Sunday, April 7, 2013

April 1, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks for the great e-mail once again this past week. As you can see the 'Australia public holiday' struck again and I couldn't e-mail you back on the usual day, but we're able to send our e-mails today. This past week was a very busy one, in which we weren't able to spend as much time in our area that we'd hoped to or would've liked. However, our time was spent doing very fulfilling activities, especially on Wednesday as we were able to attend the Melbourne Temple once again! The Temple is always a magnificent place to be and reflect on all sorts of different things and especially to seek personal revelation for ourselves, our investigators, and our area as a whole. I felt the spirit very strongly as we attended and I was able to learn a lot of things that I hadn't realized or known before, so it was a great experience. I certainly wish we could attended the Temple more often than just every 3 months because it's such a great place to be and a great opportunity to resolve to improve. President and Sister Lifferth shared a good thought with us before we went in using a scripture from Isaiah (I can't remember the exact scripture at the moment) that mentioned the Temple as a 'house of repentance' and I'd never really heard it termed that way before. So it's a great place to resolve to change and become better disciples and followers of Jesus Christ. So that was one of the highlights of our past week, another one involving Noah! He has a new baptismal date for the 13th of this month and it's a very solid date now so we're very excited for that. He's very excited to be baptized on that day and doesn't have any concerns holding him back now. So in the next 2 weeks we'll just be focusing on finishing to teach him all the lessons and helping him have spiritual experiences. We also are beginning to teach Joel and Camilla again more frequently now that everything has settled from the wedding, so we know we'll begin to see miracles from their family as well. Jaryn is also continuing to do really well in the gospel and is still working towards his date for the 20th of April. We also have a lot of new investigators we've found as well who we hope will begin to progress in the gospel. We certainly have very high hopes for this last week of the transfer, it's certainly flown by sooooo fast! We know that the Lord will continue to bless us as we continue to put in our full effort and stay obedient. We also will have more time to work in our area this week which obviously will help. We find out the transfer news this coming Saturday which will be exciting news as always. The past 2 transfers here in Geelong have definitely been really difficult and even frustrating at times but I've also seen myself grow so much more in these 12 weeks. I've seen the improvement in my teaching and also in my testimony and relationship with Heavenly Father and I have the hard and trying experiences to thank for that. These hard times of course haven't come without a fair share of blessings though, as this area has really begun to take off and especially our teaching pool has increased by so much from when we started. This coming transfer will be another exciting one as there's another big onslaught of new missionaries, with 27 coming into the mission. So this time certainly continues to be an exciting time for missionary work and I know the church will continue to see huge growth from the efforts of all these faithful missionaries for the next several years. Sorry this e-mail hasn't been as eventful and 'exciting' as last weeks but I wish every week could be as good as it was then. However, there's always the highs and lows, although the week wasn't really a low it just didn't have too many noteworthy events. So I hope that you have a wonderful week ahead and that you continue to see a lot of blessings back home. Thanks for all your continued love and support that you give! I love you and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins




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