Sunday, May 4, 2014

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

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