December 2, 2013

G'day!

 

Thanks so much for the wonderful e-mail! Sorry it's taken until so late to be able to e-mail you back, we actually went to Healesville Sanctuary today which was awesome! If you remember, I went there very early in my mission when I was still with Elder Rafferty and it has all of the Australian animals and such. We went with all the District (so 10 of us altogether) and because of the times of some of the shows there we had to leave earlier and thus we didn't have time to do e-mails, hence why I am writing to you now. Anyway, I will unfortunately have to be a bit quicker again which I am sorry about, but I hope to be able to get down all of the important things. So we had some unfortunate news on Tuesday because at 1 pm the assistants to President Maxwell called and said that Elder Wood had to be packed and ready to move areas by 3 pm. There was another companionship where one of the missionaries was leaving so they needed someone else to replace him and since we were in a tripanionship we were kind of the 1st ones targeted, which is understandable. We were all sad though since we have been having heaps of great success and Elder Wood was also sad since he didn't get the chance to say goodbye to very many people after serving here (his 1st area) for 5 months. But it turns out he actually just went to the next area over from us in a place called Yarra Valley, so he is still in the same District as us, which meant that we saw him again today at Healesville Sanctuary haha. So even though we lost one of the members of the three musketeers, Elder Afele and I still had a successful week. Simone and Jack are still going really well and are reading heaps and obviously continuing to pray many times each day. Jack came to the young men's activity for the first time this past Tuesday and he really enjoyed it which was great. We have also started teaching some more part-member families in the ward as well which is always one of the best settings for missionary work. The Mooroolbark ward has also really started flourishing in missionary efforts of their own. So many of the members are starting to step out of their comfort zone and reach out to others in sharing the gospel in one way or another. They have all found a great joy come from that and everyone is starting to 'catch the wave' as Elder Russell M. Nelson said in General Conference. That obviously is great for the ward and the ward members, but it also has been helpful for us as well since we have been given several referrals for people to teach by the members in the past few weeks. On Wednesday we had a Zone Conference which was good and inspiring as always. Another cool thing that happened recently was we have started teaching a German man and his wife who have a fascination for American Indian history and culture. They were telling us when they were living in America for a few years they became good friends with a Native American man who told them a lot of history and stories that his people have. One of them that stood out to us (and any member of the church) was that there has been a story passed down for ages (much earlier than the first Spanish settlers) among his race of people of a man who came down to them and told them he was a messenger sent from God and how this man taught the Natives the law of God and visited them a few times and would pray with them and minister to them. I found that pretty incredible coming from an actual Native American that there is an actual tale amongst the Indians that matches almost exactly the events in 3 Nephi of the Book of Mormon when Christ visits them. I believe the race of Native Americans that was being talked about is called the 'Hopi' Indians. There was also a really cool story with Mary (the Burmese lady who was baptized just 2 weeks ago) from this past week. She had been away for a few days and we hadn't been able to get a hold of her. Then we were talking to her fellowship on Thursday and she had just visited with Mary and told us what was going on. So after her baptism, President Maxwell had sent her a letter congratulating her (because he was involved in the baptismal interview, so that was very kind of him) but before it got to Mary her daughter and her daughter's husband (who she lives with and is Buddhist) took it and read it. Mary didn't actually get to read the letter until 5 days after. Her daughter and her husband got very angry with Mary and would just yell at her and say bad things about her, and they actually went around the house and threw away all pictures of them that Mary was in and said to her that she was no longer one of them. It was getting too much for Mary that she left for a few days to stay with a relative nearby (which is when we couldn't get a hold of her). But we were told by the fellowship (and Mary as well) that Mary just told the family that she knows it's true and right what she did and she will continue to be active in the church. So that was quite amazing to hear that Mary was so strong about it, but also sad that her family basically disowned her. So I think those things are all I have time to talk about this week. Thanks as always for all that you do for me! It's so hard to believe it is already December and that Christmas is so soon! I hope that you have a wonderful week this week and continue to see miracles and blessings as well as many opportunities for missionary work big and small! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins