February 18, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks for another wonderful e-mail this week, I always love reading them! We had a really good week this past week with a lot of blessings and miracles. It was also a very busy week too! We started off with Tuesday as an exchange with our District Leader Elder Hasson, who happens to be in the other set of Geelong missionaries so we didn't have to travel too much for that exchange haha. But it went really well and we accomplished a lot. I was with Elder Hasson in our area. As we tried to contact some of our investigators we were unable to find many people home or available, so we decided to contact some of the members on the ward list in the area who we didn't know. The first name that we picked was Walle and Candice Wang. We went to their house and when they opened the door they invited us in straight away and were very happy to see us. We were kind of expecting a different reaction from contacting some of these people so it was a nice surprise. As we talked to them we found out they'd moved to Melbourne about 3 years ago from China (near Beijing) and had met with missionaries when they lived in the city and were baptized about 2 years ago. Then they moved over to this suburb of Geelong about 1 year ago and weren't able to find out where the nearest church was or where any members were who could help them. So after a while of searching for some reason or another they weren't able to find one. So they said that they were so excited to see missionaries at their door because they'd been searching for the church in the area and also it was their only day off of the week so we were very blessed to find them home. So we invited them to church again and they were able to come to Stake Conference this weekend and look forward to being in the Geelong ward next Sunday! So that was quite a miracle to find them. On Wednesday was Zone Conference and it went really well. There were a lot of inspiring trainings and talks given and I was able to learn a lot. For the sake of time I won't go into much detail about it but it was good. On Saturday we had some really great lessons with some new investigators. The first lesson we had was with a woman named Lorraine. She'd moved next door to one of the members of the ward in December and had come with him to church for the first time last Sunday and said that she was interested to learn more (I can't remember if I told you that part already or not?). Anyway, we were able to go and teach her for the first time on Saturday at the member's home and it was a really good experience. We found out about her background and then taught about half of the first lesson focusing mainly on God's love for us and the Great Apostasy. She understood what we were teaching really well and wants to continue to learn more. We also had a lesson with an 11 year old boy named Noah. He is Luke's (the returned missionary from last week) half-brother. His mom is less-active but wants Noah to have the missionary lessons now and Noah wants Luke to baptize him now that he's off his mission. So we began teaching him and he's looking to get baptized in March next month, so we're excited for him and his family. Hopefully his mom will have a desire to return to church as well through the experience. His dad is an active member in the ward, however, so he'll be sure to bring him to church and help him remain active which is good. Stake Conference was excellent yesterday. It was a live broadcast from Utah that was being played at the same time as all the other stakes and districts in Australia, which was pretty cool. We had a few general authorities speak, Elder Baxter of the 70, the 1st councilor of the Relief Society presidency, Elder Christofferson of the 12, and most excitingly President Monson spoke as well! So that was a great surprise to hear from the prophet and the other speakers. They all had wonderful talks and President Monson's focus was on 'going to the rescue,' or in other words helping to bring back those members who've gone into inactivity. So hopefully that will spark a new, more diligent effort in the members of Australia. Throughout this past week we were able to find a lot of new investigators as well who we will be seeing this coming week (which is now the last week of the transfer) so we're excited to see the area continue to grow! We also don't find out the transfer news until next Saturday, even though the leaders already know the transfers, they just want us to live in suspense haha. But we'll continue to work very hard none the less to set up the work for the next transfer to be even more successful. Thanks again for all of your love and support and especially your prayers that help so much! I hope that you have a wonderful week as well and have the opportunity to have missionary experiences, big or small, yourselves! I love you and talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

February 11, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks for the great e-mail this week! They always are something that I look forward to each week and it always makes me smile to hear about all the things going on. This past week was pretty good. The work has been very up and down this transfer seeing as the first week was a lot of tracting and finding and the next two weeks were successful with a lot of lessons and people to teach and then the past two weeks have been back to a lot of finding again. Although our teaching pool and people to go see has grown so much since we began the transfer. We had about 4 or 5 names the first week, and for this week we have over 30 people to see plus a lot of less-actives Bishop has asked us to visit, so we have seen a lot of progress and blessings. This past week the only difficulty was catching people when they were home. A lot of people were out of the house when we went around to visit them and unfortunately with a majority of the new people we have we don't have a phone number to ring so it's just more trial and error with seeing them now. We were able to visit with one of our new investigators named Emmanuel who's from Sudan. We were able to teach a really good lesson to him about the Plan of Salvation and he grasped and understood everything really well. He's married with a few kids but he was the only that we were able to teach at that time. One of his friends came by about 3/4 of the way through our lesson and we were able to teach him a bit as well which was good. Also on another note, this week isn't actually the last week of this transfer. With the huge incoming of the new missionaries this upcoming transfer the dates of arrival have changed a bit (note sure why) so the transfer actually ends up being 7 weeks instead of 6. But I obviously don't have any problems with that since Elder Rua and I are enjoying the work here in Geelong. This week we also have Zone Conference again! Thankfully it's not today but on Wednesday this time, but that should be good. I don't think there'll be any General Authorities at this one, however. This coming Sunday is also Stake Conference again for the Wyndham stake, so it will be a very conference-y week, haha. Yesterday, church was very good as well because there was a return missionary from the Geelong ward that had just gotten back off his mission on Saturday! So he was able to speak to the ward and did a very good job. He also wants to come out a lot with both sets of the Geelong missionaries so that will be good to have an RM to help us out. His dad (who's on the stake high council) spoke before his as well and his talk was excellent. He was very emotional throughout the talk as he shared a lot about some of his sons life and mission. It was a very spirit-filled meeting and there were a lot of non-members that attended as well, so hopefully they were able to feel the spirit there as well. On Saturday we scheduled 3 services to do with the other elders, which were: cutting down an overgrown bush from one of the members home, moving a big pile of bricks at an investigators home, and also helping a member move into a new house. Overall the 3 services took about 6 1/2 hours and we all felt dead afterwards because it was a lot of hard work! We love doing service for people but we'll try to limit the service to just 1 a Saturday from now on so we aren't zombies for following few days. Elder Rua and I were pretty tired on Sunday but still were able to sit up and listen in church but the other 2 elders were fast asleep for most of the 2nd and 3rd hours, haha. Something that I heard as well on Sunday that was a bit shocking was that the general authorities had told all missionaries in England to stop tracting, and also in the Perth Australia mission a few months ago. Some of the members were saying that pretty soon all of Australia's missions will have stopped tracting. I thought that was quite an amazing change and I didn't hear why they had stopped it but it must be for good reason. So the members are going to have to step it up to help the missionaries, seeing as tracting is a big part of finding people to teach. Thought I'd just share that, might be something interesting to look up more about. Anyway, it should be another busy week ahead and we hope to see a lot of success as we continue to work really hard to help build up the area and strengthen the Geelong ward. Thanks as always for the support and love you show that helps the work go better! I hope you have a wonderful week ahead as well and Happy Valentine's Day! Talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

February 4, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks for a great e-mail this week! It was another good week in Geelong this week. We didn't see as much success as we did last week but we were still able to accomplish quite a bit. This past week on Friday we had our quarterly interviews with President Lifferth where he usually just asks how we're doing and what he can do to help us accomplish the work more, but it's always good to speak with him 1 on 1. He mentioned that Elder Hirata and his new companion were doing well in Pakenham and that the new missionary is really good! So that was good to hear! He also asked me if I felt they could fit 2 more missionaries in the flat there in Pakenham and I told him yes so they may have 4 missionaries in Pakenham now! Wouldn't that be cool? We also saw that in the next transfer there will be 27 new missionaries coming into the mission! Wow! So the big influx of missionaries is beginning and right now we're still at about 165 missionaries but President and Sister Lifferth said by May we'll be up to 220. So it's definitely a very exciting time to be a missionary in the Australia Melbourne Mission! We were able to finally teach Joel and Camilla for the first time officially. We didn't teach too much as to what we'd planned because Joel had a lot of questions about the Temple and sealing of families. He had a bad experience with the Temple before because when he and Camilla went to go see Camilla's sister get sealed, no one told him why he couldn't go into the Temple so he thought there was just a lot of secretive stuff that happened in there. We were able to explain to him more about how the Temple is just a sacred place and that you just need to have a Temple recommend to enter showing that you are in line with God's will and thus will help maintain the purity of the spirit there. We were able to answer most of his questions pretty well but next time we'll teach him more in depth about the Plan of Salvation and how the Temples and family sealings fit into it. He still is very keen to learn more and said he wants to put in a lot of his own effort such as reading the scriptures, praying and coming to church and he said he knows that as he does it will help him be able to receive answers and get a better understanding of the Gospel, so he has a great attitude about it all. I've been studying a lot differently lately as well in my personal studies each morning. President Lifferth asked us in preparation for Friday's interviews to pick a topic of Preach My Gospel that we wanted to learn more about and then for a couple of days just really focus on that for our study and seek a better knowledge and understanding of it. Before I'd just study really basically a lot of topics at once and felt that it would suffice, but when I did this I was able to learn so much more and it made me more excited to study than ever before. So now I'm going to continue doing that with all the principles of Preach My Gospel   and literally exhaust all the resources and scriptures I can about that topic before I move onto the next, and hopefully I'll be able to become a more effective teacher through that. I can't believe that it's only 2 weeks left until the next transfer already as well. The time has just gone by so fast here in Geelong, but we've been able to accomplish so much. Throughout this week Elder Rua and I have been trying so set up as many appointments with the active member families as we can to share the family mission plan with them because we know that we'll be able to get the ward more excited about missionary work through that and hopefully find some really solid new investigators instead of searching the regular way of just tracting. We've been able to set up quite a few so far so we hope that it works well for us. Well thanks once again for the wonderful e-mail this week and especially your love and support which helps me get through this time on the mission! I look forward to another great week ahead and hope that you have a great week as well. I love you and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

January 29, 2013

G'Day!

 

Thanks so much for another wonderful e-mail this week! I loved reading it and hearing about all the exciting things happening lately. Sorry again for being a day late. On Saturday it was 'Australia Day' (which is like the 4th of July for the U.S.) and since it fell on a weekend they made the following Monday (yesterday) the actual public holiday. And on Australia Day nobody works, so the banks were closed, almost every shop was closed, and most importantly the library was closed, so none of the missionaries were able to e-mail their families. So we get the opportunity to e-mail today instead. It certainly has been an interesting transfer missing 2 e-mailing days already. The past week was excellent though other than that, and we accomplished heaps of things. Elder Rua and I have really been working hard in this Geelong area and have been seeing so much success and so many blessings. On Thursday we had an exchange with our Zone Leaders for the day but since they live a bit of a distance away from us they just stayed in our area so because of that we were able to accomplish double the work on that day with 4 missionaries instead of just 2. The past week as a whole we saw so many blessings with finding good new people to teach. Total for the week we had 25 new people to go and teach which was only 1 off of 26 new people in a week which was the last week when I was with Elder Rafferty. Not that it's a contest of numbers but I just thought it was awesome that we were able to find so many prepared people to go and teach, and they were all very genuinely interested in learning more. So we certainly are getting heaps of work to do in Geelong! This past week we also finally had the chance to meet with the bishop of the Geelong ward, Bishop Sandford. He and his family had been away for 2 weeks on holiday so we hadn't been able to catch him until just recently. But we were able to have a good meeting with him to discuss all the progress that we hope can be made in the coming little while. He gave us several names that we can pursue of less-active members and also of unbaptized children and teenagers that we hope to be able to visit and teach soon. Our area is one of the biggest this side of the mission so it's definitely difficult for us to get to everyone we want to see just on bikes. However, the ward has just implimented a plan for the members to go on splits with us and the other Elders every Wednesday night, so hopefully we'll be able to contact some of the people that live a bit farther out on those days. We also have been trying to go around and visit all of the members in our area of Geelong to get to know them and also share the Family Mission Plan with them. We've only been able to see a few thus far but one of the families we went to see, the McCoy family, have only been here a month or two and just moved from Pheonix, Arizona! So quite a big move! Bro. McCoy actually served in this mission about 17 years ago and that helped them make their decision when they were thinking about where they wanted to move. So that's certainly nice to have some fellow Americans in the area. Last week we were also able to have another lesson with one of the investigators we found in the 1st week of the transfer named Joel. He's Australian and hasn't had too much of a religious background but is very nice and open to hearing about all different beliefs. We were able to teach him about the Plan of Salvation with a focus on how living the main principles of the Gospel are what help us to get there. It went really well and you could feel that the Spirit was there. At the end he committed to pray on his own about the message we shared and also to know if Heavenly Father is there. It's nice because he works with one of the members in the ward, Bro. Ceff, so it hasn't been hard for us to think of who the fellowship can be. We hope to be able to teach him about the Restoration this week. Joel and Camilla (confusing with your two main investigators being named Joel, isn't it?) are doing really well as well. They met with Bishop on Sunday and finalized everything for their wedding on the 23rd of March, so that'll be great! The ward seems like a really great one because there were so many people and families that came up after Sacrament meeting and after church to talk with them and fellowship them which really helped them, especially Joel, to feel welcome and have a good experience. We'll be seeing them this coming Thursday night which is where we'll begin teaching them officially, which will be wonderful! Yesterday we also had some service scheduled with a new contact we met on Sunday named Paulo (an Australian born Italian). He'd met some missionaries several years ago who helped him put up his fence so he knew that he could ask us for some help when we met him on Sunday. We went over there at 12 noon and helped him to strip some of the paint off of the side of his house, clean his backyard fence with a water pressure shooter thing (I don't know what it's called haha), and oil his back deck. So we helped him accomplish a lot and it ended up taking us 5 hours to do. He has a rare spinal condition where some of the nerves between his spine were lost and his back vertebrae began fusing together and cause him agonizing pain. I don't remember what the name was for it though. It prevents him from doing hard labor though so he greatly appreciated the help and said that we are welcome in his home anytime so hopefully we'll have the opportunity to share the Gospel with him and his family. We're excited for another busy week here in Geelong and are really loving the work right now and hope that we can continue to really build up the area! I'm grateful for all of your continued love and support and hope that you have a great week ahead as well! I'll talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins