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
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