 7 weeks long to make up for the 5 week transfer last time. It's funny because some of the missionaries (Elder Gabignaud for example) have only had one normal transfer thus far because the past transfers including this one have been 7 weeks, 5 weeks, 6 weeks, and 8 weeks haha. So who knows if we'll ever get a normal transfer again! It should be really good though since we have seen so much success so far as a tripanionship. Next week is when the new missionaries come in though so we'll see if anything changes with that, but we haven't heard anything yet so it will likely stay the same. Perhaps the most memorable event of the past week happened on last Monday night. There is a train station close by our flat that we GQ (or talk to people on the street) at nearly every night when we have finished all our appointments for the day, and this particular night there was a really, really drunk guy roaming around causing trouble. So first off, there is like a ramp that you walk up to go into the train station and Elder Wood was walking up it to go and talk to some people and this guy walks out and goes right up to his face and is just like "HEY BRO! HEY!" with his arms outstreched like an eagle taking flight...and then just keeps walking. Elder Wood could smell the alcohol pretty strong off him and just went on to talk to him. The guy was pretty out of it because he was walking around pretty weird. Anyway, like 10 minutes later or so Elder Wood was talking to another group of people (I think he just didn't like Elder Wood or something because he didn't really come up to Elder Afele or I at all...at least not yet! haha) and the guy came back again and did a simlar thing, drink in hand, and just got up in his face and was like "HEY YOU! WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME??? BETTER WATCH IT!" and Elder Wood just talked to him for a second and then the guy walked off again. So finally, we were about to head back to the car and drive home and we were all standing near the station when he came out a third time from the station with another bottle in hand that was like foaming and dripping all over the place and this time charged at Elder Wood and Elder Wood kind of ducked and jumped back a bit. Then as the drunk guy was walking off again just yelling random stuff, he just took a few steps and turned around and threw the bottle at us pretty fast, luckily we all have skills that rival the people in The Matrix and were able to dodge it, but Elder Afele got some of the drink on his suit. Then after that he left and we didn't see him again. So anyway, this was a very momentous occasion for us because it was the first projectile any of us have had thrown at us on the mission! So anyway, I guess onto more important things haha. The Melbourne Cup was on Tuesday (a big horse race) and so it was a public holiday that day, not that it made much difference to us but the town was certainly a little more busy than normal. We had a lesson that day with some other investigators (a single mom and her son) and it was a pretty interesting lesson. She unfortunately had read some anti-mormon literature on the internet that had made her very upset and wonder if any of what we had said was true. But as often the case is we asked the simple question, "Have you read and prayed about the Book of Mormon?" and the answer as it too often is was, "No..." So after answering several of her questions brought about because of what she read we were able to recommit her to read and pray over the past week and we are going back to see her tomorrow and hope that she was able to overcome that stumbling block towards her progression. Andy also had a trial as well this week (most of our investigators had trials this week unfortunately) because someone that he knew had passed away that he was hoping to have the chance to apologize too but hadn't done so before they passed away so he was very distraught. We had a really powerful lesson with him though about a lot of things but unfortunately he wanted to take a break for a little while from church so we will try to contact him again in the next few weeks to see if he is feeling better. We also were able to get a few new investigators this week that seem very promising. It was really cool on Thursday night after Ward Council we were at the station again and I found one guy named Nick who is about 20 and was really cool. After talking for a few minutes I was able to teach him about and give him a Book of Mormon. I felt pretty good about that because that was actually the first time I'd placed a Book of Mormon just street contacting someone, because usually we just give away cards and pamphlets. Just so you understand how we do street contacting, by the way, we will all split off (but still within sight and sound of each other) and talk to people individually so that way we are able to talk to more people. We went back to see Nick again yesterday and he seems like he will be able to be a really good investigator. Mary is also still progressing really well. She came to Stake Conference yesterday and so now everything looks set for her baptism on Saturday. She has just been feeling a bit nervous about it as of late though so we hope that she stays strong. Anyway, I am almost out of time this week so I will have to finish up, but things are going excellent here! I love you and miss you and hope you have a wonderful week filled with miracles! Thanks for feeding the missionaries there as well, I am sure they appreciate that very much! I hope they share spiritual thoughts with you when they come because we are supposed to, so if they haven't been just ask them to next time. Anyway, thanks for all you do to help support me! I love you and I'll talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

November 4, 2013

G'Day!

 

Thanks so much for the wonderful e-mail this week! I loved it as I always do! I'm glad that you had a great week and that Elder Dearing was able to be sent off to Ghana safely! So anyway, the big news obviously is my new area and companionship. So the new area is called Mooroolbark and it is like an hour and a half away from Pakenham or so, so it's still fairly close to the city area. It's a pretty nice city from what I have seen of it so far. It's mostly Australians that live here from what I've seen as well as heaps of Burmese people. The ward here also seems really good, there are about 150 or 160 who attend regularly each week but the ward has quite a few people in Stake callings so it fluctuates a lot in attendance. And so my companionship actually isn't a companionship at all, it's another tripanionship! In other words there are 3 of us together again. The mission has heaps of tripanioships now but some of them will be split apart mid-transfer because that's when the new missionaries come in so we'll see if that happens to us or not. It has been so good so far though and we have seen so many miracles come about! My companions are Elder Afele and Elder Wood. Elder Afele is from Canberra (the capital of Australia) but was actually born here in Melbourne. His parents were born in Samoa but since he was born in and grew up in Australia he isn't like my companion Elder Matu'u who was actually from Samoa. He has been out on his mission for about 13 months, so he came out here 2 transfers after me. Elder Wood is a very special companion because he holds the honor of being my very first Utah companion! Haha. I was kind of hoping to go for a record and serve my whole mission without having a companion from Utah as well haha since everyone eventually has one, but Elder Wood is awesome! He is from Logan and has been out on his mission for about 4 or 5 months. We have all been getting along really well and we work and teach very well together so it has been an awesome tripanionship so far. So I will try to describe some of the miracles that we've seen in the past week. The most recent one happened on Sunday. There is an investigator named Andy who Elder Wood and Elder Afele (who were together for 1 transfer before) had been teaching for a while who was really nice but hadn't been progressing too much and was quite sad a lot due to bad circumstances going on in his life. However, he finally came to church for the first time yesterday and had a really great experience! We went to see him later on in the afternoon (by the way church is at 1 pm here!! we share the chapel with another ward that meets earlier) and he had completely changed! He was really happy and energetic and mentioned how one of the testimonies at church really touched his heart and changed his outlook on a lot of things. It was funny because the lady who's testimony he was talking about actually said at the beginning of her testimony that she didn't want to get up (she was the next to last one to get up) but the spirit was really strongly pushing her to get up the whole meeting! So what a blessing she got up to share her testimony because it made all the difference for Andy. And before we left his house he actually asked if he could offer the closing prayer and he offered probably the most sincere and beautiful prayer we all had heard on our missions. He was just saying that he wants to really know if this is true and he wants to be able to have the blessings that God has to give us and how he wants to feel as happy as he did then all the time! So that was the first time I'd met him but Elder Wood and Elder Afele said it was a miraculous change from what he was before. We see him again this week so we are excited to see the progress he makes. Another miracle was when we were teaching a long time investigator named John who is an older man and in a wheelchair. He had been really struggling with accepting Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon so in our lesson with him we focused on how we can get an answer the Book of Mormon is true. It would take to long to include all the details but essentially we were working through the Spirit as a tripanionship so well that we would think of something and someone else would say it! So everything ran so smoothly and the spirit was so strong and we feel he has what he needs now to know it's true. There is also a Burmese lady who is in her 70s that we are teaching named Mary and she will be getting baptized on the 16th of November, so we are very excited for her. Her english is ok but not the best so for the lessons with her we just have her read out of a Burmese pamphlet of the topic we're teaching as we follow along in the English pamphlet and then she explains back to us in English what was taught. Her understanding is really good and she loves church and is excited to be able to be baptized and participate in the things that come along with it, even tithing and fast offerings! Haha. We also were able to teach a really good lesson with someone that we found tracting early in the week named Daniel. We didn't know this when we first met him but we found out he actually works for like the Australian version of the CIA but not quite as secretive as that. He has some amazing stories and has actually received a bullet wound. He's only in his late 20s but is very smart and knowledgable about religions. He is an honest seeker of truth and as we just were giving a simple explanation of some of the beliefs and functions of the church he became really intrigued because he hadn't really learned much about the LDS church before. Eventually we introduced the Book of Mormon to him and he is very keen to read it! He mentioned that it was funny timing because he was soon leaving for about 6 months or so for a mission off the coast but that he would take the Book of Mormon with him and read it. So those are just a few of the miracles we saw this week but there were countless! I think this could end up being one of my favorite companionships and the area is really great as well! So we are excited for this next week and look forward to the many more miracles that we will see as we continue to work hard. We actually have Stake Conference next week at the chapel next to the Temple and Elder Hallstrom of the Presidency of the Seventy will be there! So that will be a wonderful experience! Anyway thanks for all your love and support and especially prayers! I hope that you have a wonderful week this week as well and see many miracles! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

October 28, 2013

G'Day!

 

Thanks for the e-mail this week, I really enjoyed hearing from you! The past week was good! The highlight was that there was a baptism for our area on Saturday! It was for a 13 year old girl from a returning less-active family. Elder Rafferty and I had tried to visit this family several times while we were here the first time but never really had much success, so it was really good to see that they had opened up more to the missionaries and that the kids were obviously being blessed because of it. We were able to have to some good lessons as well and find several new people to teach. Also, before I forget to mention it, tomorrow is the official transfer day and surprisingly and unfortunately I am in fact moving again. Several of the other Elders there are also moving, so clearly it was just intended as a temporary move, so we will see where I end up! It's been said that there are going to be some big and important changes in the mission this transfer so we will see what is meant by that, or if it is really even anything big! So because I am moving and some of the others as well, today's e-mail might be a bit shorter than usual, but next week should be back to normal. One cool thing this past week that benefited the 3 of us was that several of the members that we saw this past week (whether doing service for them or just talking with them) mentioned how grateful they were for us missionaries and were mindful of the sacrifices that we make! So that was really comforting to hear that since normally noone ever says their appreciation in those words, and encouraged us to keep working hard. So whenever you see the missionaries be sure to tell them how much you appreciate them and the work they do because even though all the members I'm sure feel that way, it is often not expressed in words. So I wish I could've stayed longer back in Pakenham because it's such a wonderful area but I guess I should consider myself lucky that I was able to come back even if it was for a short time. Amazing to think that I only have 5 transfers left on the mission! It will go by so quickly I'm sure, but I will make sure to make it the best time of my mission so when I look back I can remember that I finished strong. Well I told you that it would be a shorter e-mail this week but I'm grateful as always for the wonderful love and support that you give me! I hope that you have a wonderful week! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

October 21, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks so much for your great e-mail! And I enjoyed the little add in from uncle Pete! Well this week was very interesting, but I will try to describe it adequately. So you probably still remember when Elder Matu'u and I were companions and how we had that sudden change fiasco right? Well once was bad enough, but very unfortunately it has happened again! I have no idea why they had to choose Elder Gabignaud and I as the companionship to split but whatever the reason there is nothing we could do about it. This time I was the recipient of the move, and just as it happened before they called us early in day and said have everything ready to go in like 2 hours. So I know we are supposed to be humble and submissive to things like this but needless to say I was pretty upset and especially thought it was frustrating that I didn't even get to go around as normal to see all of the magnificent people we had worked around and with in Wangaratta. I only got to go and quickly visit Elder and Sister Laycock, and they were also very sad! So when we got down to Melbourne I was still pretty unhappy about it all, but the only thing that made the situation at least a little bearable was the other area they were putting me in. You will never guess where it is.......back in Pakenham! So at this moment I am e-mailing you in the library that I was previously e-mailing you in for 7 months. So it's really great to be back in the area and see all of the people again that I knew, with some new faces as well, but I really wish it could've been under better circumstances. I got a little card last Thursday though from the members of Wangaratta branch and Elder and Sister Laycock thanking me for the things Elder Gabignaud and I did there, so that was really nice and helped cheer me up a bit. I'm pretty glad I was sent back here though because if I was just sent to some other random area in the mission I might not be as cheerful or okay with the situation as I am now. But I guess frustrating things happen on the mission and you just have to deal with them and move ahead, but I will greatly miss Wangaratta! And the silly thing as well is that transfer news is just this coming Saturday so there would've have been moves anyway just a few days later. So anyway, enough pity for myself, I will tell you about some other things. So the companions that I have (that's right companion-s as in plural) right now are Elder Lammi (from Bundaberg, Australia) and Elder Maono (from Tahiti). We are in the same flat as I was in before when I served here but we also share it with another companionship, Elder Aroita (from Tahiti as well) and Elder Cook (from Arizona). So there are 5 missionaries in 1 flat! Apparently President Maxwell is doing this a lot throughout the whole mission for kind of two reasons, one being that there are so many missionaries in the mission (after the new ones come in there will be over 280)  and the second being that he changed the transfer dates so the new missionaries will get in after the transfer starts so there will be heaps of 3-way companionships like the one I am in now. The flat surprisingly though isn't too crowded, and by some miracle we all manage to get warm showers in the morning! Our companionship is on bikes as well, so we look like a small bikey gang riding around town since there is 3 of us. Our companionship covers the eastern side of Pakenham and the other companionship covers the west side. I guess instead of just updating you on exactly what all we did the past few days I will just update you on some of the people you might remember. So the Ward has grown quite a bit, there are over 200 members that attend each Sunday and since they are still using the old child care center as the meetinghouse it gets pretty crowded. There have been several move ins as well as some move outs. Cruiz and Chelsea for example have moved out of the ward, so unfortunately I don't get to see them. Afa and Lisa and their family, as well as the other returning less-active family the Sekene's have stayed fully active and are both going to the Temple soon to be sealed together! So that was great to hear. The Willmotts are going well (Barry and Joan) and are also preparing to go to the Temple to be sealed mid next year since Joan was baptized (as I mentioned a while back) in June and has to wait a year. Rodney Dean, if you remember him who was the only non-member in the Dean family (he is the Dad), was baptized just a few weeks ago which was wonderful! They are also doing great. David and Melissa have kind of been the same as they were when I left, they are just waiting til they get married (which is early this December) before Melissa can be baptized. The Glosters, who were the 2 kids that we prepared for baptism last December are still fully active as well and the 3 child was baptized a few months ago. So most of the people (as well as others who I didn't mention because I don't remember if I had told you about them before) that Elder Rafferty, Elder Hirata and I had been teaching during those 7 months have stayed pretty strong in the Gospel. And that is the greatest joy of missionary work is seeing lasting conversion. As the famous scripture in Alma 17:2 says how Alma was overjoyed to see that his brethren were still brethren in the Lord. So even though it was under pretty unfortunate circumstances I am looking forward to working in Pakenham again for however long they have me here again. Amazing to think that I only have 5 more transfers after this one has finished! It goes by unbelievably fast, especially after the first year is past. It's even more amazing that in all this time I have only served in 3 areas, while now going back to my first area. I would much rather serve in areas for a longer time though rather than move every transfer because I love building good relationships with the members and people we teach and having the blessing to see an area grow and progress over a period of time. Well I guess that is the news for this week, you are probably as shocked as I was at it. Anyway, I hope you have a fantastic week this week and continue to see many blessings and miracles at home! I was also very happy to hear you were able to have the missionaries over for dinner! Speaking as a missionary, we love eating at member homes! Haha. I love you and miss you! Talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

October 14, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks for the great e-mail this week! I'm grateful for all the things you include and the stories you share that help brighten up my week! Well the past week was pretty good, we were able to get several new investigators, including beginning to teach a part member family who hasn't been to church for a few years but has 2 young boys of baptism age who they want to have baptized soon. So that was wonderful to start teaching them! The rest of our teaching pool is doing very well as well, and Coral was able to have a much better week and able to make good progress on several things! I know that is definitely a result of your added prayers and concern for her, especially when you went to the Temple, thank you so much! Our Zone also had interviews this past week with President Maxwell which was good! It's always a great opportunity to get some one on one time with the mission president, even if it isn't for a long amount of time. So that took up a lot of our Friday because we had to drive around and pick up some other missionaries as well. I'm kind of going quickly through these things because I know you wanted to hear about my thoughts on General Conference so I wanted to save enough time to talk about it. Before I go into which ones I liked and several specific quotes that impacted and impressed me, I just wanted to make one observation that I felt as I listened to the talks and saw a recurring theme. If you remember a lot of the talks, especially in the Sunday morning session, were about putting the Lord first and avoiding the worldly pursuits and ideas that are becoming more and more prevalent. Obviously we know that the world will get to a worse and worse point before the second coming but perhaps the amount of talks on this topic signifies that it will soon become much harder to live the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ and if we aren't focused on the Gospel 100% of the time then there may be an increased onslaught from the adversary to distract our attention and lead us off the straight and narrow path. So that's just one thought I had after listening to all the talks, as well as the emphasis as always on increased member missionary work. I would say I agree with Dad in saying that Elder Holland's talk was the most powerful to me. I hadn't heard a general authority really speak about such a topic before and who better to talk about it than him! I thought it was perfectly delivered and most certainly will be a blessing to many lives since nearly all of us nowadays are impacted either directly or indirectly by some form or another of Depression. I thought his counsel was also wonderful to anyone without such a condition as well, of just simply outlining a way to stay happy and positive in a world that will try to force unnecessary gloom and despair down our throats, whether by circumstances or people around us or just simply by our own doubts. So anyway, as you asked for and I previously did, here are some good quotes that I really liked. Elder Hales gave all of us some great counsel that applies not only to general conference, but every meeting of the church we attend, in saying, "What is said is not as important as what is heard and what is felt." Sister Carole M. Stephens said, "When we take the Sacrament we don't just renew our baptismal covenants but all our covenants." Elder Edward Dube said, "It is not about where we serve, but how we serve," as well as "The past is to be learned from but not to be lived in," and, "Faith is always pointing to the future," and lastly, "It isn't so much about what we have done or where we have been but about where we are willing to go." Elder Bednar (who's talk was fantastic as well) said, "The grateful are rich in contentment, and the ungrateful suffer in the poverty of discontentment." President Uchtdorf said, "Doubt your doubts, before you doubt your faith." Elder S. Gifford Nielsen gave a wonderful pattern for success for member missionaries in setting forth the 3 step process of 1. Specifically pray to bring someone closer to Christ every day (notice it doesn't say bring someone into the church, but simply bring someone closer to Christ, which can be done in many ways) 2. Pray for missionaries and investigators by name every day (specifically for the ward or branch you are a part of) 3. Invite a friend to an activity within or without your home. Elder Timothy J. Dyches said, "Christ heals body, mind, and spirit and His healing begins with faith." And in Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk there were these wise counsels to those suffering any form of depression, or even those not suffering, "Never lose faith in your Father in Heaven above all else...it is there for you all the time...faithfully pursue time-tested Gospel practices...talk to Priesthood leaders and receive blessings...take the Sacrament weekly...believe in miracles...if the bitter cup doesn't pass, drink it and be strong...be alert to signs around us, and in us...fatigue requires rest...if we don't take time now to be well, we will take time later to be ill...Heavenly Father wants us to use both the church/priesthood and the other things we are blessed with (example: the medical field)...(and finally and I believe most importantly he stated boldly and lovingly:) do not vote against the preciousness of life by ending it." Elder Randy D. Funk shared the process of becoming a good missionary by saying, "Humble yourself, abide in His word, and hearken unto His spirit." President Uchtdorf stated beautifully in saying, "Our destiny isn't determined by the number of times we fall but by the number of times we rise back up," and, "There is a difference between the sorrow that leads to repentance, and the sorrow that leads to despair." President Henry B. Eyring spoke of asking others to help you or fulfill callings by stating, "You aren't asking them to help you, you are telling them 'The Lord wants to bless you'." Some good counsel in the next session by him as well for a pattern to happier family life was, "Put yourself where you feel the Lord's forgiveness...accept and magnify every calling you receive...serve others to be more worthy of the Holy Ghost." Elder Dallin H. Oaks said, "Man's law cannon make moral what God deems immoral." Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson said, "Conversion comes through living the principles and sacrificing for them." Elder Richard J. Maynes said regarding having spiritual strength, "...comes at a price: dedication, perseverance, and self-discipline." And the last quote which I will include is from Elder Neil L. Anderson who said in regards to the priesthood and men, "A man may open the drapes to let in the light and warmth of the Sun, but he does not own the sun, light, or warmth." Well those are some of the quotes that really touched me and which I will try to apply in my life. Hopefully you enjoyed seeing and reading them! Anyway that has put me out of time for today, but thank you so much for all of your love and support and most of all prayers for me as well as for all those we are working with here in Wangaratta. I love this work and I love the Gospel! Have a fantastic week this week and I will talk to you again soon! I love you!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

October 7, 2013

G'Day!

I loved your e-mail this week! It's always wonderful to hear from you! I'm glad you had a wonderful week and that's great about your new calling Dad! You will do great! It was also a great surprise to hear from Kate and Jay and Christopher as well! Thanks heaps for the e-mail and glad you are well and staying busy!  This week has been an okay one, there were quite a bit of difficulties and a lot of cancellations as well! Coral had a few trials come through but she is still going well, please continue to keep her in her prayers! It is always greatly appreciated when you do. One highlight to the week was on Monday, when during our P-Day time we went on a bush-trail about 15 minutes from our house. The nature was very beautiful there and we finally got to see some Kangaroos up here! So that was fun! So as I mentioned before there unfortunately weren't too many lessons this week due to cancellations, so I can't report too much on any of those! However, we have started teaching another one of the less-active members in the branch with Elder Laycock which is good. The Laycocks are doing great in helping out the branch as well as us! I don't know how I will cope if I'm not serving around a senior couple anymore, they are truly a blessing to the missionary efforts! We also were able to set up another family home evening with the Hickling family for tonight which we are excited about! The rest of the week was spent doing a lot of finding new people to teach, and in Wangaratta the only way you can really do that since it is not a busy town is through tracting (and of course working with the members, but in a branch there are only a limited number you can work with in a week). So we were occupied a good share of the time with that, but our efforts weren't in vain because we were blessed to be able to find 16 new people to go back and see. Some of them obviously seem more likely to progress than others but we were still very grateful to find that many people through our efforts. School holidays just ended here in Australia (which had been on for the past 2 weeks) so we think that might have an effect on the amount of appointments we are able to have now since many people were quite busy and also out of town during that time. Our investigator Kellyanne and her kids were at church again (this is the 3rd time for her family) and really loved it as always! We have an appointment with them tomorrow night in which we plan to talk more about baptism because they are progressing really well and we feel they are ready to make that first step in living the Gospel. Well I feel bad that I don't have too many stories or information this week, but it just wasn't the best of weeks for us! We know that if we keep working as we have been though that the Lord will bless us with success. We are very excited for General Conference here this coming weekend as always and look forward to receiving divine counsel from the Lord's mouthpieces that is specific to our time. The lesson at church on Sunday was on the importance of living prophets and one comment made that I liked was something along the lines of 'next to your standard works should be a copy of the most recent conference ensign because that is almost the most important scripture for us right now since it is very specifically for our day and time.' Thanks for everything you do in supporting me out here in Australia and I am grateful most of all for all of your prayers, especially on behalf of those we teach out here, I know that it makes all the difference in the world especially as we have faith that our prayers are heard and answered! I hope that you have another wonderful week this week and continue to have opportunities to share the light of the Gospel with those around you! I love you and miss you! Talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

September 30, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks as always for the e-mail this week! That should be really fun going up to Idaho and seeing all the extended family! Just to start off I wanted to quickly mention that just recently I kind of went through all my suitcases and stuff to see what all I had and I found heaps of supplies and what not that I didn't realize I had before! So I just wanted to say that I don't need any extra supplies for quite some time (contact solution, toothpaste, etc.) which is good for you so you don't have to worry about rushing any packages off! So anyway, this past week was an alright one, it unfortunately wasn't as busy as the others as of recent times. There were quite a few cancellations and rescheduling appointments so we weren't as busy as we originally were hoping for. I guess we couldn't be having perfect weeks forever! But it was still relatively good and we did still see quite a few miracles as always. Coral is still going excellent and is loving her membership in the church. She continues to soak everything up well and has been able to feel the Spirit much more since her baptism. She will hopefully have some sort of calling/responsibility in the branch soon to help her continue to be involved and busy. One funny thing was they announced there was a new cleaning roster on the bulletin board at church and when we had a lesson with her at the Laycocks later on in the day she was asking if she was included on the roster and how many times she was allowed to come and help out with the cleaning. Its very rare to even see long-time very active members of the church jumping up and down at the chance to clean the chapel haha. Also, good news with one of our less-active members we are teaching, Nathan, who I mentioned last week we would like to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood by the District Conference coming up soon, who accepted the invitation this past week to prepare to receive this ordination. That would be wonderful to have another Melchizedek Priesthood holder in the branch since there aren't too many of them here. Also we were able to start teaching another less-active family in the branch as well with Elder and Sister Laycok this past Thursday who haven't been to church in quite some time but if they became active again heaps of others would start to come back as well because they have heaps of relatives around Wangaratta who are also less-active members. One cool experience that we had this past week was we were trying to go and visit one of the investigators that we have and when we went there this investigator's friend was the one who came to the door and said that our investigator wasn't able to talk at the moment. But as we were talking to the friend she asked if we knew a certain couple in the branch (the Hicklings, who are also less-active but we have been teaching them lately) and said that she was the aunt of Sister Hickling. So after talking with her for a few minutes we found out where she lived and then on Saturday we went and did some service for her in her garden because she is a bit older and can't do all these things herself now. So she was very appreciative of that and we hopefully will begin to be able to teach her, although it might be difficult because she told us that she is Pagan, and there would be a big change there if she were to accept the Gospel. Another cool experience that we had this past week was while we were having a lesson with Coral at the Key's home (a member family in the branch) the Key's already had a non-member friend there who agreed to stay and listen to the lesson as well! It was on Temples but since this friend has a very strong religious background and since we just taught the basic, simple doctrines about Temples and family history work it turned out very well for both the friend and Coral. So hopefully that experience will have planted some great seeds in the friend's heart because she is in her 80s and isn't too likely to change anything at the moment, so if it doesn't happen during the rest of her time in this life, she will definitely have this experience to remember in the Spirit World. On Sunday we had a fairly good attendance at church again, a bit of it due to relatives visiting for the baby blessing of the newest member of the branch, which was very nice! Well, as I said before it wasn't a week full of appointments (just heaps of tracting and finding!) so that is the main news that I have for you! Everything is still going great overall though and there are some very exciting things coming up in the month of October! Thanks for all of your love and prayers! I pray for you as well all the time! I hope you have a wonderful week and see many miracles. I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

September 23, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks as always for a wonderful e-mail this week! It might be a bit of a quick e-mail this week due to how the time schedule worked out. First off I'll just quickly mention that I did get the package with all the contacts! Thanks so much for sending that so soon, it was just in time! I counted it up (and I'm sure you did too) and it will be enough in there to last me the remainder of my mission, which is helpful not to have to worry about that now. So I guess the most important news is the transfer news! Well Elder Gabignaud is.......staying! And Elder Hopkins........is also staying! So this will be the 3rd transfer together! I'm really excited to be staying another transfer because as I said in the last e-mail I really love the people and the area here, so I know we will enjoy this next transfer as much or even more so than the previous 2. In fact, in the whole Wangaratta Zone (about 26 missionaries) only 3 missionaries are leaving, and they are putting 3 new missionaries in! So this transfer there will be a total of almost 30 missionaries in the Zone! Which makes it the biggest Zone in the mission by a big margin! Everything is continuing to go really well for the area, and we are seeing miracles every day! One of the biggest miracles for the week was one of the less-actives of the branch, Nathan, who we've been working with essentially since we got here in Wangaratta, finally came to church for the first time on Sunday! It'd been several years since he had attended church and he even helped pass the Sacrament. So that was wonderful and all the branch members gave him a very warm reception since most of them knew him from before. So we hope to have him there every week now because the District Conference is coming up soon at the end of October and we would really like to prepare him to receive the Melchizedek priesthood by then (he is a priest right now). Also our investigator family Kellyanne and her kids came to church again and are loving it all! It was funny when one of the members dropped her and her kids off after church the little boy (who is about 5 or 6) didn't want to get out of the car but wanted to go back to church! We have another teaching appointment we them on Friday and we feel very confident that they will be able to reach baptism very soon and within this transfer! Which would be wonderful! We also were able to gain a few new solid investigators this past week and have appointments with all of them this coming week as well, so we are continuing to stay very busy here which is good. There also was one of the member families in the branch who invited one of their friends to dinner and a lesson which was great and it went very well. We hope to be able to begin teaching the friend as well. Well Elder Gabignaud and I are very excited for this transfer and know we will be able to accomplish heaps! It is a bit of an interesting transfer because I believe it is only a 5 week transfer, which seems very short even though it is just one week less than normal! But we will make the most of it nonetheless. I'm grateful for all of your love and support and especially prayers! I hope you have a wonderful week ahead this week and see many miracles of your own. I love you and I'll talk to you again next Monday!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

September 16, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks so much for your e-mail! Glad you had such a wonderful and busy week! Time goes by so quickly when you are able to stay busy with things. I got one of your packages this week (it had contact solution, some lollies, a shirt, and some other things as well), so thank you so much for that! Hopefully I will get the contacts soon as well since I am currently wearing my last pair! So this past week has been incredibly busy as well! We have been blessed with so many things to do and had heaps of success during the week. The most important and special piece of news from the past week is that Coral was baptized and confirmed a member of the church! It went wonderful and the was great support from the branch here through the whole event. There were even some of the people she knew from back in the ward she was going to a few years ago in Melbourne that came up and participated in the program! So that was great and Coral really loved it and felt really good throughout the whole thing. She will be a great member of the church and a blessing to the members and others here. There was actually kind of a miracle within a miracle from the baptism and confirmation. The past few days she had been feeling quite sick but still went through with the baptism and everything on Saturday, however, on Saturday night it got much worse and she had to go into emergency! When she finally got out of emergency at 5 a.m. (after having to wait in the waiting room for like 5 or so hours!) we found out it was a viral infection that she had. So she didn't get home until really, really late and hardly had any sleep, but somehow managed to get up and ready for church so she could be there for her confirmation (and her house is a fair way away from the chapel)! So that was really great to be able to see her commitment to the gospel through something like that, and even though she was very crook (which is Australian for 'sick') she still felt really good and at peace through it all. So that was definitely the highlight of our time here in Wangaratta so far! I attached a few pictures from the baptism, the first one being just Elder Gabignaud, Coral, and I, and the second is with Elder and Sister Laycock as well. So the rest of the week was excellent as well! We were able to have 17 lessons for the week, which was the most we have had since being in Wangaratta. So our teaching has been increasing which is wonderful, since teaching the gospel is our purpose as missionaries! Church was another bright spot in this past week as well, since we were able to have record attendance at church! There were 45 people who attended church on Sunday which was a huge miracle since in the past there were at most about 32 or so that came (and that happened rarely). And the amazing thing was there were still a few people that weren't there that normally would be because they were out of town! So the branch is getting stronger in Wangaratta which is a tremendous blessing. We were able to have an investigator family there at church for the first time which was great as well. There is a mom and her 3 kids, the oldest is 10 years old. She really enjoyed it and the kids especially loved primary, so she is really keen to come again next week. So there have been heaps of great things happening in our area, and we know that with just one more week in this transfer there will continue to be many miracles that we see! The Elder Pearson mission conference this past Thursday was fantastic as well! He is such a great and powerful speaker and really helped the mission through his comments. I really enjoyed it but didn't get as much enjoyment as I could have out of it because for most of the meeting I had a migraine! So that part of it wasn't too fun but I still took in most of what was said. Well it is so hard to believe that the transfer is almost over! It went by too quickly but we really enjoyed it and saw a great amount of miracles in all aspects of the work. I have really loved serving in Wangaratta and I hope that if I am blessed enough that I will continue to have the opportunity to serve here. Well this email wont be quite as long as the past few weeks due to our schedule for today, even though this past week had so many things happening! Thanks so much for all of your love, support and prayers! I would be nowhere without all of that! I hope that you have a great and miracle-filled week this week. I love you and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

 Elder Gabignaud, new member Coral, and Elder Hopkins

 The Laycocks, new member Coral, Elder Hopkins, and Elder Gabignaud

September 9, 2013

G'Day!

Wonderful to hear from you this week! We had a pretty busy week this past week, as it always is! We continue to be very blessed here in Wangaratta by the hand of the Lord in the work. And for the first time in several weeks nothing too drastic or major happened right after e-mails last Monday! Which was sort of a relief. But we did have a great Family Home Evening at the Laycocks with the less-active family I've been mentioning. That family is still continuing to progress well, and we were meant to have another family home evening tonight with them but they have to reschedule for another time this week because the father got called to stay at work longer today. One good thing though is that the Laycocks and us have been the ones taking charge of the Family Home Evenings with them so far (with like activities and lessons) but after the last one the family said they would like to take charge of it this week, which is great! That was kind of our goal from the start is to help them be able to do it themselves as a family, so this is a good start to that. On Tuesday (which is kind of our lesson day, because we always seem to have more appointments that day than any other) we saw some great miracles as well. Chantelle, the investigator I mentioned last week who came to the fireside at the Laycocks, is progressing really well. We were able to teach her with Elder and Sister Laycock and set a date for her to be baptized on October 5th, which would be wonderful! She is really soaking up everything really well and said herself in the lesson this last week that she can feel a change of heart happening in her, and that her faith has grown heaps from when we first met her. On Wednesday we had an exchange with the missionaries serving in Benalla (which is like 30 minutes from us, the closest of the missionaries in the zone to us). I was with Elder Huakau (from Tonga) and Elder Gabignaud was with Elder Sasulu (from Sydney). It was just a 4 hour long exchange but it was still a good experience and we were able to help them with a lot of things while we were there. The exchange was good preparation for Elder Gabignaud because on Thursday afternoon I went with the Zone Leaders down to Melbourne for the leadership meeting while Elder Gabignaud stayed with the Benalla elders. It was good for Elder Gabignaud to kind of come out of his shell more because both missionaries are islanders and Elder Gabignaud hadn't like ever seen an islander (Tongan, Samoan, etc.) in his life haha. If you don't know many islanders than you wouldn't understand why this would be an interesting experience for him. So with the meeting, the Zone Leaders and I traveled down and arrived in Melbourne Thursday night at like 10 and then just stayed at another missionary flat before leaving for the meeting the next morning. And unfortunately because the Zone Leaders had already been driving like 7 hours that day I got chosen to be the driver down to Melboune! Not that I don't like driving, just I appreciate a rest from it every now and again since Elder Gabignaud can't drive. So at the meeting it was all the District and Zone Leaders for the mission, even the ones from Tasmania who never get to come to anything! It was a great meeting, simply just teaching us how to be better leaders, how to conduct meetings, and how to work with different sorts of missionaries. I learned heaps from it and will try to start applying as much as I can! It was also good to see some of my previous companions who were there as well. So the meeting finished at about 3 but because of some other tasks that had to be done while we were down there we didn't end up getting back into Wangaratta (after picking up Elder Gabignaud of course) until about 9! So I was very tired! On Saturday the Benalla missionaries had a baptism which was held at our chapel, since they don't have a font in their building there, so our morning was spent helping get everything ready for it and also interviewing their baptismal candidate. And the rest of the afternoon we went out finding and contacting since we hadn't had any opportunity to do so in the week so far. We were able to see some great success from that and got some promising new investigators to teach. And I guess I will update you on Coral as well! She is still going excellent! We were able to have 3 lessons with her this past week and she has been remaining strong in living the word of wisdom which has been a wonderful miracle! We see her again tonight at another family home evening at a member's home. We have full faith and confidence that she will make it to this Saturday for her baptism and she is really excited for it! The branch is also very excited since they haven't had very many baptisms here in the past, with the most recent baptisms coming in April but before that there hadn't been any for several years! She will be a very strong member of the church! So this next week will be another extremely busy one with heaps of appointments and another trip to Melbourne! This time Elder Gabignaud gets to come as well though which will be good. It is a mission conference (so the whole entire mission will be there! except Tasmania....poor guys) held by Elder Pearson of the Quorum of the Seventy. If you remember he spoke to us earlier in the year in January and is a fabulous speaker and one of my favorite general authorities, so we are really looking forward to that, which will be on Thursday. So everything continues to go well here in Wangaratta! Thanks so much as always for your prayers! Hard to believe only 2 weeks left in the transfer! I hope you have a fantastic week this week and continue to see heaps of miracles as well. I love you and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins