G'Day!
Thanks
so much for the great e-mail this week! It's good to hear that you are
staying pretty busy! This past week was another really good one. Stake
Conference was really great yesterday and all the speakers were
excellent and the spirit was very strong there! There were about 5 or 6
speakers in total (all of them spoke between 5 and 10 minutes, except
Elder Hallstrom who spoke for about 40 minutes) so it turned out really
well. We also had a great lesson yesterday with one of our investigators
who has been kind of investigating the church for over 2 years! Her
name is Shannon and she is 20 years old and from Australia. In the
lesson yesterday we talked more about the blessings that we get from
baptism and how it is just the first step, or the gate, to our path
towards eternal life. We were able to set a baptismal date for the 14th
of December which will be awesome to see her progress towards that day.
That is the last weekend of the transfer as well, and I don't know if I
had already mentioned yet or not but this transfer is actually 7 weeks
long to make up for the 5 week transfer last time. It's funny because
some of the missionaries (Elder Gabignaud for example) have only had one
normal transfer thus far because the past transfers including this one
have been 7 weeks, 5 weeks, 6 weeks, and 8 weeks haha. So who knows if
we'll ever get a normal transfer again! It should be really good though
since we have seen so much success so far as a tripanionship. Next week
is when the new missionaries come in though so we'll see if anything
changes with that, but we haven't heard anything yet so it will likely
stay the same. Perhaps the most memorable event of the past week
happened on last Monday night. There is a train station close by our
flat that we GQ (or talk to people on the street) at nearly every night
when we have finished all our appointments for the day, and this
particular night there was a really, really drunk guy roaming around
causing trouble. So first off, there is like a ramp that you walk up to
go into the train station and Elder Wood was walking up it to go and
talk to some people and this guy walks out and goes right up to his face
and is just like "HEY BRO! HEY!" with his arms outstreched like an
eagle taking flight...and then just keeps walking. Elder Wood could
smell the alcohol pretty strong off him and just went on to talk to him.
The guy was pretty out of it because he was walking around pretty
weird. Anyway, like 10 minutes later or so Elder Wood was talking to
another group of people (I think he just didn't like Elder Wood or
something because he didn't really come up to Elder Afele or I at
all...at least not yet! haha) and the guy came back again and did a
simlar thing, drink in hand, and just got up in his face and was like
"HEY YOU! WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME??? BETTER WATCH IT!" and Elder Wood
just talked to him for a second and then the guy walked off again. So
finally, we were about to head back to the car and drive home and we
were all standing near the station when he came out a third time from
the station with another bottle in hand that was like foaming and
dripping all over the place and this time charged at Elder Wood and
Elder Wood kind of ducked and jumped back a bit. Then as the drunk guy
was walking off again just yelling random stuff, he just took a few
steps and turned around and threw the bottle at us pretty fast, luckily
we all have skills that rival the people in The Matrix and were able to
dodge it, but Elder Afele got some of the drink on his suit. Then after
that he left and we didn't see him again. So anyway, this was a very
momentous occasion for us because it was the first projectile any of us
have had thrown at us on the mission! So anyway, I guess onto more
important things haha. The Melbourne Cup was on Tuesday (a big horse
race) and so it was a public holiday that day, not that it made much
difference to us but the town was certainly a little more busy than
normal. We had a lesson that day with some other investigators (a single
mom and her son) and it was a pretty interesting lesson. She
unfortunately had read some anti-mormon literature on the internet that
had made her very upset and wonder if any of what we had said was true.
But as often the case is we asked the simple question, "Have you read
and prayed about the Book of Mormon?" and the answer as it too often is
was, "No..." So after answering several of her questions brought about
because of what she read we were able to recommit her to read and pray
over the past week and we are going back to see her tomorrow and hope
that she was able to overcome that stumbling block towards her
progression. Andy also had a trial as well this week (most of our
investigators had trials this week unfortunately) because someone that
he knew had passed away that he was hoping to have the chance to
apologize too but hadn't done so before they passed away so he was very
distraught. We had a really powerful lesson with him though about a lot
of things but unfortunately he wanted to take a break for a little while
from church so we will try to contact him again in the next few weeks
to see if he is feeling better. We also were able to get a few new
investigators this week that seem very promising. It was really cool on
Thursday night after Ward Council we were at the station again and I
found one guy named Nick who is about 20 and was really cool. After
talking for a few minutes I was able to teach him about and give him a
Book of Mormon. I felt pretty good about that because that was actually
the first time I'd placed a Book of Mormon just street contacting
someone, because usually we just give away cards and pamphlets. Just so
you understand how we do street contacting, by the way, we will all
split off (but still within sight and sound of each other) and talk to
people individually so that way we are able to talk to more people. We
went back to see Nick again yesterday and he seems like he will be able
to be a really good investigator. Mary is also still progressing really
well. She came to Stake Conference yesterday and so now everything looks
set for her baptism on Saturday. She has just been feeling a bit
nervous about it as of late though so we hope that she stays strong.
Anyway, I am almost out of time this week so I will have to finish up,
but things are going excellent here! I love you and miss you and hope
you have a wonderful week filled with miracles! Thanks for feeding the
missionaries there as well, I am sure they appreciate that very much! I
hope they share spiritual thoughts with you when they come because we
are supposed to, so if they haven't been just ask them to next time.
Anyway, thanks for all you do to help support me! I love you and I'll
talk to you again soon!
Love,
Elder Hopkins
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