Thanks
heaps for the great e-mail this week! I loved reading it! This
past week and first week of this transfer was an awesome start with my
new companion. His name is Elder Malifa (mah-lee-fah) and he's
from Auckland, New Zealand. He's been on his mission just 3 months (this
is his 3rd transfer) but he has a great excitement for the work and has
a strong desire to work hard and be obedient. He just turned 20 a few
months ago and is the oldest of 5 kids. He was raised in the church and
both of his parents were converts to the church at a young age. We're
really excited to work together and see a lot of miracles in Geelong
this transfer. So this past week flew by heaps fast! Now that we have a
car to use, the added mobility has really helped us get more done in the
time we have each day. We've also been able to go more often to areas
that were farther away that we had a harder time getting to with just
bikes. And it has come at a very opportune time, because Rasta and Jess
(the returning less-active couple I mentioned
last week) live about a 30 minute drive away from our flat! We were
able to visit them twice this past week and on the first visit it was
just on splits again with the ward. When we saw them then we had a
really great visit and made plans with them to start teaching their
daughter. Also, Jess had an awesome experience just a few hours before
we came because she was talking to one of her friends, Riannan, and
started talking about the Gospel and how they had been coming back to
church. Her friend was super interested in what Jess told her and said
she really wants to make God a bigger part of her life, especially for
her kids as well (she has 4 and the oldest is almost 8). She said that
she really wanted to meet us and have us teach her more about the church
and everything about Christ in general (she doesn't have much knowledge
of Him or God because she'd only been to church a few times in her
whole life). So we scheduled a time with Jess and Rasta for
the very next day to come teach their daughter and Riannan at the same
time. So we were able to get out there and had an amazing lesson where
the spirit was very strong. Riannan is close to, if not the most
prepared person I've met on my mission so far. She loved everything she
learned (we started at the basics of everything, God, Jesus Christ,
prophets, and eventually worked our way up to Joseph Smith and the
Restoration) and felt everything was true. She made some awesome
comments and really followed the lesson well. And she (along with the
daughter) accepted a baptismal invitation for June 15th, just 3 weeks
away. And when we gave her a Book of Mormon at the end she told us as
soon as she got home she would be reading all night long. We're going to
teach her again tomorrow night so we're really excited to help her
progress. The only concern at the moment is that she isn't married to
her partner so we'll have to address that when she's built up her
testimony a bit more and understands why it's something God wants for
us. It helps that her fellowship, Jess and Rasta, went through the same
thing when Jess was baptized so they'll be able to help her and relate
to her perfectly. I know we were able to be blessed with the opportunity
to teach both Riannan and the daughter (Taya) because of our hard work
and obedience over the past few weeks and the Lord trusts us with His
prepared souls now. We just have to maintain and continue to increase
that effort in order to be guided to help them reach their baptismal
goals now. So that experience was probably the biggest miracle and
highlight of the week! Another cool miracle we experienced was that
there was a new contact we'd gotten about 3 weeks ago named Susan who
was really awesome and wanted to hear the message we had to share.
However, when we went back a couple of times she was never home. Then
just yesterday, I went to see her with Elder Malifa for the
first time and she happened to be home. She came outside to talk with
us and said that she was actually moving to a place about an hour and a
bit from here because she'd been thrown out by the owner after being
there 11 years. So miracle 1 of this story that we were guided and
blessed to see her the night before she left. And miracle 2 was that as
we continued talking to her and she mentioned one of her daughter's and
her family living in a place called Deer Park, and after she said the
names of them Elder Malifa said that was a family he and his previous
companion had been teaching! The kids had just gotten baptized that day
and the parents were getting married and baptized in 2 weeks as well. So
that was incredible to find that out and Susan recognized it as some
sign from God, the same as us. We were able to get her phone number and
passed it along to the missionaries in the area she's moving to so
hopefully they'll be able to help her come closer to
Christ as well through the restored Gospel. We're also teaching a new
Sudanese woman who's very keen to learn about the church. After our
first lesson with her she loved it so much she gave us like a billion
referrals of her friends in the area haha. So that was a huge blessing,
and we'll go visit all of them throughout this week. We also met with
Bishop this past week to introduce Elder Malifa to him but also to
discuss the ward and he gave us a referral to visit a new Tongan family
in the area. We were able to meet the mom that same day and she said
although she has a fiance at this time who goes to the Uniting Church
she and her sons (both in their 30s, one with a family of his own)
really want to come to church again and be a part of the Gospel
(apparently they've been away for a while). So that will be great to
visit them since there's really no islander families in Geelong to see.
We also helped with the moving in of a Chinese family named the
Songs who are moving from a ward in the Melbourne city. They're
wonderful people and will be a great blessing to the ward here. There's
so many experiences to share but I'm running out of time! Haha. Maybe
one last one of the power of the Spirit in the hearts of others. The
first full day Elder Malifa and I got to work together in Geelong we
went to talk to people the Geelong city. One guy started up a
conversation with us about the God as we were walking along. We talked
to him for about 10 minutes and he had some very interesting beliefs
about God (kind of hard to explain them here because often times they
didn't make much sense) but he was very knowledgeable and we were still
able to have a good talk with him. We eventually were able to give him a
Restoration pamphlet and after a few more minutes of him questioning us
he eventually said he wouldn't be needing the pamphlet anymore. He was
pretty set to his beliefs but we kept the conversation going
because it'd been like 20 minutes of talking to him now and we didn't
just want to walk away empty handed. At this point Elder Malifa and I
felt very guided by the Spirit on what to say to him and we were able to
respond to all of his comments powerful and made him sit and think for a
minute several times. A few minutes later and he asked us for the
pamphlet back and gave us his number to set up another time to talk with
him. So we could tell that the Spirit had worked in him to soften his
heart from the beginning to the end of the conversation. Well I'm
unfortunately out of time, but I was able to share most of what I was
hoping to. I'm continually grateful for all of your love, prayers, and
support that play a big part in our success here! I hope that you have a
fantastic week ahead and continue to see many miracles and blessings! I
love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!
Love,
Elder Hopkins
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