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