August 26, 2013

G'Day!

Thank you for a wonderful e-mail as always! I loved being able to read it and hear about everything that happened this past week! I'm very glad that Mom did a wonderful job on the Sacrament talk! I would guess your mission helped you have a lot more confidence in speaking as it has done for me! This past week was really good for us, and extremely busy! As always the action kicks off literally as soon as I finished e-mailing you last Monday haha. Coral was fasting that day for all her family. There were a few reasons behind it, but one of them was that her family would except her decision to be involved in the church. During the day, however, Coral's nan (who she lives with at the moment up here and who is anti-any religion as Coral has told us) all of a sudden kind of freaked out at her for seeing us and going to church and everything and said that she is not allowed to see us anymore or attend church. As you could imagine, Coral was extremely crushed after hearing this and was feeling really down and overwhelmed with sorrow for that and everything else that was going on at the moment for her. We were able to help calm her down a little bit, though, after speaking with her, but we were still very worried! She was going to continue to fast though and have faith that everything would still work out even though it wasn't looking good for her at the moment. About an hour later she talked to us again and told us that she had just rung her mum down in Melbourne (who if you remember is kind of like an anti-lds less-active member, who was the one who said she couldn't be baptized before when she was living there) and that when she told her mum everything that her mum said she was very happy for Coral and encouraged her to continue on! So that was the first big miracle for her, but along with that she went to talk to her nan again (which by the way, means grandma here, in case you were confused) and her nan also said that everything was ok with her now. What big changes of hearts! So Coral was really excited that her fasting had been answered and that everything would still be alright for her baptism, as were we! While we are still on her, we also fasted for her on several items (on Tuesday) and the day after that when we saw her again she said that she had gotten a call from the doctors saying that she was going to be able to have her tonsils removed this coming friday (30th of August), which doesn't sound like much but it was actually another big miracle for her because she has had tonsillitis constantly since December and it has been keeping her from work and school and originally she wasn't able to get an appointment for tonsil surgery until November 22, so it was a miracle that it was moved much sooner. That works into the schedule for her coming baptism as well because she will be in hospital for this and just coming out on the 31st of August, so at the moment the date for her baptism is now the 1st of September, however that all depends on how fast she recovers from the surgery. We will be praying heaps that it is a very quick recovery but at the very latest her baptism would be the following weekend. She also has been living the word of wisdom since last Thursday, which was the icing on the miracle cake from this past week! So everything is continuing to go great with Coral. So now onto the other things of the week. On Tuesday we were able to have District Meeting which went well for my first time as District Leader. And from the moment we got back into Wangaratta after the meeting we had several appointments which was great! We were with Elder Laycock for all of them and then Sister Laycock as well for the last appointment of the evening-which was another miracle! So there is a less-active family in the branch who hasn't been to church for some time but used to be really active a little while ago. The parents are both converts and they have 2 teenage daughters, the older one being a member and the younger hasn't been baptized. In the past, the senior couple missionaries and the younger missionaries have really struggled to get appointments with them and have also tried pushing them too much and thus they never saw any fruits to their labors with them. However, Elder and Sister Laycock managed to get an appointment with them 8 or so weeks ago just to introduce themselves as the new senior couple and had a really great visit and built a pretty good relationship with them right off the bat and the family felt the love from them more than anyone in the past, which was great. Then when we were on the splits/rescue visits last week we saw them at the perfect time (there were some conflicts arising) and were able to schedule the appointment for this past Tuesday. Now we are up to speed! Anyway we had a wonderful dinner with them, and a family home evening. The family home evening went perfectly and they felt the spirit but also had a lot of fun with the activity too. They were extremely keen for another one and the 2 girls especially expressed that they missed doing these sort of things. Our next appointment with them is next Monday at the Laycock's home which we look forward to! This past week we were also able to see Jacko 2 more times for lessons, which went really well. We aren't sure yet what direction everything will take with him but we feel since he has perfect fellowship (who's better than your best friend who just was recently baptized and can relate to being on both sides of the spectrum!) that he will continue to progress towards baptism. He said that if he knew for sure that it was true he would be baptized, one of the concerns though is that he really REALLY over thinks things sometimes which he admits and also has a hard time with reading the Book of Mormon a piece at a time. With that, to explain a bit more, he said if he starts reading it he literally has to sit there and read it all before putting it down, and when he first read it several years ago he finished it in like 6 hours. So I wonder if we are the first missionaries to ever tell their investigator to not read the Book of Mormon so fast? Haha we did that because he said he doesn't take in much and we also want him to be able to read a bit, then pray about it, then read a bit more, and so on. But we will see how everything goes! We also were able to teach some solid new investigators this week and because of that have some appointments this week that we really look forward to! So on Saturday we had Zone Conference as well which was great! It also gives me heaps more to talk about in the e-mail that I hopefully have time for! So first off we had to wake up before the sun woke up at 5 a.m. because we had to drive an hour and 40 minutes to a town called Finley to pick up some missionaries there and then drive another hour and a bit to Shepperton where the meeting was. And since Elder G doesn't drive I had to drive the whole way. I'm not complaining about that, just that I was concerned for everyone's lives since I was really tired and the roads there are like good old Nevada roads where if you forget to fill up 10 cans full of gasoline you'll be out of luck since there's no civilization as far as the eye can see! So that kind of made me a bit sleepy but thankfully we arrived in one piece. To add to the drama, it was sister missionaries we were picking up, ahhh! Haha, obviously in normal circumstances it's not allowed, but they gave us special permission to do so. They also said that they were in our District now, which makes 10 missionaries total in the district, so it is pretty good sized! So this Zone Conference was probably the best of all recorded history because in President Maxwell's training he showed us some NBA highlights! Woohooo! That obviously wasn't all he did, but he showed us a few clips (the first of Blake Griffin, then of Kevin Love) and related the attributes you need for rebounding to the attributes you need to be a successful missionary. It actually was very good! I wish I could tell you more about the meeting but unfortunately I have like no time at all left, so I will have to finish! I have been typing like a maniac to get all of this down! I hope you have a wonderful week and thank you for all your love and support! I love you and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

August 19, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks for the great e-mail, I'm glad you had a great week this past week! Elder Gabignaud and I had another great week this week and saw a lot of miracles and success. I guess some of the most exciting news is that on Tuesday night the Zone Leaders came by after returning from the transfer meeting and dropped off a car!! Woohoo! So we are feeling very blessed to have a car for our area but of course we will still use the bikes a fair bit as well. The reason that we got a car for our area was because I was made the District Leader and since all of the areas in the district are very far apart we need the car so that we can go on exchanges with the other missionaries in the district (there are 3 other companionships of elders in the district). So that was pretty exciting news to start off the week for us! It's been really helpful so far because we've been able to go out to some of the other towns and cities that we cover that are way too far to go on bikes, and we saw some blessings from that. One of the areas called Yarrawonga that we went to on Saturday was a 45 minute drive away. We went there because it is kind of the only other reasonably sized town besides Wangaratta that we cover, all the other towns are kind of just farmland. While we were there (we spent kind of the whole day there) we were able to find a a fair amount of people who seem pretty keen on hearing more about the church and the gospel, so we will be heading back there again later this week. One of them that we found actually happened to be Coral's cousin-in-law! We didn't find that out until we were talking to Coral later on in a lesson and it came up in the conversation that we found this lady and all the descriptions matched! So that was pretty neat. Speaking of Coral, she is still progressing really well and we are nearly finished teaching her all the lessons. She is so excited for her baptism, but the only thing that could be holding her back at the moment is word of wisdom related things, however, she has been trying really hard and has been improving heaps so we are confident and have faith that Heavenly Father will give her the strength to be fully ready for the 31st of August. I think the thing that has made the biggest difference with her coming to where she is now is thanks to the help of the members! All our lessons with her since that fireside we mentioned a few weeks ago have been in the homes of several of the members and it has helped so much. The spirit is always stronger in their homes and the members have always had the right things to say to help her understanding and testimony increase even more and have often been able to relate really well to her. Another investigator that has kind of come to the forefront more is a man named Jacko. If you remember I'm pretty sure I mentioned him in an earlier e-mail about how he was the friend of a recent convert in the branch and we were able to give him a blessing for his impending surgery. Well that was like 4 or more weeks ago, and we hadn't really heard much of him since then, and neither had the recent convert actually. But finally this past Wednesday we were able to see him again while we were over at the recent convert's house for a lesson and were able to teach him more about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he really enjoyed it and said he felt good about what he heard. The best part of it was that he agreed to come with the recent convert family to church on Sunday and followed through with it! So along with Coral, Jacko was also able to attend church (which was actually just the 3rd time in his entire life of attending any church!) and he said he really enjoyed it. He especially enjoyed the investigator class (Gospel Principles) which was actually the first one held in the branch (at least for quite a long while) since they hadn't really had investigators coming to church before. Elder Gabignaud and I taught the class this Sunday, but we'll most likely start switching off between us, the branch mission leader, and perhaps Elder Laycock. Hopefully the class will start filling up more because even the recent convert said he enjoyed the class more than the gospel doctrine haha. So that was a pretty big miracle for us to have 2 investigators at church, seeing as the area has been 'hard' for missionaries in the past to have non members come to church. It was also a good Sunday for that to happen because every 3rd Sunday of the month they have a big pot luck lunch after church so it was a good opportunity for members to socialize with them. There have also been some good successes with some of the less-active members in the branch as well and the attendance is slowly increasing at Sacrament each week which is exciting! One of the part member families in the ward (the family is all members except for one of the daughters who is unbaptized) we have a dinner/lesson appointment with tomorrow with the Laycocks as well. It's really exciting because this family has been quite difficult to get appointments with in the past, so the Lord is softening their hearts and helping them to be more willing again (seeing as they used to be quite active). This week we are also going to try to start working even more with the members as well, hopefully going to see all of the active members each week just to have a lesson with them, not necessarily on missionary work but just so they are able to see how we teach and build more of a relationship of trust with them. We are able to do that more now since we have the car, where before we may have only been able to visit a few of the members. Well my time is unfortunately running short now but overall the work is going great and we are enjoying the work here! We are excited for this coming week and know we'll continue to see wonderful miracles by the hand of the Lord. I hope you have a fantastic week this week as well! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

August 12, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks so much for the e-mail this week it was fantastic! I really loved all of the stories that you included they were great! It was especially mind-blowing about the man that came and blessed the lady but didn't turn up in any of the photos on the news! I agree it would be very cool if it was one of the 3 nephites, you never know! haha. Well this past week was very incredible with a lot of great things happening! But I guess first of all I should report on transfers, eh? Well Elder Gabignaud is..........staying! and Elder Hopkins is.........also staying! As you said not really any surprise there since both of us were new to the area this past transfer but nonetheless we were still very excited to be staying again because we've been able to see heaps of success thus far and hope to be able to see some of the fruits of our efforts this past transfer come to pass. So anyway, the blessings of this week started like right after e-mails last week because we were able to get an appointment with Coral and this time we were actually able to teach her in the home of the Laycocks! We had just been teaching her at the library so far but since you met all the members, including the Laycocks, at the fireside last Sunday she felt more comfortable coming there instead for the lesson. And a bonus-we didn't have to whisper while teaching anymore!! haha which is always a blessing. This lesson went really great though and we were especially grateful we could hold the lesson with the Laycocks because Elder Laycock was really able to help with some of her questions and concerns and the spirit was much stronger in their home as compared to the library. At the end of the lesson we also were able to set a baptismal date with her for the 7th of September! She called us later on that evening and told us how excited she was to be baptized and how she'd already called several people to come attend her baptism then, most of them members she had known from down in Melbourne. So of course that got us really excited to know that she is genuinely happy to be baptized! Throughout the week we were able to teach her 3 more times as well (once more the next day in the Laycock's home, as well as in two other member homes for the other lessons) and they all went equally great! She is doing really well at learning and asks some really good questions during the lessons, ones that she has written down between lessons from her reading and just in general. And that is a fantastic sign as well because we invite all of our investigators to do that but practically none of them actually do! haha. So she's been able to develop some really good relationships with the members through that. She also called us on Saturday afternoon and asked if the baptism could be a week earlier which just added to our already high level of happiness. So she is going to be baptized on the 31st of this month, which is the main reason why Elder Gabignaud and I were excited to stay so that we could be here for that! Coral was also able to attend church for the first time yesterday and had a great experience and the members continued to do a great job in fellowshipping her and making her feel comfortable and loved. She got to go to one of the member's homes for a big lunch after church as well so right now she is loving it! So she is definitely our top person that we are working with at the moment and we'll continue to try our best to provide her with many spiritual experiences and lasting friendships. This past week we were also able to set another baptismal date with the younger sister of one of our already existing baptismal dates. So things are starting to progress really well for our area and we are able to have more and more appointments each week as compared to our first few weeks where we practically had no appointments at all. And things are also starting to go better with the less-active members of the branch as well. There is one family that everyone hopes will come back because they were a strong point in the branch before and have a lot of relatives in the area who they would be able to help if they came back, and we were able to have a dinner and a lesson with this family on Saturday night at Elder and Sister Laycock's house. That went really well and hopefully there will be more opportunities for that in the near future as well. Well unfortunately I've already run out of time, it goes by so fast! But Elder Gabignaud and I are very excited for another 6 weeks together here in Wangaratta and know that we will continue to see miracles and blessings every day. I love you heaps and miss you but I'm glad everything is going great back home as well! Thanks for all that you do to support me! Have a great week this week and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

August 5, 2013

G'Day!

Thank you so much for the e-mail this week! I really loved all that you included. First off, while it's still in my mind after reading the letter, just wanted to say that is a great experience you had Aunt Terri of meeting the lady from Melbourne on the plane and had a way to talk about the church then. I'm sure there were some great seeds planted by you! Well this past week flew by really fast! And before I talk about it, I'll first mention one of the things that I forgot to mention last e-mail that was probably one of the most significant things that happened. We had the opportunity last Thursday to go to a Zone Meeting in one of the areas in the Zone called Shepparton that was also the purpose of us all being able to meet President and Sister Maxwell! So that was very exciting to meet our new President who seems like he will be a very good leader. He is a lot like President Lifferth in that he is more soft-spoken and has a very loving spirit about him, which I think will be a benefit to all the missionaries here. His wife is a very bubbly person and seems very excited to be here as well. We got to go in and meet each of them individually throughout the meeting that day and I had a very good experience meeting both of them. I asked President Maxwell at one point what it was like to be the son of an apostle (which no doubt a lot of people had asked him) and his response was essentially that he obviously thought of him just as 'Dad' but did really appreciate the very good example he was for him and said he can credit a lot of his attributes from seeing him work in the church. In case you didn't know or I didn't mention it before, they are just from good ol' Salt Lake City. So I'm very excited to be able to work with them throughout the rest of my mission. It's kind of good that the switch of mission presidents was about halfway through my mission so I get the opportunity to know each of them well. Anyway, now that you know about that bit of information, I'll move on to this week. I think the best thing that happened this week would've been just yesterday (Sunday) in the evening. Elder and Sister Laycock had organized the first of monthly branch fireside meetings to be last night, which is kind of the same format that they would do the mission president firesides I would tell you about but much, much smaller haha. So they just were going to hold them in their home (at least until there were too many people coming and they had to move to a bigger location, which would be great!) and do them every 1st Sunday of the month. The theme for this one was on the sacred grove where Joseph Smith had the first vision. They based it a lot off of a CES fireside given by Marvin Jensen of the 70. Anyway, there were 13 people who actually attended which was great, seeing as the Laycocks were only expecting 6 (which included us and them haha), and 1 of those people was actually Coral. So that was really good that she was able to come to that and she said that she had a really good experience and the members were great in making her feel comfortable and welcome. It was also good that the really only young women (ages 21 and 23) in the branch where there as well, and one of them actually was talking with Coral for 30 minutes outside of the house after the meeting had finished! So it was a perfect opportunity for her to meet several of the members and develop some friendships, and she's now very excited for church this next Sunday. So she is probably doing the best out of those in our teaching pool in the moment. Also, this past week we went to see one of the less-active members we have been working with a lot with Elder Laycock named Nathan. He was baptized several years ago but hasn't been to church in quite some time. He is really, really shy but is a very nice guy (in his late 20s or early 30s I think, my mind is blanking at the moment) and always loves when we come around. And this past week when we went to see him, which was about the 6th visit with him since we've been here, he accepted the offer to be a home teacher! We felt that was a huge miracle since he is as mentioned before really shy, but also that it will hopefully be a big step in his reactivation. Also at church was another one of the less-active members in the branch that we visited recently with Elder Laycock as well which was great to see. The thing that we have noticed with the Wangaratta branch is that if every person that has attended since we've been here that is a member of the branch, if they all attended on the same Sunday there would be about 50 people. However, every single week there is something that happens with several of the families (whether sickness, or traveling out of town, etc.) so it ends up being just 30 or so each week. I guess it is probably similar with all the wards as well, it's just you certainly notice it a lot more when you are just in a small branch haha. However, the work is really progressing well here with the less-active members and we seen a fair few come back once or more to church, so hopefully we can keep that going and strengthen the branch more, especially since some of the core families will be leaving before long for various reasons. We also have a couple of investigators we are hope and praying will be able to come to church as well this next Sunday (Coral included), so slowly but surely things are progressing. Definitely quite a bit different from when we first got here, so the Lord has been very generous in blessing us these past 7 weeks. Speaking of 7 weeks, hard to believe that we are in the final week of the transfer already! Time is just going by ridiculously fast, and of course it will only start to go quicker and quicker as it gets further along for me in mission. No official predictions from us on transfers at this point because we don't want to create an imbalance in nature that might come back and give us the opposite of what we hope for or say haha. We find out Saturday though whether or not we are staying or going. Anyway, I'm nearly out of time now but I got through most of what I was hoping to say! I am always grateful for all you do for me and all the love and prayers! I hope that you have another fantastic week this week and that you continue to see the Lord's hand actively in your life. I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

July 29, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks for the great e-mail as always this past week! I'll have to write a bit faster this week because we're short on time, but it shouldn't be too much of a hassle. This past week was another great week, and it was thankfully a week where we got to teach quite a few lessons! We got to teach 14 lessons this week, and that probably doesn't sound like too much but it is heaps better than the amount we had in the first few weeks when we had to start from scratch. Hopefully that number will continue to increase higher and higher so that we can be busy pretty much all the time teaching people since that is really our whole purpose for being here! This past week was also good because it was the 1st week that we were able to do the missionary splits with the Elders Quorum to go out and visit the 'lost sheep.' It was the 1st time they'd ever done it in the branch so we were excited and happy that it is getting started now, because I know it was so effective when we did it in Geelong. So we'll be going to that again tomorrow night. This first time we were trying to locate some people who no one knew and find out if they still lived there and were able to update a fair bit of information on them which was good. Nothing too miraculous came out of it this time but we know there will be great things to come from it in the future! Also the girl I told you about last week who was a referral from a member closer to Melbourne (who's name is Coral by the way), we were actually able to teach her 3 times during the week and it went really well! We just taught her at the Wangaratta library since it was a neutral area and we were able to resolve all of the concerns that she has had as well as review many of the things that she was previously taught by missionaries. She is pretty keen to get baptized soon even though her family (especially her mum) is quite against it. She is starting to re-feel the truthfulness of the Gospel and when you know it is true there is nothing that can prevent you from following it and God will always provide the means for you to accomplish it. So we are excited to continue to visit her and help her work towards baptism in the coming weeks. One cool experience sort of relating to that, was that one of the days we were waiting to teach her at the library there was a man who came up to us and said 'Hey, you Mormon boys, are you?' and came up to us and starting talking to us. We quickly found out that he was yet another very generous and kind soul who was trying to save our souls from being completely lost in a so called 'non-Christian faith.' Obviously we told him that we know that this is Christ's true church restored to the earth and that he can know for himself what we know. However, his problem then switched over to the fact that our opinions and conviction couldn't possibly be of any worth because we grew up learning about these things. So then because of the perfect placement and timing of Heavenly Father we went a few steps away to get one of the very active branch members who was a convert in his middle-age years after searching in many religions for truth, and then he came and offered a powerful testimony and story of his conversion. So after that concern was handled, this man essentially had the attitude of 'well, maybe you have some truth to what you say, but I still think your really wrong!' He had refused to tell us what religion he was apart of, which was fair enough, but we know even though he had a pretty hard heart at the time that we were able to plant some seeds which will hopefully bring an effect later on in his life. Another memorable thing that happened this past week was that Elder Gabignaud was able to give his first blessing in the mission field to one of the members who was about to go into hospital tomorrow. He was a bit nervous because he hadn't had too much experience but he did great and the member said it was exactly what he needed. And before we go too far off the topic of 'hard-hearts' there was a man we found tracting on Saturday who fit this description quite well. He had that classic "A Bible, a Bible, we have a Bible!" (2 Nephi 29) argument and was so adamant in his position (partly because he was 90 years old) that every time we would talk about anything regarding the restored Gospel he would cut us off and slam his hand up and down on his Bible and yell out something along the lines of "THIS IS ALL WE NEED!" and he did that several times. We discussed heaps of other things with him as well but to cut a long story short, eventually we got an opportunity to explain briefly about the Book of Mormon and as I was testifying of it to him and especially as I read Moroni's promise to him (Moroni 10: 4-5) I felt the spirit so strongly, possibly the strongest on my mission, of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately, after he was a bit flustered and loss for words, he came back to his old self and said the same things he did before. The lesson I learned from that is that Heavenly Father will give us opportunities frequently to testify and teach things to others, not always for their benefit, but to strengthen our own testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I think I've found that on mission that some of the more powerful spiritual witnesses I've had have come trying to teach and testify to those who's hearts are just solid rock. Well, there were a lot of things that were great that happened this week as always but unfortunately I can't share them all. It's incredible to think that there's only 2 weeks left in this transfer (and this is the longest transfer I'll ever have, since it was 8 weeks) because it has just flown by in the blink of an eye. You certainly begin to appreciate more things when the time starts ticking on the clock as you come closer and closer to the close of your mission. I know that Elder Gabignaud and I will continue to see much success and miracles as we continue to work hard and seek the Lord's help. I hope that you have a fantastic week this week and see many miracles of your own! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

July 22, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks for the e-mail this week, I loved it! Glad you had a great week. This past week went really well and we saw a lot of miracles each day! The first came on Monday afternoon when we were going to the chapel so I could practice a little bit for the hymns for yesterday. As we were going there, there was a couple pushing a pram (a stroller) down the road a bit and the woman waved at us and said 'Hey Elders!' So of course as missionaries do whenever anyone acknowledges their existence in a positive way, we raced over to them like our life depended on it. When we met them we found out the lady was actually a less-active member that literally just moved in to Wangaratta and her husband/partner (not sure yet which) was a non-member. They have a young son who's probably about 2 years old as well. But they were really friendly and nice and invited us to come by to visit them, so we're going to see them with Elder Laycock this week. The next miracle for the week happened the very next day. Some appointments had fell through for us so we had time before our next planned event that was left open, so we just decided to pick a random street to tract we felt good about (and of course it's never really random) So the last house of that street the lady that answered the door also knew who we were, so we were excited once again! We talked with her and her husband a little bit and they had actually been taught by missionaries in Wangaratta a couple of years ago and were married by the branch president but they moved to Queensland and thus lost contact with the missionaries and when they got back they just never saw any missionaries and obviously didn't attend the chapel again. However, they were really glad to see us and said we can come by anytime and reteach them the gospel so we hope that they'll be able to progress well as they did in the past. Third miracle for the week happened on Thursday as we were doing our most favorite activity here in Wangaratta, which is of course tracting! As the theme has been, it was the last house we were going to knock on before going to meet up with a member for a dinner and a lady answered named, Chantelle who was very nice and seemed very keen to learn what we had to share. We were able to set up an appointment to see her the next day on Friday and we went to the lesson with one of the members from the branch as she is a single mom. It went really great though and it was just a good lesson to set expectations and establish a foundation since she has practically no religious background. So we taught some of the simple and basic truths of the Gospel and she really enjoyed it and is keen to learn more. She also said she will definitely be baptized when she knows it is true through her prayers. We have another appointment with her tomorrow so we are excited for that. Us and the member we had with us for the lesson feel she was really sincere and can definitely be baptized within a few weeks. And I definitely feel she's one of the most prepared people I've met on the mission so far from simply our own finding efforts, so we have high hopes for her! There's another new investigator we have received off of a referral as well. She's someone who was taught for a while by missionaries closer to Melbourne city and was really keen on baptism but never was able to because she was under 18 and her mom didn't allow her to until she was older than 18. So now she's up here and one of the members that knew her then saw her and gave us her information and we're starting to teach her now, so we have good hopes for her as well! We've been making some good progress with our other investigators we've found as well which is good, some I think will take a bit longer than others, but we know we can accomplish great things with the Lord's help. Well I wish I had more time to tell you all the other great things that happened this past week as well, but of course there is never enough time! I'm grateful for all your love and support though and I hope that this week is another great one for you! I love you and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

July 15, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks so much for the great e-mail this week! Glad everything has been going well. This past week was another pretty good one. As guess to start off this week continuing from last week's dramas, the bikes didn't cause as much trouble. However, this week early on I passed my curse over to Elder Gabignaud who had both of his tires go flat which was unfortunate, but we got those fixed without a problem and we haven't had any problems since then so hopefully that's the last we have to deal with flats for at least the rest of this transfer. We met quite a few new people this week again to go back and teach so hopefully that will prove fruitful for us. We've been doing really well thus far in Wangaratta for finding enough people to teach, this issue however, as it can often be, is just getting these people to progress and exercise real intent. We know that as we continue to work hard though that the blessings and miracles regarding that will come to pass. It does make it somewhat more difficult seeing as so far it's been a lot of tracting and just talking to people on the street, but we've started the push for more member involvement which we know will help a great deal in the coming weeks. We're also having our first branch sporting/games activity this Saturday morning and hopefully a fair amount of people come to that, members and nonmembers. It worked pretty well when we did the same thing in Geelong so I know we can see success from it here as well. This past week we had the opportunity to do a lot of service as well which was great! We were able to help out some of our investigators with their lawns and gardens, and we also had a pretty cool service on Friday helping out one of the member families herd some cattle! That was pretty cool to do since I'd never herded cattle before, and there was probably about 7 we helped guide along the path, so not too many to handle. Also on Friday we had exchanges with the Zone Leaders Elder Ogles and Elder Hasson which went well. They made a new format for exchanges now so it was a little different this time than usual. We only got to exchange with them for 4 hours instead of the whole day, and in those 4 hours we had to plan all the activities along the lines of the new format (for example: 40-60 minutes for a lesson with an active member, 20 minutes of tracting, 20 minutes for travel time, etc.). But it turned out to be a good exchange nonetheless and we were able to see some great success from the things we did there. I was with Elder Ogles for the exchange which was great since I hadn't been on exchanges with him yet in the field. One cool miracle that we saw this past week was while we were having dinner with a recent convert family named the Hills, they had a non-member who was there as well. His name was Jack and he was a friend of the father of the family. We were talking with him and found out he had a lot of stuff on his plate that were stressing him out, one of which was a major surgery that he had to go into tomorrow. So eventually the conversation started about the priesthood and priesthood blessings and he'd heard just a tiny bit about them before but didn't know much. But when we were telling him about how blessings work he was really interested and he asked us if we could give him a blessing! So that was great and he was able to feel the spirit when we gave him the blessing and was really grateful for us doing that. So we'll see hopefully the fruits that come from that this week. And then another cool experience that had to do with enduring to the end happened on Saturday when our few appointments that we did have fell through and we just had to go out tracting for a while. Unfortunately everyone that was actually home (because a lot of people weren't home) was not interested at all and would barely give us the time of day. However, we kept going and just went around trying different areas until we got to the last street we would tract for the day (this is 5 hours later from when we started, still with no one that offered to let us come back). As we went through the first bit of the street it was the same as it had been so far, however, in the last part of the street we were blessed to have 4 new people to go back and see. So even though it was frustrating that no one was interested in talking to us, we kept going and finally received the blessings. So we'll be seeing those people this week, along with the others that we met thoughout the week. Church this week was really good and there was a pretty good attendance as well. There were 2 less-active members that came this week which was great and they both really enjoyed it. There also was a semi-active family that finally came as well after several weeks of not being here. So the work is slowly but surely progressing here in Wangaratta and we know we'll continue to see a lot of growth and miracles as we continue to work hard. Well unfortunately I'm out of time but I'm grateful for all of your love and support and I hope that you have a great week ahead this week! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

July 8, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks for the e-mail this week, I really enjoyed it! This past week was a really great one and we saw a lot of success! I think, though, that you could title this past week "Melbourne Mission Episode 5: The Bike Strikes Back." Let me explain...so on Monday as we left the flat to go to e-mails and without getting very far the back tire of my bike just pretty much exploded (a bit of exaggeration there) and I was brought to a halt. So we walked back to the flat which was close since we didn't get far, and called Elder and Sister Laycock (the senior missionary couple) and Elder Laycock helped us take the bike down to one of the nearby bike shops. It got fixed pretty easily and quickly and we were back on the road again. Well, later in the week on Friday my bike still had a few tricks up its sleeve and as we were riding towards an appointment with an investigator (this time about a 30 minute ride from the flat) the front tire popped and within a few seconds was completely without air. A bit frustrated we decided to walk over to a petrol (gas) station that was fairly close to see if we could fill it up with air and it would hold until at least we could get to our appointment. However, the bike tire wouldn't hold anything so we called one of the members (because the Laycocks were in a far away land visiting a less-active member) who was very kind to help us out. Bro. Key, the member, brought one of his bikes over to the petrol station where we were and took my bike to another bike repair shop. It was in the night time then so the bike shop was closed and we'd have to pick it up on Saturday morning. Bro. Key's bike worked great though for the time. So we got my bike back from the shop and went back on our merry way the next day. However, my bike must've been created by the adversary himself because it hadn't had enough tormenting us yet. We rode to church yesterday and everything was fine, but at the end of the meetings when we went to get our bikes I quickly found out that the back tire was flat again! So after brainstorming all sorts of ways that would cause the bike the most pain for its actions, we read a few scriptures on forgiveness and decided that the best thing to do would be to give the bike one last chance to prove itself worthy. So since Bro. Key was still there and had his bike still in his truck, we just did another swap and he was going to take it in today to the shop for us again (we've paid for all the repairs by the way, we haven't obviously had Bro. Key pay for them) and will hopefully get it back someday today. So that was the funny/frustrating series of events for this past week! Well I think I probably should talk about how the missionary work went now. This past week was great as I mentioned before because we were able to have 3 more investigators come on date for baptism, which was a true blessing and all credit to Heavenly Father blessing us with these people. Two of them are aboriginal girls in their mid 20s who we taught for the 1st time this past week with Elder Laycock there to help us (who is a really great teacher! he actually served his mission in France too Mom! who knows if it was the same mission or not) and they grasped everything and had a strong desire to learn more and progress towards baptism. Their date is for the 17th of August so we hope they'll progress and be ready for that. Lastly, the other is a girl named Nikki who's in her 20s and has 2 young kids. We actually found her just tracting and she doesn't have really any religious background at all but is still very interested in increasing her faith and finding out if God is really there. Her date is for the 24th of August. So we feel very blessed to have several people to teach here that seem very solid and we know that the teaching opportunities will only increase as we continue to work hard and maintain exact obedience. This past week we also had a district meeting (which unfortunately we don't have each week up here since everyone lives a bit of a distance from each other) in a city called Shepparton. Our district contains of the Elders who serve there, Elder Matu'u and his companion, us, and then Elder Hasson (who I served around in Geelong) and Elder Ogles (in my MTC district) who serve in a city called Albury which is on the border of New South Wales. It was great to see the other missionaries and also receive some great trainings and guidance. The mission goal for this next quarter is 163 baptisms, and their focus for being able to reach this is to work really well with the members, especially after having that broadcast about member work. I know that it will be the key to success if we're able to effectively work with the members here and help them to find joy in the missionary work. So that will be a big focus for us here, even though we have just a handful of active members to visit, we know we'll still be able to see miracles from them because they all have great faith. So unfortunately I'm out of time for this week, but I hope that you have a great week this week and see many blessings and miracles at home as well. I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins