September 23, 2013

G'Day!

Thanks as always for a wonderful e-mail this week! It might be a bit of a quick e-mail this week due to how the time schedule worked out. First off I'll just quickly mention that I did get the package with all the contacts! Thanks so much for sending that so soon, it was just in time! I counted it up (and I'm sure you did too) and it will be enough in there to last me the remainder of my mission, which is helpful not to have to worry about that now. So I guess the most important news is the transfer news! Well Elder Gabignaud is.......staying! And Elder Hopkins........is also staying! So this will be the 3rd transfer together! I'm really excited to be staying another transfer because as I said in the last e-mail I really love the people and the area here, so I know we will enjoy this next transfer as much or even more so than the previous 2. In fact, in the whole Wangaratta Zone (about 26 missionaries) only 3 missionaries are leaving, and they are putting 3 new missionaries in! So this transfer there will be a total of almost 30 missionaries in the Zone! Which makes it the biggest Zone in the mission by a big margin! Everything is continuing to go really well for the area, and we are seeing miracles every day! One of the biggest miracles for the week was one of the less-actives of the branch, Nathan, who we've been working with essentially since we got here in Wangaratta, finally came to church for the first time on Sunday! It'd been several years since he had attended church and he even helped pass the Sacrament. So that was wonderful and all the branch members gave him a very warm reception since most of them knew him from before. So we hope to have him there every week now because the District Conference is coming up soon at the end of October and we would really like to prepare him to receive the Melchizedek priesthood by then (he is a priest right now). Also our investigator family Kellyanne and her kids came to church again and are loving it all! It was funny when one of the members dropped her and her kids off after church the little boy (who is about 5 or 6) didn't want to get out of the car but wanted to go back to church! We have another teaching appointment we them on Friday and we feel very confident that they will be able to reach baptism very soon and within this transfer! Which would be wonderful! We also were able to gain a few new solid investigators this past week and have appointments with all of them this coming week as well, so we are continuing to stay very busy here which is good. There also was one of the member families in the branch who invited one of their friends to dinner and a lesson which was great and it went very well. We hope to be able to begin teaching the friend as well. Well Elder Gabignaud and I are very excited for this transfer and know we will be able to accomplish heaps! It is a bit of an interesting transfer because I believe it is only a 5 week transfer, which seems very short even though it is just one week less than normal! But we will make the most of it nonetheless. I'm grateful for all of your love and support and especially prayers! I hope you have a wonderful week ahead this week and see many miracles of your own. I love you and I'll talk to you again next Monday!

Love,

Elder Hopkins