March 25, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks heaps this week for the great e-mail, I really enjoyed reading about the exciting things from this past week! Elder Matu'u and I had a really good week this past week and saw a lot of miracles and blessings as we continue to do our best to work hard and be obedient. On Tuesday we were able to see Joseph (the Sudanese man I mentioned a few weeks ago) and his family and teach a lesson for the first time with them. Turns out the Joseph isn't just the Nuer people leader for Geelong but for all of Australia! He's the first Nuer President of Australia in history as well so he's a very distinguished person, but is very humble and kind. He is very willing to learn and apply what we teach him so we hope that we can be inspired and guided so we can touch his and his family's hearts to help them come even closer to Christ through the restored gospel. We see them again tonight so hopefully it will continue to be a great experience teaching them. We also found another man this past week who was on the ward list but nobody knew who he was. He was baptized about 10 to 15 years ago but hasn't been to church in a very long time. We've found him at a time that he's looking to make a change and have Christ as the main focus of his life again and his very willing to act on his desire. We've taught him a couple of times and we hope with the wards efforts as well that we'll be able to help him into re-activity. We also had the splits again this week with the High Priests, and the focus was just going to find out more information on some of the 'address unknown' names on the ward list. Unfortunately it wasn't overly successful as some of the last known addresses were from almost a decade ago, however some of the groups that went out did find some new people (neighbors of the houses they were trying to visit) who were interested in learning more about the message of the church. We had another exchange this week as well, this time with the District Leader, Elder Hasson and his companion Elder Pain. I was with Elder Pain in our area of Geelong while Elder Matu'u and Elder Hasson were in the other area. Elder Pain and I had some really good experiences as we worked really hard. It started out a bit slow because our first couple appointments weren't home and we did about an hour and a bit of tracting without any success. But as we kept working without getting discouraged the blessings came later as we got the chance to teach some good lessons to some investigators and also find some new people to teach who seem very interested. This past Saturday was a really packed and enjoyable day because it started off by us having the opportunity to go and play basketball a little as part off an Elders Quorum activity in which there were some less-active members who showed up so it turned out to be a good missionary opportunity to fellowship them. After that the other Geelong missionaries had a baptism with one of the long time investigators for the area named Peter. He'd progressed a long way even from when I first saw him when I got to Geelong, so it was great to see him make the step of baptism (his family was already members). It's kind of a cool story with him and Elder Hasson, because in Elder Hasson's first area in the mission he began teaching Peter and his family, he slowly made some progress and shortly Elder Hasson was transferred to another area. And now a year later Elder Hasson was transferred to Geelong and Peter and his family happened to have moved there as well, so he had the opportunity to complete the teaching of them as well and help Peter into the waters of baptism. Another big event on Saturday was the marriage of Joel and Camilla by Bishop (if you remember them, I haven't mentioned them in a few weeks because they've been so busy with their baby and the wedding preparations) so that was really great! So now that they've made it through the wedding hopefully we'll get more opportunities to continue to teach them now. We also get to start teaching Noah again this week and he'll be baptized very soon as well, so we're excited for that because we've missed being able to teach him lately (he's a fun kid to be around and teach!). On Saturday night Elder Matu'u and I opened a fast with one of the reasons being higher church attendance from our investigators, because lately we haven't been haven't the number of people there that we've hoped for. However, on Sunday the Lord answered us in a way that we didn't expect at all. One of the members in the ward who is a former bishop had been talking to an excommunicated member who'd been telling him for months that he wanted to make a change and come back to church. The former bishop said that if he wants to come to church he can come any Sunday morning and he and his family will take him there. And it happened on the Sunday we were fasting for church attendance that the excommunicated member turned up on his door and came to church! So that was a great miracle to see, especially since he really enjoyed church and said that he really wants to change and work towards being re-baptized. He'll have a lot of work to do but with the Lord's help anything can be overcome with the desire to change and improve. Sunday afternoon we were able to go and teach a man we met earlier in the week named Dave. He's 20 years old and has a small son and a partner he's staying with. He's a really nice and humble guy though and really wants to have religion a bigger part of his life again as he grew up in a religious family. We taught a really powerful lesson on the Restoration with him and he understood all the points really well and felt the spirit. He asked for a Book of Mormon and said he hopes to read the whole thing! We also invited him to be baptized once he receives a witness of the truthfulness of the restored gospel and he accepted. So that was another miracle for us as we've been trying really hard to find some really sincere investigators and we know that Dave will progress with the desire that he has. So the work in Geelong continues to improve and increase each week and we're beginning to find a lot of people who are very prepared by Heavenly Father either to receive for the first time or come back to the gospel. I know as we continue to work hard that the Lord will bless us with seeing many of these people we've found progress in the gospel and towards baptism. I'm grateful as always for all the love and support you give me and my companion that helps us keep motivated to do our best. I hope that you have a wonderful week ahead and that you can continue to see many missionary opportunities yourselves. Thanks again for your e-mail and I hope that your coming Easter weekend is a really great and special time to remember the Savior and his Atonement for all mankind that makes all of this work possible. I encourage you to share your testimony this week of His atonement and how it's blessed your life with someone who may need to hear it, whether it's a relative a member of the ward or a non member. I know Heavenly Father blesses us greatly each time we testify of His son to others. I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

March 18, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks as always for the great e-mail this past week, I loved reading it! This past week was filled with a lot of miracles! We had some amazing experiences and met a lot of great new investigators. One of these new investigators is named Thea, and everything worked out perfectly for us to find her. We'd just come back near our flat from a cancelled appointment and Elder Matuu got a flat tire on his bike. Unfortunately we don't have a bike pump and at this time our phone wasn't working either so we couldn't call any of the members to see if they had a pump. So we had to just walk over to the nearest gas station (or petrol station as they're called in Australia) to use the air pump there. However, as luck would have it the air pump was out of order so we had to keep walking up the road to find another station where we could pump Elder Matuu's bike up. As we were walking on the sidewalk a member pulled up next to where we were and asked if we needed any help, which we did! So the member took the bike and put it in her car and drove it to the nearest station to fill it up for us (obviously we couldn't go with her since there wasn't another male in the car). So we just had to wait in that spot for her to come back, so as any missionary does to pass time we did some tracting! It was a big group of small units in a two story complex, so we started knocking on doors on the bottom level, and either no one was home or no one was interested. So we walked up the stairs to the next level and we were talking to a lady at one door and she wasn't interested in the end but while we were talking to her another lady from the first floor came out holding a pass along card in her hand we'd left on her door and asked if it was us who left it there. We said yes and she then asked if we can come talk to her after we're finished. So the other lady told us she wasn't interested and we walked back down to the first floor, and from past experience I thought this other lady was going to just yell at us for putting a card on her door. However, she was really happy to see us and told us that she'd very recently been thinking about getting into a church. Her father was Catholic but didn't enjoy the church so she was never baptized into it but she really felt like she wanted to find a church to go to. So obviously we were very happy to invite her to learn about the church and also attend the meetings which she readily accepted. She also said her mother wants to find a church as well. So we'll begin teaching her this week and she said she'll come to church this coming Sunday! So that was a huge miracle to find her mainly because of the circumstances and how everything had to be exactly perfect to find her: the bike had to be flat at that time when she'd be home, the gas station pump had to be broken, and the member had to stop us at that exact spot (which was at the complex) and had to be female so we couldn't ride down with her. Turns out the member couldn't even find any pump that was working around the area so Heavenly Father just provided the perfect opportunity for us to find Thea, because who knows if we would've ever found her had it not been at that time. So I just found that an awesome example of Heavenly Father providing people to us in whatever circumstances He needs to (sometimes even frustrating, haha) in order for His purposes to come to pass. Along with Thea we met heaps of others in similar situations who were just asking us if they could be taught and come to church, etc. so Heavenly Father provided us with so many miraculous encounters this past week, which proves that hard work and obedience does merit rewards from Heaven, so we just have to remain exactly obedient to keep these investigators progressing and coming closer to Christ through applying the Gospel in their lives. Also, on exchanges with the Zone Leaders this past Thursday, Elder Wood (one of the Zone Leaders, who on a completely off-topic note was in the Ensign a few months ago because he was a professional wake-boarder but put it on hold for his mission) and I taught a first lesson with one of our Chinese investigators named Jaryn. It was such a great lesson and he literally was just soaking up all the information like a sponge and described how he was feeling the spirit at church and in the lesson (although he didn't realize that it was the spirit at the time). He's very ready and wants to follow Jesus Christ and we were able to set a baptismal date with him for the 20th of April and we know if he keeps doing what he's been doing and receives all the lessons that he'll be ready by that day to be baptized. So that was another wonderful experience this past week as well. Noah's grandmother passed away this past Thursday as well, unfortunately, but the family said she'd been struggling with cancer for several years so it's in a way good that she's in the spirit world now free from her pain. The funeral is this week so we'll be able to finish teaching Noah again next week and hopefully prepare him for baptism either the 30th of March or the 6th of April, so that will be a great blessing as well. The Geelong area is building up really well now and we have a great amount of people we're finally able to teach after struggling to get anyone the past 9 weeks I've been here. I wish I could list all of them and their stories but unfortunately I don't have time for that. The weather has also cooled down heaps and has even been raining quite a bit these past few days so that's a break for us on the bikes so that we don't have to be sweating buckets trying to get to our appointments on hot days. I'm really excited for this week and to see many more miracles as well and begin helping all these new investigators work towards baptism as well and receive the blessings of the gospel in their own lives. I'm grateful for all your prayers and love and support and know that many of these blessings and miracles we've seen have come as a result of them. I hope that you all have a wonderful week ahead as well! I love you and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

March 12, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks so much for the great e-mail this week! I'm glad to hear about all the great things happening back home. This past week was alright, it was pretty busy with cleaning. A couple of days we had to spend several hours cleaning and on Wednesday we spent most of the day cleaning and having some of the missionaries assigned to help with maintenance come and fix some things in the flat as well. When I got to the flat first it wasn't in very good shape and before Elder Rua it was even worse, but now the flat looks very good and clean so the key now is just to maintain the nice state of it for the rest of the time we spend here. So during the week we weren't able to get as much proselyting done as we had planned (can't seem to catch a break in Geelong, can we? haha) but the week still turned out alright. It's been a huge blessing since we found Candice Wang because it couldn't have come at a more perfect time. Her mother and also her friend (Jaryn) from last week came to church again and loved it so much! But also we had 2 new Chinese investigators referred to us by some missionaries in the city who we contacted and also came to church by getting a lift from Candice (their names are Brian and Cuben) and they also really enjoyed church and are very interested to learn more. We'll definitely have to get some other members to help as well to fellowship and give lifts for them because Candice had a very full car this week, haha. So that's proved to be a big miracle to find her and also these other investigators who we'll begin teaching this week. With Noah, a bit of sad news, his grandma has been in the hospital the past few weeks and is now in a very critical state and will likely pass away within the next couple of days. So amidst the stress and worry of that, Noah's mom has decided she wants to postpone the baptism and the lessons as well until after funeral arrangements and what not have been made. So that was unfortunate to hear and we'd hoped that the baptism would still go forward because we felt (as well as President Lifferth) that it would be a blessing for the Grandma to hear about the baptism and also Noah if he could go and tell the grandma himself. So who knows at this point when the baptism will happen, hopefully still within the next few weeks because Noah is very ready and wants to be baptized. This week we were also able to find another unknown member on the ward list named Nancy who invited us to come back this week, so we're excited for that as well! At that moment, we're obviously struggling not necessarily to find people to teach but I guess to hold onto investigators when we get them. So we'll continue to work very hard to try and find new people to teach as well as do our best to help those investigators that we do have continue to have a desire to investigator and not to be influenced by the adversary. This past Wednesday night was also the first night that we did splits with the ward. I think I mentioned in another e-mail that when Elder Pearson was here he said that every ward needs to go out once each week on splits with the missionaries as part of the 'rescue effort' and this past week was the first we were able to do that. This week was the bishopric's turn to go out so I got to go with the 2nd councilor to visit a few names Bishop had selected while Elder Matuu went with Bishop. We were able to have some great experiences and met some really great people that hopefully we'll see some miracles from in the near future. The 2 families we the 2nd councilor and I visited, the people we were hoping to catch weren't there but at the first house we met the partner (a non-member) of one of the less-actives in the ward who ended up being very nice and said that we can come back another time so hopefully we'll see some good from that. Also, Elder Matuu and Bishop had a great experience with another less-active family who have several non-members in their family that will hopefully generate some blessings soon as well. So we're excited for the next splits tomorrow as well, this week with the Elder's Quorum. Well I wish I had more to write to you at the moment but unfortunately due to the above mentioned cleaning this past week we weren't able to accomplish too much. This week I'm sure we'll be able to see many miracles though from the time we'll have to go out and work. I'm grateful for all of you love and support and prayers and I know that it has been the key to a lot of the blessings I've received personally and we've received as a companionship. I hope that you're able to have another wonderful and great week this week! I love you and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

March 4, 2013

G'Day!

The e-mail was really great this week, I loved reading it! This past week was pretty good, certainly busy at the beginning. You'll find it funny and cool at the same time that Elder Rua's new area is actually in Pakenham! So him and I just did a swap of areas, haha. He'll be there in a 4-missionary flat so that should be fun. I got to talk to Elder Hirata a bit at the meeting as well and it sounds like Pakenham is still doing well! Afa and Lisa and also the Sekene family have been able to go to the temple which was really great! Cruiz and Chelsea have kind of slipped back into a bit of a lazy state again with coming to church, so hopefully the new missionaries will help them get back into it since they were doing so well before! Joan Willmott also pushed her date back again unfortunately, so it's nice to see she's still herself, haha. I think it will be good to have so many missionaries there now so maybe one of them will be able to reach her heart more to help her feel the need to take more action. David and Melissa have also been coming to church more regularly again which is awesome! The ward is great as always as well, and Elder Hirata said that it's grown so much that Bishop Smith said he's going to have to split the ward! That's exciting for the area. So I enjoyed being able to hear about how the area was doing. So anyway, my new companion is Elder Matuu from Apia, Samoa. His english is really good as many Samoans are so it'll be the first time in a long time where I don't have any language study in the morning! He's been out for 6 months on his mission and this is his 2nd area. He's a pretty good missionary so hopefully he'll help Geelong grow as an area this transfer. He has a bit of a reputation for not being too obedient to the mission rules, however, so it may be a bit of a struggle to work hard this transfer. However, it made me extra motivated to be exactly obedient and work extra hard myself to hopefully help him see the blessings of it as well, so it's been good for me as well to increase my level of effort as well. Because of that, this first week we worked so hard we were completely dead by last night at the end of the week, but it certainly wasn't without many, many blessings! This week we were able to set a baptismal date with Noah for the 16th of this month so we're looking forward to that! Since he's just 11 and like to joke heaps, it's sometimes hard to keep him focused in the lessons but his comprehension is really good for his age and we've been able to help him understand everything he needs to so far. It also is good to know that he has some active family members who'll help him to remain active as well. His mom though is posing a bit of a stumbling block because he stays with her every other weekend and she doesn't let him go to church then so Luke (the mom's son as well) is going to try to talk to her about it this week. It's a very complicated situation with her and we don't know too much about it so it's very nice to have Luke as the fellowship. This week we also were able to find a former investigating family all the way back from 2006! It's a Sudanese family, and the dad, Joseph, is the leader of the Nuer community (an African nationality) for Geelong, so he has a lot of people who look up to him as a leader. So we have been praying that he'll be very receptive again to the Gospel because we know that so many blessings would come from him accepting the Gospel into his and his family's life. We are going to go visit them for the first time tonight so we're excited to begin teaching them again. We also tried contacting a lot of the less-active and inactive members in the ward this week, and while most of them were not receptive and sometimes a bit hostile, we did find one man from New Zealand who said that we can come back to see him this week, so hopefully we'll be able to see some blessings come from him. This past Sunday was excellent because we had 4 non-members/investigators from our area come to church. Lorraine (one of the one's influenced by anti-mormon literature) came to church again and had a really good time so hopefully she's gotten over that incident! I think it helped that we'd been having a Zone fast this Sunday for some of our area's concerns and included in that was 'overcoming anti-mormon material.' We also had a new person come to church for the first time that one of the members brought with her to church. Her name is Susan and she just moved to Geelong recently and when she was there she asked for some reading materials so we gave her a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet on the Restoration and she said she'll read them this week! Talking with the member friend after church, she said that Susan really loved church and had such a wonderful experience and felt so welcomed that she can't wait to come back next week! So as we've really worked hard we've been seeing many miracles come about such as her. Also, helping Candice and Walle Wang come back to church has been a blessing in more ways than one. Walle had to leave for China this past week to take care of his sick Grandpa but Candice is still here and this Sunday she brought with her: her mother (who's staying with her for a little while) as well as Chinese colleague she just met! So she's doing some excellent missionary work as well and both of those she brought will be coming back next week! Elder Hasson (the other missionary that stayed in Geelong) has a brand new missionary named Elder Pain from Brisbane, Australia, and they worked really hard this week as well, so we should see a lot of success and growth in the area over the next couple of weeks. So the mission's goal at the moment is to get about 85 baptisms in the month of March (which was the combination of two goals, one set by Elder Pearson of the 70, and the other set by the mission) which would be the highest the mission has ever had. So the mission as a whole has been excited and working extra hard lately so that we can achieve that goal, and for lack of a better phrase 'make history' for the mission, haha. At the moment the mission has 200 baptismal dates set, which is pretty incredible for the Melbourne mission, so we know we'll be able to reach our goal if we keep up the effort! I continue to develop a greater and greater love for the work each day and I know the Lord will continue to bless us for our hard work and effort. I'm continually grateful for all your love and support and I hope that you have a wonderful week ahead! Thanks again for the wonderful e-mail and I'll talk to you again soon! I love you!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

February 25, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks for the e-mail this week, and I'm glad everything is going really well back home! The last week of the transfer went ok, certainly not what we'd hoped for, but I'll talk about that in a second. First of all the big news as always at the end of a transfer. Elder Rua is moving and I will be staying in Geelong! So I'll have at least 6 more weeks in Geelong, but it will be sad to see Elder Rua go since we'd been working really well and hard together. I'm sure whoever my new companion will be, he'll be great as well. So we have the transfer meeting tomorrow and I'll be able to let you know who my new companion is next week. Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll have a driver's license so we can have a car, haha. So anyway, back to this past week. The week started out really good and we were able to have some really great lessons with some new investigators. On Monday night we had a lesson with a family of 5 and brought Luke Grbin with us to help teach (the newly returned missionary who we've been bringing out with us heaps!) and it went really well and they asked heaps of great questions that fit right into the discussions. However, when we went back to see them twice later throughout the week, they either weren't home or didn't answer. So we'll keep trying to contact them again, hopefully they haven't become disinterested or anti'd by some friends. We also had our first lesson with a golden investigator (or really prepared investigator) named Rebecca who we met the week before. The first time we met her we showed her where the church was on the map and she told us that she'd had a dream she attended a church in that location but didn't know which church it was, so that was pretty amazing. This week we taught her about the Restoration and it went perfectly. She asked heaps of great questions and understood everything and accepted everything. When we told the 1st vision it was probably the most powerful time I've shared it on the mission thus far and she felt the spirit strong as well. She was very excited to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it and she also accepted the invitation to be baptized after she received a further witness that it is true. So of course we were very happy and excited after that lesson with her. However, yesterday afternoon she sent us a lengthy text that in short said she wasn't interested in learning more and wanted to cease all contact with us. So again we'll try to visit her to find out her concern and see if we can keep teaching her, we assume that someone must've given her some anti-mormon literature to sway her. But wait, the theme for this week isn't finished yet. Our other golden investigator Lorraine that I mentioned last week has taken a turn for the worst as well. The member friend of her told us at church on Sunday that when Lorraine went out with a friend on Saturday the friend heaped onto her loads of anti-mormon literature and thus caused Lorraine to not desire further investigation. The member is going to talk with her more this week to answer all her concerns (he's a former bishop so he's a reliable source) to help her rekindle the desire. So obviously Satan is working unbelievably hard to take away every single one of our investigators we've had this transfer, mainly through the means of others giving them anti-mormon literature. There's a few members who've also been given some anti-mormon pamphlets as soon as their new neighbors found out they were members of the church. So I've found it a bit shocking that a majority of nonmembers either have or have friends who have a stack of anti-mormon items. So that just means we have to work even harder to help members come closer to Christ while so much works against us to bring them down. It also has made it difficult that the ward doesn't seem too excited about missionary work since the beginning of the transfer, since in the past Geelong hasn't exactly had hard working or obedient missionaries. However, the new first councilor to the ward is helping to get the ward more involved and excited as we continue to try to visit all the families to help them become more involved and see that we're working hard and that Geelong has so much potential. But even though all these things would make you think I don't like Geelong, it's quite the opposite, because Elder Rua and I have felt excited to take on the challenge of the missionary work in this area and especially help turn the missionary efforts around in the ward, and I'll continue that with my new companion to the area. Just as with life in general, if we aren't challenged to our limits we can never dream of improving or progressing, and I've certainly noticed that while this past transfer and especially this past week have been very challenging that I've increased my skills and work-ethic as a missionary so much more than if we'd had everything handed to us. It's also true that the satisfaction of bringing someone to the gospel or helping a ward redevelop a love for missionary work is much greater when it's accomplished against all odds. So I'm certainly excited for another transfer in Geelong and excited to get a new companion as well and I hope that he likes hard work because that's what we're going to do for the next 6 weeks. Thanks as always for all your love and your support and especially for your prayers that I feel the impact of each day. Keep looking for opportunities for missionary work as well or opportunities to help out the missionaries there! We certainly appreciate it, haha. I hope that you have a wonderful week and I love you heaps! Talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins