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