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