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