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