May 26, 2014

G'day!

 

Thanks so much for the e-mail. It's amazing that this is only the 2nd to last time I will be e-mailing you from Australia. It probably...no definitely won't sink in until I'm back at home, and even then might take a few days. Hopefully I'll be able to be busy enough so that I don't have too much time to miss the mission field! Thank goodness for the hope the Plan of Salvation gives us of being able to be with all our righteous and faithful brothers and sisters again. This past week has just flown by and no doubt this one will be even faster! We had Zone Conference this past Wednesday and that was great as always. As most things are at this point it was my 'last' Zone Conference. We were able to see Mary again this past week too. She is pretty amazing because since she doesn't have too much to do she reads the Book of Mormon most of the day and she's actually translated into her own language a majority of 1st Nephi! Who knows how close it is in meaning but nonetheless we thought that was a very touching thing. Another cool experience we heard about her just this morning from her main member fellowship happened to her yesterday. I'll try to recount it as best as I can. So the member had talked to her on Saturday to see which ward she wanted to attend yesterday, she lives in the boundaries of another ward in the Stake but prefers to go to our ward since she feels more comfortable there at this stage. She said she would come to our ward this Sunday but in the morning she didn't show up. So later in the afternoon the member called her to find out what happened and to see if she was ok. Mary told her she had decided she would try to go to the Doncaster ward (the one in which she is meant to go to). She went on the train and when she got to that city she didn't know where to go, so she decided she would just look for the building with the tallest tower, haha. So as she walked she ended up finding the church but didn't know where the entrance was. When she walked around and found one she saw a man standing just inside the door who was smiling at her. As she went in he said, "You must be Mary!" (she'd never been to that ward or known any members there). She answered, "Yes, yes! I'm Mary!" He showed her in and she met some of the sisters in the ward who agreed they would pick her up for church every week. So that was a pretty cool miracle I thought! Our other families are going well, as I said before I can't update much on them because at this point we're just waiting for their marriages to happen. Another great thing that happened this past week was that Elder Suan and I were finally able to see our Burmese investigator Jobe again! It'd been a very long time since we'd seen him and we're going back to see him again this week which is great! On a side note, there's a member in our ward who is a very good Osteotherapist (I think that's what it's called haha) and on Saturday morning I had him take a look at my neck because it's given me pain and discomfort for quite some time. If you remember that time when I hurt it at the trampoline place a few years ago I think that's what it was from. But anyway, I don't know if you've ever been treated by an Osteo for anything but there just nice and peacefully stretching your neck out and then all of a sudden *CRACK* they like twist your neck quickly and it pops heaps. It was pretty startling since I'd never had anything like that before and I didn't expect it haha but it feels better already. He's looking at it again on Friday and then will refer me to a member he knows close to our home where I can go after I get back. So that's all I have time for this week, thanks for all that you do! I hope you have a wonderful week this week! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

May 19, 2014

G'day!

 

Thanks for the great e-mail this week! It's always great to hear about how everything is going. I think these last few weeks of e-mailing might be a bit shorter than normal because it seems we are rushing around everywhere to try to do as much as possible before I leave. But anyway, this past week was a pretty good week for us. This past week we were finally able to have a lesson with the Sudanese family we were teaching a little while back, if you remember, and we were able to set a baptismal date with the mom for the 14th of June. So hopefully she continues to progress to that date after I leave. It's a really strange feeling when you set things up for when you know you'll no longer be here! We also were able to start teaching another less-active member family this past week which is always a good opportunity to help bring back the lost sheep. We also were able to have a meal with Mary (the Burmese recent convert from back in November--amazing how long I've been in the area!) this past week which was great! If you don't remember what happened, after her daughter found out and basically dis-owned her as a mother for being baptized because of the difficulty of living there she went to live in Sydney for a few months. The day she moved was like the same day Elder Suan got to Australia, so it was sad at first that he didn't have the chance to meet her and vice versa. But just 3 weeks ago she moved back here to a town close to Mooroolbark and so Elder Suan and her were able to meet for the first time. They were very happy to have the opportunity to meet each other and will likely see each other again in Burma (obviously Elder Suan will be back after his mission but she is planning to move back in like 2 years as well). Sunday was interesting this week. During the passing of the Sacrament towards the end of it one of the older men there (Brother Blair, he and his wife were senior missionaries for the mission for about my first year of being here) started feeling faint and then passed out. So many brethren rushed to his aid and someone called an ambulance and they helped him out of the chapel and the ambulance took him away. Apparently he had a mild heart attack, but now he's doing ok. Everything else is going good as usual, the returning less-active girl, Danielle, was able to meet with Bishop on Sunday as well which was great. Thanks for all your love and support! I hope you have another great week this week. I love you heaps and I'll talk to you soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

May 12, 2014

G'day!

 

Thanks for the e-mail as always! It was great being able to Skype with you yesterday! And happy official Mother's Day for you today! I'm very lucky to have such a wonderful mother. So this week was good and as always we were able to see many blessings. One of the greatest came on Wednesday. So as a Zone we've been doing zone prayers, which is where the whole zone prays for a specific companionship over a period of a couple of days until they have a stand-out miracle. And we were blessed to be the ones being prayed for at the beginning of the week. So they started praying for us on Monday night and on Tuesday it was just a pretty normal day, nothing too out of the ordinary. On Wednesday we saw some pretty cool blessings, one of them being that we met and began teaching someone from Myanmar (Burma) who Elder Suan had actually met once before because she had attended the church there. Her sister is also a member of the church, so that was a miracle for us! So we thought that was the miracle we were going to experience from the prayers, however, as the day turned into night we went over to a family we've been seeing for quite a while, the Viliamu family. I've probably mentioned them before in past e-mails (the dad is a less-active member from Samoa and his wife is Australian and they have 2 kids 18 and 15). So we've taught them over a period of probably 7 months (but we had 2 months where we stopped seeing them because nothing was progressing) and every time we are there the mom always talks for ages (she's a part of another faith) and doesn't really let us teach anything. The reason we keep going though is because the daughter and her boyfriend (20) are very interested in what we share and they really like reading the pamphlets and things. And so we've been wanting an opportunity to just be able to focus on them without any distractions. When we went there on Wednesday and had just sat down the mom told us that her friend's car just broke down and that she had to leave to go help her fix it, and thus for the first time we finally had the opportunity to teach the daughter and her boyfriend an actual lesson. We had a great lesson on the Restoration and the spirit was strong and the boyfriend even said the closing prayer! They accepted the invitation to read the Book of Mormon and expressed a desire to come to church. And just to add onto that miracle literally as soon as the lesson finished the mom walked back in the door. So Heavenly Father prepared the perfect amount of time for us to teach them! Our part member families are still progressing well. This past week as we had a lesson with one family, the non-member fiancé expressed that she wanted to be baptized! So that was awesome to hear, so now all they have to do is get married, which they're already preparing for, and then she can enter into that special covenant. The other family is progressing well too and the non-member fiancé in that family as well has made significant strides. She's been reading the Book of Mormon every day and said that the past Sunday was the first time she'd really felt lifted and inspired more than she has ever before. So it's great to see that she's had experiences with the Spirit. Everything else is going quite well, I just hope we can continue to maintain a high level of miracles and success during the last 3 and 1/2 weeks of my mission so I will always remember being able to finish strong. Thanks for all of your love and support! I hope that you have a wonderful week and I love you heaps! Talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

May 5, 2014

G'day!

 

Thanks for the e-mail! Sorry I'm starting the e-mail later in the day today because we had a service this morning helping one of the members move some things from house to house. So I won't have as much time today as usual because it went longer than expected but that's alright, you will have all the time you need to talk to me in a short time haha. So first off as you mentioned about Skyping, I will probably try to Skype about 2 pm here. We have Stake Conference from 10-12 and then a teaching appointment at 1 pm so 2 pm is what we'll shoot for, possibly plan for a range of anywhere between 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. Australia time though. It will certainly be an interesting Skype this time around and might just consist of "Are you coming to pick me up at the Airport?" "Yep" "Ok talk to you soon" haha. Anyway, we had another good week this week and another great attendance at church. Our part-member families we're teaching are all progressing well and all have marriage plans which is great, they wont be for when I'm still here but that is of course alright. Another cool experience we had this week was we got to have a Zone Conference from Elder Hamula (he's in the first quorum of the 70 and is the Pacific Area President). So that was a great opportunity to listen to him and receive heaps of inspiration from his messages which he directed specifically to our mission's needs. His wife is also actually a fantastic speaker as well. I don't have time to really write any notes on what he said but I did really like a comment he mentioned during his talk (the whole theme was knowing who we really are and having the faith to succeed). It was along the lines of "When we know our heritage (Which house of Israel we're part of from our Patriarchal blessings) their stories then become our stories and become additions to our patriarchal blessings." I thought that was an interesting thought because one thing he said off of that is how some people complain how their blessings are only short while others' are long, but said how when we turn to their stories in the scriptures we have a lot more material that then also applies to us. One last thought before I have to finish is a cool miracle that happened to us the afternoon after this conference. We were tracting on a street and hadn't had too much success but we eventually got to a house where a young guy named Ben answered the door. We gave a little introduction to us and to the message and he said, "Ya I think I have some time, come on in." Rarely do we ever get let in a home straight away so that was already a miracle. We proceeded to share about the Plan of Salvation after finding a big of background about him. He felt really good about what we shared and said how he has always had a belief in God but knows he needs to be doing more in his life to follow him and that this could be the way he could do so. We have another appointment with him next Sunday (actually our appointment at 1 that I mentioned) so hopefully we have a great lesson with him there. Anyway, I'm out of time unfortunately but I'm glad you were able to have a great week as well! I hope you have another good week this week and I love you heaps! Talk to you soon.

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

April 28, 2014

G'day!

Thanks so much as always for the e-mail! Glad everything is well at home. In response to your question, the girl did get baptized the Saturday before Easter, I guess I had forgotten to tell you. Anyway, this past week was a fantastic week for us with many miracles and blessings. Yesterday at church we had all the part member families we are currently teaching attend which was great! They all had a wonderful experience and were fellowshipped really well by the ward. Probably the biggest blessing though was that one of the part-member families met with Bishop after Sacrament and from that Bishop was able to discuss with them about getting married and they decided they would be married through the church! So that was wonderful because that is a big step obviously and it also makes it possible for the non-member mom to be baptized when that point comes. But everyone at church loved it and all are excited to come again on Sunday. Also at church, there was a less-active lady who hadn't been to church for 8 years and just decided to rock up to church this Sunday. She had a great experience though and asked us to come around and visit her and her family! So that was a pretty cool miracle as well. Another good thing that happened this past week was that we were able to set another date for an investigator to be baptized on the 24th of May. It's one of the few Burmese people we are still teaching, but they are one of the most sincere investigators we have taught. It's a whole family but the one with a date at the moment is the mom. She has already been baptized but she is praying to find out if she should be baptized again. We had a great lesson with them on the Restoration and she said everything made sense and she felt that it was true. So we included her in a fast we were doing on Friday so we hope as we see her this week that she will have felt an answer come. Also this past week was Anzac day in Australia and so we had the opportunity to get up early and go to one of the local dawn services. If you aren't familiar with Anzac day it is just like Labor/Memorial Day where they remember all the soldiers in WW1 and WW2 and other wars (ANZAC=Australia New Zealand Army Corps). I'll put in a picture from that. Other than that everything is continuing to go well. There are still some referrals coming through from members relating from the 40-Day Fast which is really good to see. Well I'm nearly out of time at the library so thanks for all that you do for me and I hope you have a great week this week! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

Elder Suan and Elder Hopkins with Australian military personnel on ANZAC Day.

April 21, 2014

G'Day!

Thanks for your e-mail! I loved reading it! Well I'll get right to the most anticipated part of the e-mail, the transfer news! So for the final transfer news of the mission the results are Elder Suan.....staying and Elder Hopkins.........also staying! So as they say in missionary terms--I will be 'dying' in Mooroolbark and Elder Suan will 'kill' me, haha. So we were very excited at that news and I was especially excited to finish in probably my favorite area of the mission, although I have only had 4 to choose from haha. Elder Suan will also be the 3rd compaion that I've spent 3 transfers with. And just to run through some other news that you might find interesting about my missionary companions. Elder Rafferty obviously has finished and is back in England. Elder Hirata is finishing this transfer, even though we were on the same plane over here he was in the MTC longer because he was learning English. Elder Rua is still doing well, he trains new missionaries like every transfer haha. Elder Matu'u has been in the same zone as me the past transfer and finishes 1 transfer after me. Elder Taufa finished in January. Elder Malifa I'm not sure where he's serving right now but is doing well. Elder Gabignaud is in a very country area, which is what he prefers haha. Yesterday we had a Easter Music Fireside for missionaries and their teaching pools and I was able to see Elder Afele again (and of course Elder Wood, but I see him every week at district meeting). So I will include a picture of us 3, which we say was probably our favorite companionship (tripanionship) of our missions, although every one has been very rewarding. Elder Wood has served the first year of his mission within the same missionary district but is now moving areas so he is kind of happy to see another part of the mission now haha. Elder Lau has been in the same area since he left Mooroolbark and will be staying there this transfer as well. So I just thought you might like to hear about how all of my past companions are doing. And also with the Mooroolbark Sisters, very sadly we will be losing one of them, Sister Baker. She has served very well here and she's actually going to Tasmania for her next area which is pretty cool. Sister Burton is staying and will get a new companion tomorrow. I also counted up and surprisingly I have only attended 6 transfer meetings in my whole mission, or in other terms I have attended 35% of the transfer meetings I have been in the mission for, where most missionaries attend a lot more. Since I've only had 4 areas and not too many companions things were pretty stagnant over the mission haha which has been a blessing I think! It's very sad to know there is only 6 weeks left to serve here in Australia and it feels very weird to think about finishing and probably still will for a while after the mission. Anyway, I'll tell you briefly about our week this past week because I don't have much time. It's a public holiday today here and so the libraries are all closed, so we're at an office supplies store borrowing their computers so we don't get as much time to e-mail. Also, transfer-eve p-days always seem busier than normal even if you aren't moving anywhere haha. The highlight of this past week was probably that we've started teaching another ex-part-member family in the ward. What I mean by that is the man used to be a member, but for whatever reason is no longer one, and the woman is not a member. Their names are Conrad and Carla and they are really nice. He's from the Phillipines and she's Aussie. Elder Wood, Elder Afele and I had visited them once almost 6 months ago now but have struggled to have any contact with them since. Bishop tries to keep in good contact with them though and had asked us to try and visit them again. We were on exhanges this past Wednesday and Elder Brown (the missionary I was with) and I went by their house and met Carla and set up a time to come back the next day. So Elder Suan and I visited them on Thursday and started off just getting to know them better and building up a good relationship of trust with them. After a good chat, we shared a message with them we had prepared on how the Gospel blesses our families (they have 2 kids) and especially carries us through hard times and trials. After talking about it and sharing a scripture we watched with them the Mormon Message "Mountains to Climb" (one of my personal favorites). It happened to be the perfect message/video because after that Carla started getting emotional as she said how it brought back vividly (John 14:26--Holy Ghost brings to our remembrance) some memories about how her dad had a lot of trials when she was really young and how she remembered him kneeling by the bed each night with her and praying (which is what one of the men was doing in the Mormon message) and apparently she never really understood why until that moment. She was so overwhelmed that she ended up having to leave the room for a few minutes and we continued just to talk with Conrad about the message. After she came back in we talked a bit more and were able to set up regular teaching appointments with them to go through the missionary lessons, which is great since missionaries haven't been able to do that with them in the past. So that was a big miracle for us this past week. Also, we were able to set up regular teaching appointments with another less-active part member family. So this transfer will I guess have a theme of teaching part member families haha which is fantastic! The rest of the week was good as well and we have been able to find a few new people to go back and teach as well. Elder Suan and I are very excited to work hard for my last 6 weeks and we hope to witness at least one conversion (not necessarily baptism) of someone we're teaching in that time. Thanks as always for you great love and support and I hope you had a great Easter! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

Love,

Elder Hopkins

Elder Hopkins reunites with former companions Elder Wood and Elder Afele.

April 14, 2014

G'day!

 

Thanks heaps for the e-mail this week! That phrase is really repetitive from me but it's true each time I say it! I'm glad everything is going well back home. First off, in completely unrelated gospel or mission work terms I heard from a member this past week that there is a new series of 24 coming out in May. How exciting is that! A proof that serving missions brings blessings. Haha just kidding, but I thought you might like to know that as well. Back to church related news not associated with my mission, I'm not sure if you've heard about the member of the church who is getting drafted into the NBA this year? Once again, all this I heard from several members so hopefully it's all accurate, but essentially there is a member who is going to play for the NBA, and supposedly predicted to be drafted pretty high, and the Church and the NBA have reached an agreement with each other that he will be able to be a proselyting missionary at the same time! So wherever he is drafted is where he will serve a mission. So he will still play in all the games and participate in the practices and road trips, but whenever he isn't doing that he will be out knocking doors and teaching the Gospel. They said his companion will be sitting on the bench with the players in full proselyting clothes and the Church was able to get the NBA to agree that in each game they will get 2 screenshots of the companion on the bench. I thought that was awesome! I'm sure you could find out more information about it since you have access to the 'worldly' web, haha. So anyway, I'm sure you would like to hear about our week as well. Amazing that it's already up to the last week of the transfer! Time is just disappearing more rapidly with each passing week. We had a pretty good week and saw some great miracles. This past week we didn't have as many lessons since we are starting mostly fresh but we were able to start teaching a part-member family who moved into the ward not long ago. It's the son of a less-active member who we visit who's just come back to church and his wife and kids who aren't members (the kids are still under 8 though). They're really nice and we were able to see them twice last week. They have a lot they have to work through at the moment, but we have great hope and faith that they can make the necessary improvements in their lives and hopefully the wife can accept the gospel. Another cool experience this past week was we were tracting and we came across quite an interesting fellow. He just got out of prison not too long ago after being in there for 18 years. His crimes were very serious and was only let out early for good behavior. He doesn't like religion but we talked to him on the doorstep for a little while and eventually were able to give him a pamphlet and promise him some blessings. He didn't ask us to come back or anything but hopefully he reads it and it brings him a bit closer to Christ than he is at the moment. We also had interviews with President Maxwell this past week and those were good as always. It seems like everyone got told about their upcoming transfers or non-transfers except Elder Suan and I, which is quite unfortunate! So we will have to wait patiently to receive the news on Saturday like the other normal folk. Some other great news is that the other girl from the family that was recently baptized is going to be baptized by Elder Suan this Saturday, which will be great. Also, we have someone who has a baptismal date for next month on the 10th which we hope they are able to progress towards that day. The returning less-active member that I mentioned before who is receiving the Priesthood also has a friend from work that he has invited over to his house this coming weekend to meet with us because he was asking him questions about the purpose of life. So that is really exciting since it is very rare (at least here in Melbourne) that missionaries get those opportunities where members bring people to their homes ready to be taught. Conference of course was fantastic as well! I won't list heaps of quotes like I've done in the past because this conference instead of just writing good quotes verbatim to what was said, I tried to focus more on what the Spirit told me personally from the messages that were shared. But of course I had some favorite talks! Elder Holland's was great to start off the conference and set the tone. I enjoyed both of President Uchtdorf's talks. Randall L. Ridd's I thought was fantastic. And I also really thought Elder Oak's in priesthood was very pertinent as well seeing as that topic has been a bit of a problem lately. My personal feelings are that this conference might be President Packar's last, partly because of his health but also because the theme of his talk was the most important things he's learned in his life. Obviously as a missionary you don't quite know the situation of normal life at the moment, but from the overarching theme of this conference it's safe to say that things will become very tough in the near future for members of the church. So many talks were about challenges and trials, but especially about standing firm in the faith no matter what. One last thing I'll share was something cool I learned from this mornings study. Normally I don't e-mail my studies but this one I really liked this morning. It was an analogy that I was able to get out of Alma chapter 51. This chapter is in the midst of the famous war chapters but the part I marked was about contentions within the Nephites. As will all scriptures there are things we can get out of them, with the help of the Spirit, that apply directly to our own lives. The main verses of focus are verses 2-5, 13, and 18. I won't describe them out but let you see what you get out of them. But what I got out of them was a pretty interesting analogy of the process of apostasy from the Gospel and eventually to the point of becoming sons of perdition, or siding with the adversary. It is amazing what small doubts or disagreements can bring about if left unchecked or unresolved. If you are unable to find anything from it you can ask me in about 7 weeks haha. Anyway, everything is well here and Elder Suan sends a big 'thank you' for the contents you included for him in the Easter package, as well as me! I hope you have a great week and I love you heaps! Talk to you soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

April 7, 2014

G'day!

 

Thanks for the e-mail this week! Thanks especially for all the work you did setting up all the classes at BYU, you did a great job I have to say! It seems like a very good schedule and I look forward to going there again in the Fall. Tell Garrett and his new wife congratulations, they seem like they will be very good together. And the other cousins look very grown up! So this past week was fairly ordinary. It was a lot of resting for Elder Suan and his injured ankle but now it feels much better which is good, so this week should be mostly back to normal. This week, because of the resting, we didn't have too many lessons but we still were able to do a bit of teaching. We've made a big change in the area in that we are no longer teaching basically any of the people we've had in our teaching pool. None of the Burmese people that we've been teaching have been keeping commitments or coming to church unfortunately, and so because they weren't showing any desire to seriously investigate we've stopped teaching them for the moment. Hopefully in the future (perhaps when the Book of Mormon is translated into their language, since it's difficult to get a testimony without that) missionaries will be able to have success with them. The good thing though is that they all know about the church now where they didn't before and they have a good perception of the missionaries so it will be easy for Elders or Sisters in the future to contact them again. So we are basically starting fresh (obviously we have some we're teaching already who are English speaking) so we will be doing heaps of finding over the next 2 weeks, and then we'll see what happens at transfers. The 40-Day fast program has officially finished now and it went quite well. A lot of the members were more motivated than normal to do missionary work since they all knew the whole ward was a part of it, and from that there came about some good missionary opportunities. And it hasn't ended completely, in the fact that we will still be visiting all the families about every 2 weeks to follow up on their progress with certain people or ideas their working with. Hopefully one day they can do it in our ward because I found it to be a fantastic program and know it can really lift a ward to new heights. The Easter Fireside was really good last night as well. We didn't have any investigators who were able to attend, but there were a few less-active members who were able to come and they really enjoyed it. There were also 4 baptisms yesterday as well, so the ward is continuing to grow. This week is the quarterly interviews with President Maxwell which is always great to have the opportunity to have some one on one time with him. It's so difficult to believe that there is such little time left on my mission. It's obviously great to know I've been able to accomplish a lot but it will be so hard to leave the mission. I will continue to do my best to make the most of the last of it and so that I can always have great memories of finishing strong. I'm so grateful for all of the support you have given me over the course of my mission. I hope that you have a fantastic week and I love you very much! Talk to you again soon!

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

March 31, 2014

G'day!

 

Thanks so much for the e-mail! Glad all is well. So today's e-mail is going to be really short because I only have about 30 minutes to e-mail. For P-Day today we are going into the city as a Zone and thus have to take an early train, and also the library computers weren't open for a little while so we were unlucky today. But that's alright. So this week was interesting, it was themed the "sick and broken" week. So for a few weeks now Elder Suan has had pain in his ankle and so we went to a doctor to have it looked at and he said it was a torn ligament. So Elder Suan from that day was told to rest his ankle for 2 weeks in order for it to heal, and Sister Maxwell (who is sort of the missionary doctor) said to keep the work level to about 20%. So unfortunately we couldn't do very much this week, but I was able to go on exchanges twice with other missionaries last week so I was able to go out for a little bit. And then on top of that I got really sick as well with just a big head cold, so both of us were out for the count. And on top of THAT the Mooroolbark sister missionaries got really sick as well, so it was just pretty ridiculous how the entire area was basically shut down for a bit of time because all of the missionaries were incapable of working. But we're all starting to heal so hopefully it will be back to normal soon. Elder Suan still has 9 days of rest so it wont be until next week that he can do a whole lot, and that's only if it has fully healed. In other news, this is the last week of the 40 day fast, so hopefully everyone can finish strong. One good thing that happened was that a returning less-active member we've been working with said he was ready to prepare for the Melchizedek Priesthood, so we're excited for him! With the rest of our investigators there aren't any at the moment who are shining forth, partly because they haven't been keeping commitments, but also because we weren't able to see many this week. But hopefully this week turns out a bit better and healthier for us! We have an Easter music fireside coming up this Sunday (similar to the one they had in December, I think I'd mentioned it to you) which will hopefully be a good opportunity for investigators to come. Anyway, my time went very fast because I still have to send the weekly e-mail to President Maxwell as well and we leave soon. Thanks for all your support! Amazing that there is only a few weeks left that I will be writing from across the world. It will certainly be a bitter-sweet experience when the time arises to finish. I hope you have a great week and I'll talk to you again soon! Love you heaps!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

March 24, 2014

G'day!

 

Thanks heaps for the e-mails this week! So many exciting things happening! Thanks especially for the updates on some of my friends, it's great to hear about all of them! So this week was pretty good, not as successful as other weeks have been but still good nonetheless. Something really great that I found out this past week was about one of the families I used to teach. If you remember from my time in Geelong I was teaching the Craig family (Rastafari and Jess) and their daughter Tayah was baptized the last weekend I was in the area. Anyway, this past weekend they were sealed together in the Melbourne Temple! So that was awesome to hear that they've kept progressing strong and were able to participate in such a wonderful ordinance. The 40 day fast program is also continuing to move along well. Heaps of members are starting to have really good experiences and so us and the sisters are keeping busy following up with all of them. The highlight of this past week though was being able to attend the Temple again (not with the Craigs, just as part of the mission Temple cycle). This time was probably the best experience I've had in the Temple thus far, I received a lot of inspiration and guidance. This past week investigator wise was ok. We unfortunately had no one at church this week and we also decided to stop teaching a few investigators for the time being because they weren't keeping their commitments and they were showing no desire to continuing learning. Our finding continues to be very good though as there are always new people that we are able to teach that come along when others stop investigating. Another good thing that happened this week was that we finally got a Gospel Principles teacher. For ages the missionaries would have to teach the class but finally there is a member who is able to teach the class each week (which is how it is supposed to be). Other than those things the past week was pretty ordinary so I can't think of anything to write haha. A good quote that I heard this past week was "Always keep yourself available for the Lord." In other words, always be prepared to help out in a Gospel sense, whether it is going to give someone a blessing, volunteering to help out at service projects, being a 24/7 home or visiting teacher not just a once a month friend, etc. Obviously everyone has things that they need to attend to that keep us all busy but we should never let our priority of serving the Lord fall to 2nd place on the ladder, because that is our most important duty and the one which will have the most long-lasting impact. Anyway, my computer time has run out so I will have to end this quick. I love you! Have a great week and talk to you again soon.

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

March 17, 2014

G'day!

 

Thanks heaps for the long e-mail this week! I enjoyed reading it as always! In response to some of your comments in the e-mail--yes Madsen is getting married soon! Him and I have regular contact so I'd heard about it when it first happened but I didn't think to mention it to you, but I'm glad you saw. They are getting married on May 17th, so you should try and ask him or his ol' folks for the time of the reception, I'm sure he would appreciate that! Also, update with the Burmese DVD, the person that we talked to in the office didn't know of any Burmese DVD so we are going to ask the sister who told us to talk to them so she could possibly help them find it more easily. I'm always happy to hear you get the chance to feed the missionaries! What a blessing it is to have them around more frequently as opposed to never having them for 9 years because there weren't enough of them. So on to our week. It was extremely busy for us as we were blessed this week to teach 32 lessons, which is 12 more than the goal for the mission on a weekly basis per companionship. So the Lord has given us responsibility over a large amount of people here and so we are always on the go. We are still teaching heaps of Burmese but a good portion of them now speak a pretty good amount of English, several of them speak normally, which is great. Our concern at the start was that if we worked hard and got a lot of Burmese investigators that all of the work would stop if Elder Suan left, but that wont be the case luckily. One of the greatest miracles we saw was a testament to Alma 37:6. We had the opportunity 2 weeks ago to speak to a youth group in another church (our investigator was the leader of that group) which had ages from like 3 years old to 15 years old. So one of the things we decided to share with them was to teach them how to sing the hymn 'I Am a Child of God.' They did a pretty good job and we thought that was just a 'small and simple thing' that we did. But when we were talking to our investigator on Saturday, he said that prior Sunday all the youth got up and performed 'I Am a Child of God' in the main meeting of the church for the whole congregation! So we were pretty surprised to hear that! So as the scripture says, small things bring about great things. Perhaps none of those kids will join the church now (obviously some because they are too young) but hopefully they will always remember learning and singing that song and maybe one day they will meet the church again and hear that song and it will spark the memory. We also met a really awesome Burmese guy this week who is really good at speaking English and is very smart and influential for the Burmese people here. He has had some cool experiences in his life and after talking with him for a little while he wants to try to bring all the young people (as in like 20 and under) from his church to attend one of our meetings (that's like over 100 people) because he feels they should learn more about other faiths as well to educate themselves. Whatever his motive for it though that is really exciting! So we have a meeting set up with him for this week and we will talk about it more with him. Also the idea for an interfaith activity is starting to progress as we brought it up in P.E.C. this Sunday and they all like the idea. So we will be working with the Elders Quorum and Relief Society Presidents to organize something to happen in the next few weeks. Hopefully the other church will be happy to participate. Church was very good this week and it was great to have President and Sister Maxwell speak in the Mooroolbark ward. We invited heaps of people this week to come and a lot of them said they would, but unfortunately only 1 came. However, it was the teacher in another church that I talked about a few weeks ago, so it was a great Sunday for him to attend. He really enjoyed the meeting and said anytime he is able to he will continue to come. The 40-Day fast is also going pretty well, this is the week that we start all of the follow-ups with the members so we hope that they have worked hard to keep the commitments that have been given to them. The sister missionaries are also doing really well. They have a family who is working towards being baptized on the 5th of April. Simone and Jack are doing much better as well. Jack is still loving the Gospel and Simone, after working very closely with Bishop for an extended period of time, has overcome a lot of challenges. So we are very glad to see them continue to stay strong. So everything continues to progress well here and we are thankfully staying busy all the time. As always your love and support is wonderful! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon! Have a great week!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

 

 

 Elder Hopkins, Elder Suan, and the youth from another church in Mooroolbark.

March 10, 2014

G'Day!

 

Thanks heaps for the e-mail this week! That's fantastic that the Elders there are working hard and I really like that idea you included that they used for helping members go and fellowship the families, we will definitely try that out here. Also glad to here that everything is ok for BYU this fall! Tell Tanner congratulations on his mission call, he'll love it. How is Ryan going with his mission? Thanks so much especially for getting the line of authority for me. It's really exciting to look at all in our line, especially seeing that there are just 3 people between me and prophets! So obviously we found out transfer news on Saturday and the news is that Elder Suan is staying and that I am also staying! Exciting! So this will be my 4th transfer in Mooroolbark and then I will only have 1 transfer left (scary!) so I might end up 'dying' in my mission here. That would be pretty cool if I did since not many people serve in only 4 areas on their mission. We're both really excited for this transfer because we feel heaps of great things will happen in the next few weeks. We found out something pretty cool this past week that was an answer to our struggle with language and the Gospel. One of the past missionaries from this mission who's living in our ward said that once on her mission she and her companion were teaching a Burmese family and they got from the mission office a DVD that was in Burmese that had testimonies from a lot of the first members there and how the family was really touched by it and felt the Spirit. So we were very happy to hear that and we will hopefully be able to get some from the office soon. That will no doubt be a massive help for our teaching pool and we hope it will be a turning point for several of our investigators in their conversions. Yes we are still teaching Ellen and Jobe, they just haven't been progressing much lately, Ellen because her Pastor told her she is only allowed to be baptized once in her life which caused some doubt and confusion with her, and Jobe just because he's been very busy with work and school. We did see him last week though and he is still reading, which is good, and we plan on inviting him to be baptized this coming week when we see him. We will try and especially encourage all our investigators to attend church this week because President and Sister Maxwell are coming to speak in our ward as part of our 40 Day Fast program. The program is going pretty well so far, all the members have people or activities they've committed to act upon and the follow-up is just starting with them so hopefully the fruits of their labors will start to show. We are still in sort of the same position as last week with a majority of our investigators: we are teaching them once or twice a week, they are reading and praying (if they are able to read English), but they are having a hard time attending church and aren't ready to accept dates for baptism. We had the idea though just last night to try and organize some sort of interfaith activity with the Chin Baptist church and our church. Whether its a big BBQ/picnic or some other activity, it would be a great help for both sides. On our side it would help the members have opportunities to become friends with them and learn more about them and their culture. And on their side it would help them have more English-speaking friends (most of them have none) and they would feel more comfortable with the church. So we will talk to Bishop about it this week and see how he feels about it. This month is also Temple month for us which is always a great experience. But anyway, that is essentially all that is new here at the moment, we are still as busy as ever and hope to continue to keep the momentum up this transfer. Also, on a cool little side note, in Burma they just recently received the first set of young proselyting missionaries and they already are having some good success! So that is great that the church will hopefully start growing more there. I hope you continue to see many blessings at home as well and that you have a great week! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

March 3, 2014

G'day!

 

Thanks for the e-mail this week! Just in response to some things from your e-mail, Sister Burton is better now and they are back to working in the area, which is great, so thanks for your prayers on their behalf. And that's great that you've made some progress on the line of authority, that will definitely be cool to look at when it's ready. And a big thanks to everyone else who sent an e-mail this week! I loved hearing from you all and greatly appreciate your love and support! This past week was really good for us. Our strengths have always been being able to be busy with a lot of teaching appointments and new investigators, but our weakness has been having people commit or accept a day to prepare for baptism. All of them have a sincere desire to find truth and also find out if the church is true, the only problem is that they can't read the Book of Mormon. There are several of the Burmese investigators we have who are capable of reading it and understanding most of what they read, but the majority of them can't read English, which obviously makes it difficult in a quest to find if it's true. However, the ones who do understand English say they feel good and feel the Spirit as they read it, so we hope they will be able to act on those feelings and promptings. But I know that the Spirit can cross all barriers, including language barriers, since Mary was baptized and has been active ever since even though her English wasn't too great. So we hope that we will be able to see some miracles soon with some of our investigators. The Sudanese family we're teaching is going really well though. They were able to come to church for all 3 hours this Sunday and really enjoyed it! They've been fellowshipped by the members very well and they'll be at church again next Sunday. We hope to talk more about baptism with them this coming week. We also had Zone Conference this past week which was great as always. We had visiting and speaking to us Elder and Sister Taylor who are the Pacific Area Mental Health advisors. They talked about how to have good relationships with our companions and other things relating towards maintaining good physical and mental health during our missions, which are things that they don't often cover or talk about. Since the age change and there being younger missionaries in the field, there apparently have been a lot of problems with emotional and mental stress in the missionaries, so Elder and Sister Taylor have been going and speaking to the 18 missions they cover in the area. Also this past week the 40 day fast has started and it has gone average so far. We had 3 of the 6 families signed up first actually fast, so 50% success rate isn't exactly desired, so we hope that the rest of the members make a more concerted effort throughout this week. Well unfortunately the computers this week don't have as much time as usual because they're reserved for some other activity so I will have to make this shorter than normal. But everything is going well and we are loving the work! Hard to believe it's already the last week of the transfer, so we will continue to work hard this week and find out Saturday night if there are any changes. Thanks for all you do and I hope you have a great week this week as well! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you next week!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

February 24, 2014

G'day!

 

As always, I loved the e-mail this week! So many exciting things happening, if you see Ryan again sometime soon tell him congratulations and I'm very excited for him because he will have so many great experiences. That's great that there are so many missionaries out at the moment in our ward and the other wards, there is always a need for more serving! Tell Alyssa happy 10th birthday for me! And thanks for the suggestion about BYU, I will remember that for this Sunday. Hard to believe there is only 2 weeks left in this transfer and after that there are only 2 transfers left on my mission. The time just melts away so fast the closer you get to the end, which is sad, but you just have to continue to work hard and make the most of it! Thanks heaps also for looking up the lineage for me, hopefully they are able to get the correct information without too much difficulty. So each week is a great week in Mooroolbark and the past one was no exception to that. We continue to see many blessings. We did have a few disappointing things this week though, one of them being church attendance. We had 8 people who were confirmed to come to church with members to pick them up but within the last 24 hours before church 6 of them cancelled for various reasons, so we were a bit sad about that especially since the talks were really great in Sacrament. It always seems to be the case that the very best Sacrament meetings for your investigators are the ones when nobody shows up haha. But we hope they will all be there next Sunday. The Pencostal teacher agreed to come check out our church next Sunday as well which will be very interesting to see what he thinks, especially since it's testimony meeting-a.k.a. the scariest sacrament meeting for missionaries hahaha. Ellen wasn't able to come to church either yesterday which means her baptismal date will have to be changed, which is unfortunate but hopefully it won't have to be pushed back very far. We were fasting on Sunday for all the investigators we currently have who are seriously reading and praying about the Book of Mormon at this present time that they can receive and recognize their answers to the truthfulness of it. So we hope this week we will be able to see some fruits from that fast. One really good thing that happened this past week was with the Sudanese family I mentioned last week. The daughter, Monica, was able to go to young women's on Tuesday and had a really great time! All the young women really made her feel welcome and a part of the group and Monica is excited to continue to be involved in the Young Women's program, so we look forward to continuing to see their family progress. Also on Tuesday we had a really great experience with the weekly splits with the ward. We were trying to contact some people on the ward list who we didn't know and most of them had moved house. However, we met one man named Adam who was at the correct address. He is an awesome guy! We talked with him for about 30 minutes and found out he's been less-active in the church for about 15 years but still remembers a lot about it. He said even though he wasn't attending church he was still praying and reading the scriptures. After talking he said he was happy for us to start visiting him on a fairly regular basis and that he felt sometime in the near future he would be ready to come back to church again. So that was a pretty good miracle for us this past week! Another cool thing this past weekend was that on Saturday it was the Chin (a state from Burma--Elder Suan and all the Burmese people we are teaching are from the Chin state) National Day. So all the Chin people from Australia came down to celebrate the anniversary of the national day, and it just happened to be a few minutes from where we live! So it was perfect timing for Elder Suan to be here. We got permission to go to the national day festival and were able to meet a lot of people, so it was a great opportunity. So everything is continuing to progress here which is good, and we are excited for the 40-Day Fast which starts tomorrow which we know will keep us very busy and bring heaps of miracles to the area and ward. Thanks for you support and love and e-mails! They always help a lot! I hope you have a great week this week and I'll talk to you again soon! Love you heaps!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

February 17, 2014

G'day!

 

Thanks for the e-mail! Glad that everything is going well for you. In answer to your e-mail, that was me with the BYU password thing but I figured it out and now I'm just waiting for President Maxwell to do his part of it. Thanks for letting me know about the classes, that seems so early to sign up! But I will think of what to take, and be sure to mention about my desire to study film and what classes will help with that. Thanks heaps! Oh and also a suggestion for looking at classes and deciding which to choose, use the website ratemyprofessor.com (or net?) which gives reviews of each professor in different aspects. I used that before in choosing my teachers for each class and it made a huge difference! Also, I had a quick request, I meant to send it several weeks ago but I keep forgetting about it. I was wondering if you could send a list of my line of authority because I don't have one with me and I thought it would be something good to have. And this past week I did get your package, thank you so much! I still have to send thank you cards to everyone else from back in Christmas time, I've written most of them but my attention span stopped there with them haha so I just need to go buy stamps and send them off. Anyway, this past week was so good! We saw so many miracles and were very blessed. One miracle was with our investigator Ellen. She already has a baptismal date for March 1st but we talked about it with her more this week and her desire continues to increase to be baptized then. She said she understands she would have to devote herself to the Gospel because she knows it is true and not still be tied up with everything in her other church. The only potential obstacle now is just since she is 17 we have to get parent's permission, but we have faith that the Lord will bless us to be able to get that. So we are excited to see her progress to being baptized. Also, another huge miracle with Jobe came this past week as well. Kind of in two parts--the first part being on Friday. We hadn't seen him since church and we called him up to set up a time to see him either that day or the next day. While we were talking to him he said, "So is someone coming to pick me up again for church on Sunday? I will be waiting." So that was awesome to hear that he was excited to come to church again, because often we have to remind and prod investigators several times to come to church haha. Anyway, part 2 of the miracle came on Sunday when we were in our Sunday School class. We were talking to Jobe and he told us basically how in the past week he had received a testimony of the Book of Mormon and knew it was the word of God. He said how when he reads the Bible he always gains knowledge and said he feels it gives him more power, but when he's been reading from the Book of Mormon the Spirit comes in very strong and touches him deep in his heart, more powerful than he's had before. So that was awesome! And it gets even more miraculous because he told us after our church he was going to go to his other church that he's been going to and tell all of them about the Book of Mormon and that they should read it and come to church! So he is a legend and it's amazing to see the conversion he is already experiencing. So next Sunday at church we are going to give him heaps of copies of the Book of Mormon to give out to people. We also had a similar experience after church in a lesson with the teacher in a Pentecostal church. After we shared with him the Plan of Salvation it got him thinking a lot, especially about the 3 kingdoms of glory and he said that during the week (we meet with him each Sunday) he would study about it more and pray to receive confirmation about it. He told us that after he knew that it was in fact true and from God that he would then teach it to his class at his church. So we hope and pray that both he and Jobe are successful in their efforts and that we see a big surge of conversions to the Gospel here. We are continuing to be extremely busy, which is good, and are almost to the point where we can't see everyone in one week. So the Lord is blessing us so generously at the moment, and we just hope we can continue to work hard enough to deserve the blessings. This past week we also had 2 exchanges which are always good. On one of the exchanges, Elder Snyder (the other missionary) and I were thinking of what we could do between 10 and 11 a.m., which is always a difficult time to work in something effective. Elder Suan and I had received a referral the day before from a member who had met a Sudanese family who had just moved into the area. So Elder Snyder and I decided to try and contact them. We managed to see them at their house and set up a time to have a lesson with them that afternoon at the member's home who met them. So we ended up having the lesson and it went really well! The member family was really great at testifying and showing love to this family. They were really keen to come check out the church here since they were looking for a local church to go to anyway, and one of the daughters (age 14) was also interested in coming to Young Women activities as well. So that was another great miracle for this past week. On Tuesday nights we had splits with the ward as usual and had some really good visits as well. You might or might not remember me mentioning it at the beginning of my transfer with Elder Lau, but there was a less-active member from Zimbabwe that we met who was going on holiday for quite a few weeks and who asked us to visit him when we got back. So we finally got to see him again with a member who knows him well (who happens to be a councillor in the bishopric) and he really wants to work back into the Gospel and have lessons in the future. His wife is not a member of the church so he was very keen to bring his family to like some activities or even have her go to some Relief Society activities where she can meet some great people in a casual environment. So we look forward to working with him further throughout the coming weeks. Well I think that is unfortunately all the time I have to write today, but hopefully it's enough to read haha. Everything is going great and Elder Suan is getting accustomed well! As always thanks for your love and support which helps immensely. Just another small request, I just remembered, one of the sisters in the ward, Sister Burton, is extremely ill and has been for 2 weeks now, so if you could include her health in a few prayers I'm sure it will be a big help as well. Well I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon! Have a great week!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

February 10, 2014

G'day!

 

Thanks for the e-mail this week! And also a big thanks to everyone else who has sent little notes the past 2 or so weeks, they make my day! I'm grateful for all the support throughout my mission that has helped make it the incredible experience it has been. This past week was really good as most weeks are. Elder Suan and I have unofficially become the Burmese speaking missionaries for the Mooroolbark ward haha. The sister missionaries are teaching most of the English speaking families and investigators right now because 1) a lot of them are females, and they have a bit of an advantage on us with connecting and relating to them and 2) we are luckily extremely busy already with all the investigators and Burmese that we are teaching that we don't have time to teach all the others too. Mooroolbark has been such a great experience for me because basically ever since I got here and was serving with Elder Afele and Elder Wood, we've been having anywhere between 15 and 24 lessons every week so we've been blessed to be very busy. And since with Elder Suan being a new, language-learning missionary that's 2 extra hours of study every morning which makes our schedules even more packed. It's been good with Elder Suan because he's a great teacher and is able to help the Burmese people understand more by frequently explaining to them things in their own language, but of course I'm not just a fly on the wall but still am teaching just as I normally would. As I said before the Burmese people are mostly Baptist and it's very difficult for them to change even if they know the church is true because if they do the entire Burmese community, including their own family, shuns them. Which if you remember is what happened with Mary and her family, but she is so strong so she stayed true to what she knew. So most of them that we teach understand and accept what we teach, but the progress towards conversion and baptism could be a longer one than normal because it's a hard decision to choose to be on your own, which is unfortunate that that is how it is. There's one investigator we're teaching though who's name is Jobe (Joe-bee) who seems very interested in the gospel. He was at church yesterday for the first time and really enjoyed it and the members were very good at introducing themselves and making him feel welcome. What helps him to be much closer towards conversion and baptism is that he isn't regularly attending a Baptist church (some other church) and he doesn't live with parents who he relies on for financial support. So if he were to join, he wouldn't have to go through as much difficulties of being 'on his own.' And of course in saying all of these things I'm in no way saying anything bad about the Baptist church specifically or the Burmese people, it's just a part of their culture that they stick to the family's way or they stick to their own way. So because of Jobe's situation at the moment we feel he could be prepared for baptism very soon. The biggest difference maker for our investigators and for any investigators I think is when they make the effort to come to church on a consistent basis so they have the opportunity to feel the Spirit and see the restored gospel in action, so Jobe and several others have already made that step and because of that they are the ones who start progressing more and have more of a desire to learn. Also, at church, the Sacrament program was an introduction to the 40-Day fast program starting on the 25th of February as a way of informing all the members about it and helping them to be excited for it. So the first speaker was one of the sister missionaries, Sister Baker, and she talked about what the program was and what the members' responsibility was. I was the second speaker and talked about fasting, what it is and the blessing that we receive from it. And then Bishop Beckwith spoke last about the law of the harvest and about aligning our will with the Lord's will. It all turned out really well and all the members are very enthusiastic and optimistic about the program and in just the first day of signing up families we've covered 24 of the days (with a lot of them having 2 families on a day), so everyone is very willing to be involved. We know it will bring so many miracles and strengthen the ward and it's members. So everything is continuing to progress in Mooroolbark and it's only the 3rd week of the transfer, so we know the rest of it will be very busy for us! I hope you have a wonderful week this week and continue to see many miracles of your own! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

February 3, 2014

G'Day!

 

Thanks heaps for the e-mail this week! Sorry I'm e-mailing later than usual this week, we've been busy with so many things. So anyway it's been an interesting week! Tuesday morning I woke up and just started throwing up heaps! Great way to start the week and the e-mail. I felt so sick the whole day and the following day wasn't much better. So I missed transfer meeting and I also missed the meeting where we are assigned with our new missionaries, which I was sad about, but I needed to recover unfortunately. However, I'm all better now which is good! Elder Lau went to an area called Morrabin. My new companion is the man! My whole e-mail could be written about him haha. So his name is Elder Suan and he is the perfect missionary for this area because he is from Burma! So he's an answer to prayers for sure and will have a great impact on the people here since there are so many Burmese people. All the members were so excited to meet him on Sunday and Bishop Beckwith was especially excited since they all know about the Burmese people in Mooroolbark as well. So Elder Suan converted to the church 3 years ago from the Baptist church and is currently 21 years old. There are 5 brothers and 1 sister and his parents, but only he and 4 other brothers are members. His brother (who's currently a branch president there) is the one who invited him to church and he later met with some senior missionaries. There are no proselyting missionaries aloud in Burma so those are the only missionaries that can go there. He is a part of the only branch in all of Burma which has between 30-40 active members, and he is only about the 12th missionary from Burma to ever serve and the first ever in this mission! So it's a massive honor and responsibility to be serving with him. I've never felt so overwhelmed with responsibility to a companion before since I am obviously showing him the basics of being a missionary, teaching him English (which is pretty good but still has a lot of improvment room), and teaching him a lot about the Gospel as well because he still doesn't know too much about it but the most important thing is that he knows it's the true church. His life goal is to be able to translate the Book of Mormon, and many other church materials, into Burmese since they don't have it in their language yet. So he is awesome and has a really bright future. He's very hard-working and already very good at talking to people and teaching the Gospel. It's been a big blessing thus far because most of the Burmese people we've been teaching here speak limited English but he's able to talk to them in their own language and thus answer their questions better and teach them more powerfully. On his first full proselyting day in the mission field he gave away 4 copies of the Book of Mormon to Burmese families so he's doing great! We know there will be heaps of miracles this transfer as he helps the Burmese people come to a greater knowledge of the truth of the restored Gospel. Our investigators that we have are continuing to progress well and Ellen was able to come to church for the first time this week and stayed for all 3 hours! So that was awesome to see and she really loved it and is excited to come again. We are starting the 40 day fast 2 Sundays from now which will bring many more miracles as well! So exciting things are happening in Mooroolbark as always. Well since I started later I also have to finish sooner, but hopefully this is enough for this week. I love the work and everything is going great! Thanks for all that you've done for me and continue to do for me on my mission. I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

January 27, 2014

G'day!

 

Thanks for the e-mail this week, I loved reading it! So many exciting things happening! If you do end up planning to do the 40-Day fast program, who knows, I might be home for some of it haha. Probably not though, seeing as it's still just over 4 months to go. So anyway, the big news of the week is obviously as you said transfers! So Elder Lau......will be going......and Elder Hopkins...............will be staying! So I'm very excited to stay because this is probably the best ward that I've been blessed to be in on my mission. Elder Lau was sad to leave so soon because he really enjoyed it as well. But I'm sure he will have a great new area and new companion. Also, I will be training a new missionary again! So that's exciting as well. This will be the 3rd time for me so hopefully I can apply everything I've learned from the first 2 experiences from training into this one to help the new missionary have a great first experience in the field and learn a lot. So the transfer meeting is tomorrow (Tuesday) as usual but the new missionaries don't arrive until Wednesday, at least that's how it's always been in the past, so I'll let you know next week all about my new companion! Both the sister missionaries in the ward are staying as well which is good, they've been doing a great job since they've been here in the area. We will probably be the youngest district in the mission because every companionship this next transfer will have a missionary in training except one (who only just finished training this transfer), which adds up to 5 new missionaries! But that will be great because new missionaries always come out with such fire and enthusiasm and there are always many miracles when a new missionary is in the area. P-Day is quite busy today due to transfers tomorrow so I will briefly summarize our week for you. We were able to teach several lessons this week which is good as always, however, most of the lessons were unplanned. We had heaps of set up appointments to go to but nearly all of them fell through which was too bad but the Lord opened other doors as he always does and we had some good opportunities to teach some new investigators. One of the best experiences this week was one of our Burmese investigators, Ellen, had accepted a baptismal date for March 1st on Tuesday. That's always a great miracle but when you first set baptismal dates you still wonder how serious they are about actually going through with it. However when we saw her again later in the week we reviewed the Restoration of the gospel again using a cool analogy with cup-stacking. Afterwards we watched the video about Wilford Woodruff's conversion called 'The Great Apostasy' which is really good about why the Restoration was needed and why we need to be in the right church, but is also quite straightforward. After the video finished we asked her how she felt and she said that she really wants to get baptized (again) into the church because she knows it's true! So that was such an awesome experience and so we're excited to help her reach that date for baptism now that she definitely is sure about it. The only possible concern that might come up is just with her family's allowance of the baptism seeing as the family is all Baptist (because of Burmese culture, and not because of conversion, which is the case with most Burmese we meet), but we know the Lord will provide the way. Another one of our Burmese investigators, Zaza, has already finished reading the Book of Mormon! So she, and her sister Julie, are progressing really well and they feel really good about all we teach and when they are at church (they've been 3 times so far). Their concern is also with what their family will think, so our goal is just to help them have heaps of fellowship and good friends in the church so if they do join and their family doesn't approve they won't feel on their own but they'll have plenty of support. This past week we also had interviews with President Maxwell, which is always a great opportunity, and those went really well. He's a great mission president and has a lot of love for the missionaries of this mission. I was able to talk to him about the BYU application thing and so that should be done soon as well after I finish it myself. Another miracle we had this week was with one of the less-active members we visit. His name is Joel and for the past 10 years or so he's had a pretty rough go at life. You wouldn't guess it from his looks but he's a really nice and humble guy though even through all his trials. So we've slowly been helping him get back into the small things of the gospel, such as praying and reading, over the past few weeks. And he says that he feels a lot better with it. As well as that he doesn't have the best influences around him but he's said since we've been visiting him those bad influences are slowly just disappearing, which is pretty cool! And so this past week we had a really good and spiritual lesson with him and he accepted the invitation to meet with Bishop Beckwith! So that's a huge step for him and we know that Bishop will help him out heaps and be able to relieve him of a lot of pain and guilt he feels as he begins to change in his life. So everything has been going really well here in Mooroolbark and I'm excited for another transfer here! It still is really hard to imagine that there's only 3 transfers left, and it probably won't sink in for a while! Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful week and that the Lord continues to bless you heaps as well! I love you and I'll talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

January 20, 2014

G'day!

 

Thanks for the e-mail! This past week was an awesome week! We set a record for lessons taught in Mooroolbark at 24 this week, which kept us very busy! It was good as well to be able to be in lessons in people's homes most of this week because it was the hottest week in Victoria history (or at least for a really long time). There were 4 consecutive days of 41 plus degrees and one day was up to 47 (which in Fahrenheit is 116!!), so by the end of the week Elder Lau and I were cooked medium-well. But the Lord always blesses us in the face of opposition, even if the opposition is the weather, and so we were blessed to have heaps of lessons and find many new people to teach. You mentioned Shannon and Van, so update on them is Shannon doesn't feel ready yet but is still attending church each week, and we have stopped teaching Van because his family didn't like us coming around. But on the bright side there is a new investigator from Burma as well who said he would work towards baptism in the end of February. We continue to find heaps of people from Burma to teach, and one miracle of sorts this past week was that we found out that at this next transfer there will be a missionary from Burma coming to the mission! So the leaders and Bishop have already contacted President Maxwell about the missionary coming to Mooroolbark haha so we hope that he does because he would be a huge help in converting many people to the Gospel and crossing the language barrier. We also had a pretty cool little miracle that happened as a result of diligence last Monday. So we went to see Wendy again with the sister missionaries in Croydon because they both spoke Chinese (Elder Lau's is rusty since his 1st language is Cantonese) and when we were there Wendy was there with a friend from the ward who was also a female. Obviously we can't go into a house without an additional male there so we said that the sisters would stay and we would go somewhere else to work. However, Wendy said to come in (she not being familiar with the missionary rules and having cooked us some food) and even the member said to just come in since it wasn't like we would do anything wrong. But we stayed firm and said we couldn't come in and so we went to try and find something else to do. As it turned out, we went to try to see a new contact we had talked to over 3 weeks ago who we couldn't contact and they happened to be home!  We were able to teach them a good lesson and they seem really keen to learn. So even though it was something small it was a good testimony to us of the importance of being diligent to all rules (or commandments) even if the situation seems harmless and likely wont cause any problems, because we wouldn't have seen our contact if we had stayed for a lesson with Wendy. We also introduced a new idea to the ward this past Sunday to help with the missionary work in the area. It was suggested by one of the sister missionaries and it's called a '40 day fast.' It's where the ward picks a day to start (we did it so the 40 days end the day before testimony meeting) and then member families are assigned (or sign up) each of the 40 days to fast together for missionary opportunities or names of people to teach and then when they think of the name or find the person to set a time for them to come into their home with the missionaries. Also, on the day a family is assigned to fast, at the end of the fast they will make time to have the missionaries into their home (either briefly or have them for dinner) so they can discuss with them how the fast went and if they had seen anything come of it yet. Obviously not everyone will have something happen on the day so it could be a few days or a week later that the missionaries have to come again for a follow-up visit. But it seems like a really exciting program. As well, to help the members remember their commitment and day, they will each be given a paper saying what day they are fasting and what time the missionaries can come (or something like that). We are starting it in the Mooroolbark ward on February 16th I believe, and ending on April 5th. I thought I would describe that program in more detail since Dad you're on the bishopric and perhaps you could talk to them about that as well for the Dimple Dell ward since the church around the world is focusing on the missionary efforts. But we're very excited for that nonetheless and know it will bring about some great miracles and strengthen the ward. Simone is still going alright, still working with the word of wisdom so she might be baptized a couple of weeks from now. Hopefully I will still be in the Mooroolbark area for that! Transfer news is given to us this coming Saturday but obviously the Lord's will trumps our own, but we have our quarterly interviews with President Maxwell this Wednesday so maybe I can slip in a few words about staying. Haha just kidding, whatever the Lord decides will be right. It still is so crazy to think after this week I'll only have 3 transfers left on the mission! It goes so quickly so I'll be sure to make the most of my time remaining. Anyway, my time is up for today but as always I'm grateful for all you do and your wonderful examples! Thanks for praying for the missionaries there too, I know prayers make all the difference! I hope I get heaps of opportunities to help them out after I'm back. Well have a wonderful week! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins

January 13, 2014

G'day!

 

Thanks as always for a wonderful e-mail this week! I loved reading it and it sounds like you are having as many 'miracles' as me! I did have a very good birthday this past week and the cake was good as always! So thanks for that! Elder Lau bought me some dinner from a restaurant called 'Nando's' which was really good (it's like grilled chicken with some spicy sauce that's delicious!). So this week will have to be a quicker e-mail again because we have Zone P-Day that we have to be at soon and the library was very busy so we weren't able to use the computers as early as we normally do. This past week was another really good one though. One cool miracle that we saw came while we started going through the area book and tried contacting all of the former investigators that missionaries had taught over the past several years. As we did that, about 6 hours of it over 3 days, we were blessed to have really good responses by most of the people and have 18 people that invited us to come back this week. So that was really good for us and we have gone through maybe half of the former investigators so we hope the 2nd half will be just as fruitful and receptive. We also were able to teach about 17 lessons this week which was great. Jack will be receiving the Aaronic Priesthood next Sunday which is exciting and he asked me to ordain him which will be an honor. It will be the first time I've ordained someone to the Priesthood, so it will be a memorable experience for both of us. Simone also said she is still preparing to be baptized as well, so we hope in the next week or 2 she will be ready for that. Another cool miracle happened at church. If you remember, I think I mentioned last week or 2 weeks ago (I might not have) about a less-active Chinese lady and her daughter that we went and visited and invited to come back to church. Well this Sunday she (Wendy) showed up to church! It'd been a long time since she'd been to church but there were heaps of the members of the ward that remembered her and made her feel really welcome, which was great! And her daughter seems quite interested in the church as well. So there are heaps of good things happening in the ward and in the area! The ward members are continuing to 'catch the wave' of missionary work as well and more and more people are stepping out of their comfort zone and finding people to share the Gospel with, which is bringing about heaps of miracles for them as well. Anyway, as I mentioned before, this week is a shorter one, for which I apologize, but I'm grateful for all the love and support! I hope that you have a fantastic week and continue to receive blessings in all aspects of your lives! I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!

 

Love,

 

Elder Hopkins